Galway held off a late Mayo fightback for a thrilling win away to their great rivals in the Connacht quarter-final at MacHale Park.
The Tribesmen raced out of the blocks away from home and built up a 1-4 to 0-2 lead after just 10 minutes but Mayo fought back to level midway through the first half.
The early goal came when Damien Comer picked out Johnny Heaney with a fisted pass across goal and the Killannin clubman side-footed the ball home.
But Mayo did not panic and took the game to Galway with some strong running. Cillian O’Connor kicked two more frees after good turnovers before their first point from play came when Eoghan McLaughlin went forward and pointed after 20 minutes.
Galway wing-forward Finnian O Laoi picked up a black card for pulling down O’Connor after another turnover and Mayo outscored the Tribesmen by 0-4 to 0-2 while they had the extra man.
Diarmuid O’Connor, a late replacement for Kevin Mcloughlin, edged Mayo in front for the first time after 23 minutes with a very good point from the left before Walsh ended a 16-minute barren spell for Galway when he slotted a free after he himself was fouled.
O’Donoghue landed two in a row for Mayo before Paul Conroy hit back for Galway but Mayo levelled with a point from James Carr after Jason Doherty had a goal chance blocked down.
Carr got a second point two minutes after the restart but this was cancelled at the other when wing-back Kieran Molloy went forward to score.
Mayo lost full-back Oisin Mullin to a hamstring injury and Galway pushed on to score the next five points, three of them from Walsh. He landed two 45s and also pointed a free, while sub Cillian McDaid made an instant impact when he came on to score.
Then Conroy burst through for his second point to lead by 1-12 to 0-10 after 57 minutes.
O’Connor got Mayo’s first score in 22 minutes when he landed a good free from 45 metres on the left but the next two scores came from Galway with Comer running from deep after good work by Jack Glynn and Conroy supplied the finish, before Heaney finished another good move to extend the lead to six points with two minutes of regular time left.
Mayo finally got moving as Lee Keegan, Ryan O’Donoghue, Kevin McLoughlin and a couple of frees from Cillian O’Connor hit points to cut the gap to the minimum.
But Mayo were unable to get level in five minutes of injury-time with sub Aiden Orme wide with an ambitious effort from the left in the final play of the game.
Galway did enough to hold out with Liam Silke, Jack Glynn and Kieran Molloy outstanding in a defence which smothered the Mayo attack and forced them into shooting eleven wides as they again face the difficult task of regrouping for the qualifiers.
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