A minute of glory and resilience in timeless Galway showpiece sums up magic of county finals

Salthill-Knocknacarra would not be a club accustomed to being the neutral’s choice in Galway football circles. But that is the role which they found themselves in on Sunday afternoon, as the clock ticked down on a county final that had meandered its way through the first 20 minutes before exploding into life. It wasn’t a game of the highest quality, but a Galway showpiece had never seen 60 seconds of football like the minute that decided this one.

The game was level as we moved into injury-time, with Salthill on the attack. Colm Finnerty received a pass directly in front of the posts and inside the small arc, only to drop the ball and then touch it on the ground, in the sort of moment that can decide county finals and haunt a fellah for life. Your instant reaction is to pray it’s not fatal.

In the blink of an eye, Peter Cooke received the ball inside the Salthill 45, wandered back outside it to evade a block, and then launched a sublime two-pointer to seemingly seal the win for Moycullen. He had done this to Salthill before, with a decisive goal four minutes from time in the 2022 final.

In the moments after Cooke looked to have won it last Sunday, Salthill had to face down their own crushing disappointment, but also the weight of recent history. They were a team that had got used to narrow defeats and it looked like they would soon have another one to add to the collection.

The kickout was an age in coming, a full 45 seconds after the Cooke point. John Maher had run for a short one first, and expressed frustration at not getting it out in front of him inside his own 45. Rather than moan, he instead reset himself to catch a longer delivery, and up he soared.

I’ve said that Salthill were the neutral’s favourite on Sunday. There would be a couple of factors playing into that, and one of the primary ones would be John Maher. To say that he’s a fan favourite in Galway would be a gross understatement. His work rate and application means he’s universally admired, which for a tough, abrasive midfielder for a major city club in an otherwise fairly rural senior grade, is quite the feat.

Finian Hanley was similarly admired as a Galway player, and he was another reason why the Salthill team he manages would have been favoured by neutrals. His team was in his image, with their community at the centre of it, with a panel of players almost exclusively from the city. It was Moycullen who had three players from outside Galway on the starting 15, with another two on the bench; Moycullen who had the “League of Nations” feel, something not lost on the watching public in Galway.

Maher caught that long kick-out in midfield, rather than the short restart that he had looked for first, which meant he was immediately able to lift his head to find Mattie Thompson with a 40-yard kick-pass. All of a sudden, they were in.

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Thompson did what he had done all day – which is to say, the right thing at the right time. He had kicked two magnificent, soaring points into the breeze, and had probed and driven at Moycullen time and time again. It was a tour-de-force, displaying just what Galway had missed this summer, and with half a minute left of the county final he had the ball inside the Moycullen 45, able to pick the pass and set the stage.

Tomo Culhane was abroad all summer and had come home with a knock picked up playing in New York, but he was still annoyed not to start, and it showed. He was introduced after 24 minutes and kicked five points in three minutes to give his team a 06-04 lead at half-time, having played with a significant breeze.

He was quieter in the second half, but when the chance came, 59 seconds after Cooke’s two-pointer up the other end, his unerring left-footed finish found the net. He’s a right-footed player, but just as it had done against Dublin in the last minute of the 2024 All-Ireland quarter-final, his left was accurate enough.

He had missed two late frees in the final last year to force a replay against Moycullen, but as much as county finals are about the team grabbing their one shot at glory, they’re also about the resilience to keep coming back and to keep putting yourself into position to win the next one, even if getting there leaves you open to more heartbreak.

County finals can also sometimes be about a moment of glory for your honest club plodder, but they are much more often about your big players stepping up. Edendork’s win on Friday night in the Tyrone final, with a two-point free from Niall Morgan, came about because of Conn Kilpatrick’s insane desire to get on a broken ball, and the skill to execute a chip-lift at full speed with no margin for error. And they only got a replay because of Darren McCurry’s injury-time two-point brilliance last week.

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Whether it was Niall O’Donnell and Ciarán Moore’s points in injury time to win the Donegal final for St Eunan’s, or Ciarán Downey’s sensational late winner for Newtown Blues in the Louth final, these games are usually decided by the big guns. And last Sunday, Salthill-Knocknacarra had just about enough of them.