Substitute Matthew Fitzpatrick rounded off the move of the game with a sweet, flicked goal eight minutes from time as the St Marys bench made a massive impact.
“It was an amazing second half,” said Tally.
“The boys showed not only good spirit and heart, but they played a lot of good football there to bring themselves back. They were controlled and tagged it back point by point. They were full value for their victory.”
NUI Galway were full value for their 1.6 to 0.5 interval lead after a blistering finish to the first half saw them kick an unanswered 1.3 from the 28th minute.
Critically, though, Westmeath’s Ray Connellan missed two very easy frees in the 31st and 34th minutes which would have put two goals between the sides. Tally said they were crucial.
“I think we were five behind at one stage, and Galway kicked two free kicks wide to put us out of the game, and that just kept us in the match, to be honest with you,” he said.
“We’ll take on DCU next week. But we’ll have to improve an awful lot. We knew Galway would make it extremely difficult for us today. Hopefully, we’ll learn and take the lessons from today’s game and take it into the next day.”
St Mary’s quarter-final clash with DCU will take place on Wednesday, 11th February at 2:30pm in St Genevieve’s (Trench House).