Pádraic Joyce and Dessie Farrell shake hands following Saturday evening's All-Ireland SFC Quarter-Final at Croke Park. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
By Cian O'Connell
Dublin manager Dessie Farrell praised Galway's dynamic second half display at Croke Park on Saturday evening.
Padraic Joyce's team trailed by four points at the break, but thundered back into the match after the restart.
“We haven’t had the chance to review it yet, but stating the obvious, that second half performance wasn’t good enough,” Farrell reflected.
“Great credit to Galway. We knew they’d come at us hard in that second half and throw the kitchen sink at it and we just found it hard to come up with the answers they posed. Ultimately, we came up short.
“We knew Galway would bring greater intensity and we’d have to deal with that. They played very well and denied us time and space.
"We struggled to break it down, which we had been good at over the recent games against that type of opposition, but we found it hard to get shots off under that kind of pressure. Hats off to Galway. They were far superior in that second half.”
Farrell acknowledged the rich contribution made by some of Dublin's more experienced performers throughout the last couple of decades. “It’s a different generation of players now," Farrell says.
"I’m sure there’s some of them in there who will be considering their future. It might be the last time that we see them play for Dublin.
“They’ve been brilliant warriors. They died with their boots on today. But there is another generation of players in there who have the hunger and desire to want to continue and go on to wear the Dublin jersey with pride and honour. I’m sure they will do that.”
