{"id":17584,"date":"2026-01-31T20:34:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T20:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=17584"},"modified":"2026-01-31T20:34:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T20:34:33","slug":"gaa-national-leagues-derry-end-barren-spell-and-down-win-but-armagh-fall-to-galway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=17584","title":{"rendered":"GAA National Leagues: Derry end barren spell and Down win but Armagh fall to Galway"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rob Finnerty&#8217;s free at the death snatched a one-point win for Galway over Armagh to make up for their opening loss to Mayo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Armagh racked up an impressive 1-27 scoreline on the opening weekend last time out against Monaghan, and they made a quick start again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ross McQuillan, Conor Turbitt, Fergal O&#8217;Brien and Oisin Conaty all pointed to give Kieran McGeeney&#8217;s side an early lead, but Fionn McDonagh split the posts at the other end and Kieran Molloy followed up with a goal to put the visitors in front.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">McQuillan scored another while Oisin O&#8217;Neill kicked over either side of a Finnian O Laoi point for Galway to keep Armagh in the lead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ciaran Mulhern was black carded for the Tribesmen and Armagh took full advantage, working up a 0-10 to 1-3 lead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Then the momentum shifted. Finnerty attempted a two-pointer for an Armagh breach, and his kick ended up in the net.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fionn McDonagh&#8217;s attempt to flick the ball seemingly did enough to put Orchard goalkeeper Blaine Hughes off and the ball went in through his legs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kieran McGeeney&#8217;s side trailed 2-5 to 0-10 at the break but wrestled back the initiative at the start of the second period scoring four points unanswered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The script flipped once more with Galway then rattling off four scores in succession. Shane Walsh marked his return with a point to open a 2-10 to 0-14 advantage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jarly Og Burns fisted over in response for Armagh and O&#8217;Neill&#8217;s free from outside the arc &#8211; the only two-pointer of the game &#8211; gave the Orchard County the lead coming down the stretch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tiernan Kelly and Jason Duffy tagged on points, but the Tribe replied once again as Matthew Tierney blasted to the net to put Galway back in front.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">O&#8217;Neill brought Armagh back level, but Finnerty&#8217;s last-gasp free &#8211; brought forward 50 metres &#8211; stole the victory for the away side after a ding-dong battle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/articles\/c4g5444n49do?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rob Finnerty&#8217;s free at t&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[251],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17584"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}