By Michael Fennelly

In the first 18 minutes of last Saturday’s drawn All-Ireland semi-final with Clare, Galway showed everyone why they are favourites to win back to back All-Irelands this year.

Clare couldn’t get their hands on the ball much less engineer a scoring opportunity, and it was pretty much men against boys as Galway swept into a 1-7 to 0-1 lead.

Galway’s work-ethic from numbers two to 15 was awesome. They hassled and hounded the Clare players and didn’t give the ma second on the ball.

Before the match I had suggested Clare might use a sweeper, and they had little choice other than to adopt that tactic after such a slow start in order to get a foot-hold in the game.

Colm Galvin was the man entrusted with the job and moved back right as far as his own ’14 yard line to mop up the flood of ball that was coming in to the Galway inside forwards.

At the same time Tony Kelly found himself back around the Clare half-back line helping out and trying to pick off a score from distance to inspire his team-mates, which he eventually did superbly.

Now that they finally had a foot-hold in the game thanks largely to the growing influence of Galvin and Kelly, Clare began to chip away at the Galway lead by scoring some badly needed points.

It still felt as if they were in survival mode because Galway were still in control, but hitting some poor wides.

But Clare kept plugging away and eventually Peter Duggan began to catch some puck-outs and put Aidan Harte on the back-foot and Kelly’s influence continued to grow.

Still, limited ball was seen by John Conlan as the Galway defence did a good smothering job and Clare were reliant on the free-taking of Duggan to keep them in the game.

Galway led by 1-10 to 0-9 at half-time and Clare had yet to really get going, but I had faith they would having seen how they performed in the second-half against Tipperary in the Munster Championship.

John Conlan got two beauties after half-time which really gave them a surge of momentum, and the match was really in the melting-pot.

I still felt that Galway were finding scores that bit easier to come by, but the injury suffered by Gearoid McInerney was a big blow.

Joe Canning was also forced off in extra-time, and the absence of two such pivotal figures for Galway was definitely a big help to Clare and was one of the main reasons the match finished a draw.

Sean Loftus performed well after coming on for McInerney, and it looks like the 21-year-old will be thrown in from the start for this Sunday’s replay because the word is that McInerney’s calf injury won’t have healed in time.

Joe’s prospects of playing look much more positive, but a heavy impact on the knee or quad can limit your performance if you have to play again just a week later.

Clare will take great confidence from last week’s performance but they need to stop making silly mistakes if they want to finish the job in the replay.

The goal Conor Cooney scored should never have happened and there were a few other occasions of sloppiness in the full-back line.

I’d expect Galvin to take up that sweeper role again but would like him to push up whenever he can as there were quite a few instances during the drawn match that Clare had two players free in their back-line and could afford to release him further forward.

That’s a correction they need to make, because life will become very difficult for the Clare forwards if they find themselves outnumbered and isolated against men in maroon.

The big question for Galway is how will they react to potentially losing McInerney to injury and having their forward talisman Canning not operating at 100 per cent?

Injuries could have a big bearing on this match for the Tribesmen, but I do think they have the depth on the bench to cope with the likes of Conor Cooney, Niall Burke, and Jason Flynn.

As an aside, I couldn’t figure out why the match umpires last Saturday were getting such a hard time.

Judging the flight of a fast-moving sliotar 30-feet in the sky that’s above the goal-posts is a really difficult task.

Some commentators were wondering why they call Hawkeye so often for assistance, but, lo and behold, in last Saturday’s match Hawkeye proved the judgement of those commentators wrong.

Thank God for Hawkeye, I say, and if it needs to be used multiple times in matches then Happy Days.

Umpires could also get help from Linesmen and the referee at times during matches because they can have a better view of the shot, but with Hawkeye you’re guaranteed there’s no longer any human error.