Galway United 0

Drogheda United 1

ONE would have to hope that the end of the beginning does not mark the beginning of the end, as the concession of an injury-time goal saw Galway United open the new season on a losing note.

All the pre-season chatter around the league was about how United were likely to struggle, given the incredible level of turnover at the club in the off-season. Even United manager, John Caulfield, warned that goals could be difficult to find, so games against the likes of Drogheda – especially home games – are ones you need to be winning.

In fairness to the Tribesmen, they did deserve at least a draw from this fairly dour clash, but this is football, not snowboarding or figure skating at the Winter Olympics: there are no marks for artistic merit, with points on the board being the only currency in town.

The visitors had just two efforts on target across the entire 90 minutes. The first in the 73rd minute, a weak header from substitute Warren Davis that was straight at Evan Watts in the United goal. The second came in the 90th minute, and it proved decisive.

A long throw on the left from Conor Kane was flicked on by Andrew Quinn, falling at the feet of Leo Burney. He backed in to Conor McCormack, shielding possession and drawing the covering defence, which opened an ocean of space for him to lay the ball into the path of Jago Godden, and the debutant smashed a shot past Watts for the winner.

It was the cruellest of blows to a United side that had earlier hit the woodwork, seen a shot cleared off the line, and also saw a second-half penalty fired wide, leaving the majority of the crowd of 3,027 – disappointing considering that the visitors travelled in decent numbers, and the figure for last season’s first home game was more than 4,200 against St Patrick’s Athletic – to go home disappointed.

As you’d expect with a squad featuring 12 new signings, and having lost almost its entire defensive line from 2025, there were a number of new faces on show for the home side.

John Caulfield handed debuts to four of his new signings, and all in defence – Arthur Parker, Wasiri Williams, Lee Devitt, and Gianfranco Facchinieri – with five more pre-season additions named on the bench, two of whom, Kris Twardek and Mattie Wolfe, also went on to make their first appearances in a United shirt.

The high turnover wasn’t exclusive to the home side, with Drogheda handing debuts to five players from the start. In fact, such was the number of changes with both sides in the off-season that the official league app, FAI Connect, did not even have the names of nine of the 40 players from the two squads listed in the line-ups when the match-day squads were announced, with the letters ’N/A’ appearing beside their squad numbers.

Some of the old guard were there as well: the club had announced during the week that Stephen Walsh was ruled out through injury, so we all knew he was guaranteed to start, and sure enough, there he was leading the line up front along with the returning Francely Lomboto.

Pictured: Galway United’s Aaron Bolger breaking away from Thomas Oluwa of Drogheda United during Friday’s Premier Division tie at Eamonn Decay Park. Photo: Joe O’Shaughnessy.