Galway midfielder Paul Conroy.
**By Cian O'Connell **
This is Paul Conroy's 10th season operating at senior inter-county level for Galway. During the decade Galway have endured tough defeats and enjoyed sweet successes too.
The 2016 Connacht Championship triumph, achieved following wins over Mayo and Roscommon, was particularly encouraging.
In the intervening 12 months promotion has been secured to Division One of the Allianz Football League.
St James' clubman Conroy believes that Galway are progressing nicely. "Yeah, definitely, overall as a team I think we are far ahead of where we were last year," Conroy states.
"I suppose if you look at the League last year you could say we were unlucky not to get promoted, but at the same time we had three draws in the middle of the League. Games that you'd be expecting to win, so this year we only lost one of the League games, away to Meath.
"We were very unlucky that day, we were ahead with a couple of minutes to go. We have definitely made progress, you can see that throughout the team. It is important we focus on Roscommon."
Dealing with the heavy burden of expectancy has proven problematic for Galway previously, but Conroy feels the current crop can deal with that issue better now, especially following the All Ireland Quarter-Final defeat to Tipperary.
"It is something in the past we probably haven't dealt with the favourites tag as well as other teams would have, particularly going back to Tipperary last year," Conroy admits.
"I think we just need to forget about who is favourites or who isn't favourites by just focusing on our own performance, to try to work on what we do best and try to focus on eliminating Roscommon's strengths. Hopefully that will be enough to bring us through on the day."
A Connacht winner with Galway in 2008, Conroy reckons a significant distance must still be travelled.
"There is no point sugar coating it, we still lost to Tipperary last year by eight points," Conroy remarks.
"Until we prove differently, it’s great beating Mayo for the second year running. But until we prove differently you can’t really say that we are competing with the big boys yet.
"Obviously Division 1 is next year and that will look after itself next year. In the meantime we need to try to retain a Connacht title and win two in a row if we can."
