An All-Ireland semi-final and no Dublin or Kerry left. The sense of opportunity was already huge but Armagh’s heroics yesterday ramped things up another level.
The journey of both Galway and Donegal has been an against the odds story all season. Pádraic Joyce’s ability to keep his troops on the road while sustaining more casualties than a war movie has been the managerial performance of the year until we look to Jimmy McGuinness and his surpassing even the most optimistic predictions of his second coming.
If a Russian athlete improved as much in this Olympic year as the Donegal team has, there would be questions asked. No such questions in Donegal.
The drug is McGuinness, and in terms of performance enhancers, it appears unmatched. But whose journey is ending this weekend with Sam so tantalisingly close?
Match-ups
McGuinness will be confident that in Brendan McCole and Eoghán Bán Gallagher he has the perfect foils for the key Galway talismen of Shane Walsh and Damian Comer. The potential of Eoghán Bán on Shane Walsh has the added benefit of not just putting tabs on a dangerman but presenting an attacking advantage.
Eoghán Bán spent more time in the Louth full-forward line than all Donegal’s front six outside of Oisin Gallen and there would be few things Walsh would like to do less than chase Gallagher up the pitch.
On the flip side, Donegal are one of those teams that don’t have an out and out star forward. Once upon a time, Paddy McBrearty was such a player, but the 2024 version to date is a player past his lethal best. If anyone is going to earn a few extra minutes in the video meeting, it’s Oisin Gallen but like the other Donegal forwards, Galway will hope Gallen’s natural marker – Sean Fitzgerald, will be up to the task without a major rearranging of the deck chairs.
Rather than a classic talisman, Donegal are an attacking unit and in many ways are harder to shut down as a result. Take for example their half-backs who will cause Joyce more worry than perhaps any of their forwards.
Ryan McHugh and Peadar Mogan’s productivity and energy impacts every facet of the Donegal game plan. I’m not sure Joyce will look to directly match these men with appropriate ‘taggers’. He has named a giant half-forward line of Matthew Tierney, Cillian McDade and John Maher.
Both lines are exceptionally important for their respective teams. Galway in giving them their middle third ball-winning ability, and Donegal in pretty much making them tick. Both, as named offer potential mismatches.
in a game of bluff between two friends, who between McGuinness and Joyce will blink first and alter a key line in their team?
Kick-outs
It’s easy to foresee McGuinness in his Donegal planning bunker circling Conor Gleeson’s name in big red pen.
He has had a few high-profile mishaps and as any goalie will tell you, it doesn’t matter if, as Joyce informed us after, that Galway hardly ever concede off short kick-outs, the mistake is remembered and targeted from there on.
McGuinness would usually want to go hard after this but how mindful will he be of Galway’s size threat on the half-forward line? In the first half of their quarter-final Donegal were caught slightly open from several long Louth kickouts. The response in the second half was to drop off and focus on winning the ball back in defence.
I feel this is his more likely choice. Galway will kick long and at every opportunity try to force Shaun Patton to do the same. The one risk is that Donegal have a tried and tested punch on tactic from their long kick-out that has got them goals on many occasions and with a major so potentially decisive, Galway will have to stay mindful of this threat.
Attacking Shape
The two attacking shapes will likely remain as they have been. Galway try to maintain a distinct shape and bet on creating strong one-on-one opportunities. Donegal on the other hand are shape shifters, moving in and out of groups, especially centrally or pulling in deep.
Doing so moves an opposition about creating gaps which are exploited by slick one-twos or third man runs – something they are lethal at. In terms of creating better shooting opportunities Donegal have been more successful. Galway have taken more long-range shots than Donegal and while shooting over a blanket is seen as an effective tactic they are lower percentage shots.
Injuries
No analysis of this game can occur without a look at the Galway injury issue. As mentioned earlier, it is what makes their season so remarkable, but esposing those banged up Galway limbs is something McGuinness will be targeting.
How, you might ask, can you target a hamstring injury like Shane Walsh’s or for that matter the ongoing niggles of Sean Kelly, Damien Comer or Rob Finnerty. Simple. Run them. A lot. Hamstring injuries do not like fatigue. That resilience, to sprint, stop, run, on an endless loop for eighty odd minutes of a championship game is so hard to get post-injury.
I would imagine whatever Donegal player ends up beside them in a phase of play, the directive will be the same – run.
Joyce’s key decision becomes does he look start or finish with them? Yesterday’s decisive bench impact for Armagh has been a running theme of the summer. The decision to start with the best they have or aim to finish with it will weigh heavily on both managements but particularly in Galway.
If they have truly a strong panel from the pressures faced in the national league then trusting them to start and holding a few of his main men till the end is surely a gamble Joyce must consider.
Toss-Up
Put it all together and what do you get? We can hope for another high-octane game like yesterday but on everything we have seen, that seems unlikely.
What we know is that for both teams’ today’s semi-final is a historic opportunity, the type of game that is remembered long after players hang up the boots. We know in the match-ups and respective shapes there are subtle differences with the threats and opportunities in almost perfect balance. Maybe for now that’s enough.
At the end of the day, we thought we knew 2024 was all about Kerry and Dublin!
The seventy minutes today will tell their own tale, the story is yet to be written, its heroes to be decided. Whether it’s a tactical chess match or not, the size of opportunity for both teams makes it unmissable drama.
Watch Donegal v Galway in the the All-Ireland Football Championship semi-final at 4pm on Sunday on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
