Galway manager Padraic Joyce admitted his side had "robbed" Sligo with their dramatic smash-and-grab win from a last-minute Rob Finnerty goal at Markievicz Park in Saturday's Connacht semi-final.
Finnerty broke Yeats County hearts when he palmed home in injury time to give Galway their only lead of the game right at the death and, ultimately, a two-point win, 1-13 to 0-14.
"We’re just relieved to get out of that," Joyce told RTÉ Sport’s Cathal Mullaney after the game. "Very relieved to win the game, we didn’t perform anywhere near our levels.
"Sligo were very unfortunate not to see the game out, we’ve probably robbed them in the end, to be honest. It was the 73rd minute before we got ahead in the game. We know we were lucky to win the game."
Joyce suggested the Saturday afternoon throw-in time may have played a part in Galway’s subdued performance, but the All-Ireland winner warned his side that they have a fortnight to shape up before the provincial final, or they could be in for a long day.
"We can find some excuse somewhere, obviously a match at half-three in the afternoon on a Saturday is not ideal to try get motivated for but there’s always some excuse," Joyce offered.
"But that performance is not near good enough and if we perform like that in two weeks' time, we’ll have a job keeping the ball kicked out.
"The big positive is that, even though everything was going against it and we weren’t really clicking as a team, we kept at it and kept at it and eventually got the break at the end. We didn’t give up. The lads stuck at it, I have to give them full marks for that.
"That’s the only thing I can take out of it. There’s three or four lads who had brilliant performances but other than that, it was a disappointing enough day for us, now.
The returning Damien Comer came in off the bench to help make Finnerty’s late winner while Kilmacud Crokes’ man Shane Walsh started but found the going tough against a busy Sligo rearguard.
"It's good to have the two lads back, but they’re a long way off match fitness – or championship fitness, as we know," Joyce said, "Damien was instrumental there at the end for the turnover [leading to the goal].
"It’s good to get more time into Shane. He’s only back on the pitch a couple of weeks, so we’ve two weeks now to knuckle down and get a bit of work done and see where we are in two weeks’ time.
"We’ll have to target every area after today. There was nothing that really stood out. We’ve a lot of work to do."
Sligo manager Tony McEntee was full of praise for his shattered side after their late defeat.
"They're of course disappointed but they will be for a short while and then they’ll reflect on this and they’ll realise that they were so good today, so good," the Armagh man said.
"Not just so good for a short while, they were so good for 70 minutes.
"They very much did not deserve to lose that match. Unfortunately, we made one mistake at the end and Galway capitalised on it. That’s the breaks.
"We turned around from a 14-point hiding last year to a game we could have won today."
