At the final whistle Paul Conroy was rooted to the spot. There was nothing left in his legs for buckin’ and leppin’. His adrenaline gland had clocked out. No overtime. A Donegal player had collapsed to the ground alongside him and Conroy waited until he looked up and was fit to shake his hand. Then he took a couple of stiff steps, like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, gasping for a drop of oil.
The last Donegal attack had died in Conroy’s arms. A speculative punt dropped 20 metres from the Galway goal and when the ball broke Conroy seized on it. That was his 30th play. Metrics are bound to benchmarks. When Brian Fenton bestrode the All-Ireland final last year, he made 31 plays. Conroy is 35, wearing 8. Those numbers usually have nothing in common.
There were two moments late in the game that expressed his guile and his guts. Galway led by a point and needed another. There were just three minutes left and it had reached that part of the game where the ball circulates for longer in fretful attacks until somebody decides that another safe pass is tantamount to cowardice.
Conroy had attempted four shots with his left foot in this year’s championship and missed with them all. Undaunted, he tried again. With the last curl it hit the upright.
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Three minutes later Galway attacked again, still leading by a point, still vulnerable. Conroy accepted the ball 25 metres out and with two purposeful strides he attracted three Donegal defenders. They couldn’t assume that this move was a fake and that Conroy wouldn’t shoot. At the last moment he played a pass to Liam Silke to kick the last point. Conroy had given him the ball and space when they needed to be delivered as a package.
The Donegal centrefield enjoyed a good day and Michael Langan kicked four terrific points, but Conroy was Galway’s hinge. His influence is an aggregate of smart passes and ceaseless availability. In his possession the ball doesn’t drop in value. Not one of his passes failed to reach its target.
By the end of the game he had scored 1-1 and been involved in three other scores. His goal, midway through the first half, was a fluke. Conroy’s kick for a point dropped short and as Matthew Tierney scorched across the square the Donegal keeper was momentarily frozen. Tierney’s swinging arm failed to make contact and the ball carried through to the wicket keeper with Shaun Patton stumped. The fourth goal of Conroy’s intercounty career was the most important by a distance.
Conroy’s longevity and resilience have been extraordinary. It is 17 years since he captained the Galway minors to win the All-Ireland and just a year later he made his senior debut, pitched in against Kerry in the 2008 All-Ireland quarter-final, the youngest man on the field.
When they met Kerry in the Super 8s in Croke Park 10 years later he suffered an horrific injury. On a wet day he slid in for a loose ball and collided with Sean O’Shea. In the sickening collision Conroy suffered a double break to his left leg and a hairline fracture to his right.
A steel rod was inserted into his leg and he couldn’t return to his day-job as a teacher until the following January. After another six months of rehab he made the Galway bench for a qualifier game against Mayo, but essentially that season had been a write-off. By the time he came back he was 30 years of age and had missed 18 months of intercounty football.
After all that lost time, after such a grinding recovery, how good could he be? Maybe better than ever.
Sunday was Conroy’s 65th championship appearance, 10 more than Shane Walsh, 19 more than Damien Comer, more than twice as many as Sean Kelly. From that cabinet of senior ministers Conroy was the only one on the pitch at the final whistle yesterday.
Kelly, Galway’s inspirational captain, wasn’t fit to start. In his absence around the middle third the burden on Conroy was greater. Walsh did some fine things and some useful things without being explosive or especially productive. When he was taken off an hour into the game he had kicked just one point. By then he was spent.
Comer lasted a little longer but achieved even less. He was on the ball just nine times and was turned over three times. His only shot at goal went so high that the umpire was deceived and Hawk Eye intervened.
Comer and Walsh are clearly not fully fit, Sean Kelly has been haunted by injury all year. Cillian McDaid couldn’t repeat his tour de force from the Dublin game and he looked exhausted leaving the field too. Galway needed Conroy to keep going and keep showing and keep pushing.
Conroy’s two-year-old son Paídí was handed to him shortly after the final whistle and for a while Croke Park was his playground. At one stage Paídí made a burst for the 45m line and Conroy was forced into one last defensive manoeuvre. Banjaxed.
Brilliant.
