Ciarán Murphy: All week I’ve had a firm belief about Galway’s chances of All-Ireland glory but a trip to Crossmaglen provided an unsettling doubt or two
All week I’ve had a firm faith about Galway’s chances of All-Ireland glory but a trip to Crossmaglen provided an unsettling doubt or twoGalway's Tomo Culhane and Johnny Heaney with Armagh's Oisín O'Neill. The sides meet again on football's biggest day at Croke Park on Sunday. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho
But a Zen calm had settled over me. I felt like Galway would be made to work hard for victory, but that victory would nevertheless be forthcoming. Nothing I had read or heard swayed me from this opinion. I needed to be awoken from this contented, self-satisfied frame of mind. I needed to have my eyes opened. I needed, in short, a trip to Crossmaglen.
That final was played in the Athletic Grounds in Armagh, and after the game I wanted to go back to the town. I put it into Google maps, and was given 4 routes, none of which seemed to be on anything approaching a national primary road. Yesterday, notwithstanding the summer rain that swept in intermittently, the old market town was en fête. When we arrived around midday, there was a ‘hats, flags and headbands’ vendor on three of the four corners of the square, all doing a roaring trade. Later in the day there was a queue snaking all the way along one side of the square into Shortt’s sports shop.
I was asked what it was like in Galway. For Crossmaglen in Armagh, read Tuam in Galway – a town just big enough for all the football-mad lunatics of the surrounding area to congregate in. The talk is of tickets , and information on injuries . Most importantly, having looked back at the three championship games between these teams beginning with the 2022 All-Ireland quarter-final, Galway have been the better team for 75% or more of those games.
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