Galway must front up or else it’s curtains against resurgent Cork

Inside Track with John McIntyre

GALWAY hurlers will reach the point of no return at Semple Stadium on Saturday and though the Tipperary venue hasn’t been the happiest of hunting grounds for the Tribesmen over the years, it will be a major disappointment if Daithí Burke and company don’t serve up a strong reaction to their subdued Leinster Final show.

The last time Galway were in Thurles was July of last year. For 50 minutes of that All-Ireland qualifier, the men from the West were blown away by a rampant Waterford outfit which had to play the entire second-half with 14-players after the dismissal of defender Conor Gleeson.

It was hard to believe what we were seeing. True, Galway had been no great shakes in falling to Dublin in the Leinster championship, but to trail Waterford by 16 points at one juncture was a shock to supporters. Two late goals from substitute Jason Flynn did admittedly close the final gap to four, but it was still a deflating day for Galway.

On Saturday, they are heading back to the scene of the crime and, like 2021, have to try and lift themselves after coming up short in Leinster. They couldn’t do it 11 months ago, but you’d still expect a big response to their five-point loss to Kilkenny this time round.

Until that provincial decider, Galway’s graph had been rising slowly under new manager Henry Shefflin. Heading into that game unbeaten and with momentum behind them, the expectation was that they would drive on. Instead, they never really got going in a disjointed battle against the fired-up Cats.

Too many Galway players such as Cathal Mannion, Joseph Cooney, Tom Monaghan, and Brian Concannon didn’t produce their form of previous matches, while the over-reliance on Conor Whelan for scoring inspiration was another problem. And though Conor Cooney did well on the forty for long tracts of the final, his accuracy went to pieces in the final quarter.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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