Curley astounded by commitment of players

WHEN someone like Galway hurling selector Damien Curley says he is astounded by the dedication of the players, you know that it is not a PR spin. It’s a fact.

An All-Ireland club winning player with Kiltormer in 1992 and GMIT’s Gaelic Games Development Officer since 1997, Curley is no stranger to working with players at the height of their game.

However, since joining Anthony Cunningham’s backroom staff alongside Eugene Cloonan last November, Curley says he is gobsmacked by the work ethos of inter-county players. “It is eye-opening; there is no doubt about that,” begins the Kiltormer man.

“It is very hard to be critical of players or anybody when you sit back and look at the amount of work that they actually do in the course of a given week. It is absolutely phenomenal. I don’t think the ordinary, general public realises the work that goes in.

“I have been outside it myself and it is very easy to be critical when you don’t see the inner workings of the whole thing. But, by God, you understand fairly quickly the work they go through when you see it.”

With each player in the panel putting in a Trojan effort, be they on the starting fifteen or not, it must be difficult to keep everyone content. “In some ways, the fact we went from the Walsh Cup to the League with the Railway Cup thrown in, it gave us an opportunity to try some of the other players.

“As far as possible, we have tried to give everyone some bit of game time. Obviously, it is more difficult for us as the year progresses, but there haven’t been that many rumblings of discontent to be honest.

“We have a policy of playing a second match midweek. We had a good work-out against Offaly a couple of weeks ago and we had a good work-out against the U-21s and that gave a bit of game time to lads who mightn’t have been getting game time at the weekend,” he explains.

Full interview in  this week’s connacht Tribune