Dublin captain Sinead Aherne admitted that her side made hard work of the All-Ireland semi-final in the second-half despite earning a seven-point victory.
Dublin led 3-05 to 0-03 at the break but Galway mounted a comeback in the second-half. Olivia Divilly hit the net with nine minutes remaining, a couple of frees followed and the gap was back to six.
However it was too little too late for Galway and the defending champions marched on.
"We didn't use the ball particularly well," Aherne told RTÉ Sport.
"Galway are obviously a really good side. We were expecting them to get a purple patch and they really put it up to us in the second-half.
"It's the first time Galway have gotten to this stage in a few years and we probably just got a good run at them at the start.
"It was difficult for them to get back but they really came into it in the second- half and put it up to us. Thankfully we manged to hold out."
Aherne has now scored 4-24 in the championship to date. She finished the game against Galway with a tally of 2-04 but all of her scores came in the first-half.
"We probably missed a couple at the end but it was a good first half for us. We just needed to come out and build on that in the second half and, fortunately, we put a few scores over early on but after that, there's obviously a few things for us to work on.
"We knew Galway had a lot of scoring threats so defence was key for us. We knew if had chances at the other end and we had to take them so thankfully when we made goal chances we took them."
Cork defeated Donegal in the first semi-final of the day at Dr Hyde Park to book their place in the All-Ireland final against Dublin however Aherne didn't get to see the earlier game.
"Cork are an excellent team and we'll have plenty of work to do. The final is where everyone wants to be at the start of the season. We're delighted to be back there again and really looking forward to it."
‘This is a better Tyrone team than last year’ – Pat Spillane is impressed by Mickey Harte's team, while @SeanCavanagh14 is impressed by their character #SundayGame pic.twitter.com/S6wKPoi4nX
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) August 5, 2018
