A sporting season riddled with some highs and lows

Inside Track with John McIntyre

WHAT was the sporting year of 2015 like for you? On a personal level, there were some highs and lows, while the same could be said in a Galway context. Here are some events I will look back fondly on and others which I’d prefer to forget.

Among the positives were the emergence of Cathal Mannion and Jason Flynn as hurling forwards of the highest quality, with Conor Whelan also taking up that mantle later in the season. If Mannion had maintained his blistering scoring bursts in the Leinster and All-Ireland finals, the Ahascragh/Fohenagh clubman would have been a serious contender for Player of the Year.

Remember, it was Mannion’s early three-goal burst which had ignited Galway’s season in the Leinster championship replay against Dublin, while he was also a constant torment to Tipperary in the All-Ireland semi-final. Mannion covers ground much quicker than his languid style suggests and his form will be critical to the county team’s fortunes next year.

The somewhat more experienced Flynn landed many quality scores during the course of the championship, including an early second-half goal against Kilkenny in the Leinster decider, but none will top his wonder point at Croke Park last September when he brilliantly trapped Colm Callanan’s puck out under the Hogan Stand before rifling the sliotar through the Kilkenny posts.

Like Mannion, Flynn subsequently cut a fatigued figure in the local county championships, but the Tommy Larkins player was one of the unlucky ones not to have won an All Star this year. Whelan, only a minor in 2014, was thrown in at the deep end against Cork in Thurles, but he bagged a goal near the finish in that rout of the Rebels and his confidence soared to such an extent that he was the only Galway forward to really carry the fight to Kilkenny in the second-half of the All-Ireland final.

Flynn, Mannion and Whelan took some of the scoring pressure off Joe Canning during the championship, with their individual and collective fortunes set to have a major influence on Galway’s fate in 2016. And in spite of all the controversy over the heave against Anthony Cunningham, one expects the hurlers to be very competitive next year, especially if their young attacking guns are firing on all cylinders.

On the local hurling front, Sarsfields player/manager Cathal Murray mightn’t have thought it, but there was nothing in their formbook until the quarter-final against Pearses which suggested they had the scope and quality to claim the club’s first county title since 1997. They did come from nowhere but subsequently taking out champions Gort showed their achievement was no fluke. Sarsfields wouldn’t have won the replay without Joseph Cooney, but the team is back in the big time now and looking at some of their talented reserves in Pearse Stadium, they will hardly be one year hit wonders either.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.