Drastic action required to get hurlers out of a big hole

Date Published: 04-Apr-2012

ANYBODY who genuinely cares about Galway hurling will be hurting this week. The new team management and the players are understandably in the line of fire after last Sunday’s humiliating 25 point trouncing by Kilkenny at Nowlan Park, but they are undoubtedly the most traumatised and upset of all. It was a harrowing, shameful day by any standards and, unfortunately, they are going to have to endure the consequences of it.

The 3-25 to 0-10 hammering represents Galway’s worst capitulation of modern times, but I have no truck for the theories flying around the county that the players were spiritless and have no pride. That lazy commentary does a huge disservice to Fergal Moore and his team-mates who had travelled to Nowlan Park with the best of intentions and to try and regain some momentum after their unexpected loss to Waterford the previous weekend.

Ultimately, however, Galway were wiped out by a superior force whose unrelenting intensity typified Kilkenny when they have a point to prove. They had lost narrowly to Cork seven days earlier, conceded six goals to Dublin the game before that, but the time had come to stop the sloppiness. With the superb TJ Reid leading an attacking masterclass, the Cats simply played ducks and drakes – if you excuse the mixed metaphors – with a Tribesmen rearguard which was taken apart.

Having served as Galway manager for three years and experiencing a couple of heavy defeats in 2011, I have some appreciation of the pain the camp is going through this week and why, on occasions, Galway flounder when the pressure comes on. Against that background, I have no desire to cast stones in anyone’s direction as there are a lot of decent people in the Galway dressing room, but there are some self inflicted problems which need to be addressed.

For a start, I am not in favour of the senior management being over the under 21s as well. Just three individuals running the rule over the guts of sixty odd players, at the start of the year, results in a very narrow analysis of individuals’ worth and promise – the burden ought to have been shared as is the tradition. A different U-21 management would automatically have alternative views and approach with the result they would add freshness to the preparations of the U-21 players on both squads who, at least, wouldn’t be listening to the same voices all the time.

Nobody blames Anthony Cunningham, who endured the 24 hours from hell given Garrymore’s eclipse in the All-Ireland Club final replay the previous evening, Tom, Helebert and Mattie Kenny for putting their own stamp on things in relation to the make-up of the panel, but their clear out last winter went too far. Some good men have been prematurely discarded with the result that the squad is seriously devoid of experience and leadership.

Furthermore, it’s agitating to hear the Galway mentors continually talk about ‘transition’, ‘development’, ‘patience’ and ‘time’ when they themselves are partially responsible for this situation by almost stripping bare the foundations laid over the past four or five years.

Sure, some reshuffling was required but the team management’s policy of largely relying on young players has already backfired. A bit of pride is going to have to be swallowed and let’s cut out the propaganda too.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.