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Damien Comer is ready for action

Galway captain Damien Comer pictured at the Connacht Championship launch.

Galway captain Damien Comer pictured at the Connacht Championship launch.

By Cian O'Connell

Regardless of what happened it was always going to be a valuable spring in the Allianz Football League for a developing Galway team.

Damien Comer inherited the captaincy of a young maroon outfit, who exceeded expectations by winning six and drawing one of their group games before narrowly losing the decider against Dublin.

That Galway challenged and competed at that level for the first time since 2011 injected confidence ahead of another revealing Connacht Championship encounter with Mayo at Elverys MacHale Park.

The progression of Sean Andy O'Ceallaigh, Sean Kelly, and Peter Cooke from last year's Under 21 outfit and Ciaran Duggan's emergence ensures the depth of the Galway panel has increased.

"Yeah definitely, it's going to be really important this year coming into the Super 8s because with the vast number of games, you're going to need a massive panel," Comer says.

"And I think it's important that through the League when the panel was changing around that we had that bit of comfort, we were well settled in the League, and even reaching the League final with two games to spare, it afforded the management to change around the team.

"The lads that came in, the quality didn't drop or anything, so I think it's a credit to the panel that is there. I think it's important, even for the lads coming in off the bench all year, they've seen us through games, popping off scores.

"And it's probably what stood to Dublin in the last few years, in semis and in finals, the bench that they've brought on scoring three, four or five points per game and that's what has killed oppositions."

Damien Comer during the 2017 Connacht SFC clash against Mayo at Pearse Stadium.

Damien Comer during the 2017 Connacht SFC clash against Mayo at Pearse Stadium.

Galway's counter attacking play was a real feature of the League with Kevin Walsh's charges repeatedly breaking well at speed.

"Yeah, I suppose that's the thing, when you get numbers back you've got to make sure you're able to get numbers forward in attack," Comer states.

"At the end of the day, you have put the ball over the bar to win games, it doesn't matter how tight your defence is.

"Look, it's something that we obviously want to target. We've got good forwards and we need to try to get the best out of them going forward, that'll be the aim. So it's important to have that going forward."

Having defeated Mayo, who subsequently recovered to reach All Ireland finals in 2016 and 2017, Galway want to deliver once more according to Comer,.

"Yeah, I suppose it's weird to have a big game so early in the year but the biggest thing is that it's a long road for whoever loses it," Comer admits.

"That's probably in the back of our minds. Mayo have been through that long journey for the past two years, so they'll be eagerly anticipating that they don't go through that again,

"But it's going to be a big one for both teams, obviously. Having come out on top the last two years, Mayo are going to be coming hungry, but we'll just have to be ready for what they bring and hopefully we'll come out on top for a third time."