You don’t often hear GAA players open up with pure honesty like this.
It’s hard to see what else went wrong for Galway in the Connacht final though.
Coming off the back of winning the whole thing last year, after clinching the Division Two title, beating Mayo again and even winning an FBD title along the way, no-one but nobody foresaw a loss for the Tribesmen in the provincial decider against Roscommon and, as Sean Armstrong would tell you, that’s hard to just ignore.
Of course you’ll give the opposition all the respect they deserve. Of course the right things will be said in training and in the media and everyone will be trying everything to make sure that none of the players are getting carried away with themselves or looking ahead but it’s only human nature to do the maths and listen to the talk and rationalise somewhere in your subconscious that it’s going to be alright.
That the work is already done.
Galway won’t have to learn that lesson again. The Rossies hit them for six with a series of sucker punches in Salthill itself but the backlash on Saturday was perfect as Kevin Walsh’s men – inspired by six points off the boot of Sean Armstrong – took their vengeance out on poor Donegal who were stung by a flurry of hungry Galway assaults that eventually suffocated them.
On The GAA Hour, Armstrong gave a brilliant interview full of honesty and frankness and admitted that they weren’t expecting the Round 4 clash to be as easy in the end. Who did?
But it’s the favourites tag that Galway have been struggling with.
“When you’re underdogs, you have nothing to lose because there’s no real added pressure,” Armstrong explained.
“It’s something we’ve definitely talked about for the last couple of weeks after the Roscommon game – going into it, maybe it was just complacency.
“Even though we’re afraid to admit it from time to time, if we’re honest with each other, I think it was just complacency.
“In the lead up to it, it was something that was mentioned over and over again, not to be complacent. But I suppose our mindset wasn’t as it should’ve been against Roscommon and, unfortunately, we paid the price for that.
“It’s that battle in an athlete’s mind – when you’re going out and thinking, ‘Jeez, we should win this, everyone has us written down as winning this,’ there’s extra added pressure on that and maybe we just froze a little bit as well with the occasion.
“We definitely gave Roscommon all the respect they deserved, I just feel the mindset wasn’t what it should’ve been going into the Connacht final.”
Listen to the full interview below from 13:20.
