Joe Brolly Sums Up Why Galway Were Doomed To Fail In This Year's Championship

On the back of a disappointing championship campaign, there will be quite a bit of soul-searching done in Galway over the coming weeks and months.

Winning a fourth consecutive Connacht title was certainly a historic achievement, but the manner in which Padraic Joyce's side underperformed in the All-Ireland series will lead to plenty of questions out west.

Galway stuttered through the round robin, labouring to a third-placed finish that was helped by facing an understrength Armagh side in their final fixture. An uninspiring win over Down would follow, before their year came to an end when they lost to an underdog Meath team at the quarter-final stage.

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It remains to be seen where Galway go from here, with both senior players and the management team likely to be considering their inter-county futures at the moment. Improvements will certainly be needed in 2026, although some are unsure of the county's ability to make the necessary adjustments.

Writing in the Irish Independent, Joe Brolly gave a damning summary of where he felt this Galway team are currently at as a result of failing to adapt to the recent rule changes in Gaelic football.

Galway are the new Mayo, unsatisfying, and failing regularly enough on the big days to demonstrate that they do not have the stuff...

From a very early stage, I realised that almost every county player still playing has had to learn a brand new way and this cultural transformation is taking time. Things that we did automatically now have to be practised.

One of Galway’s problems was that they are still trapped in the old game. Defensive, conservative, risk averse, moving the ball forward slowly via the hand, afraid to lose possession.

Galway certainly have the footballers to thrive in this more expansive game, although keeping the likes of Shane Walsh and Damien Comer free from injury has been an issue in recent times.

It remains to be seen how they will tackle these problems moving forward.