Galway scrape home in Leinster opener

GALWAY boss Anthony Cunningham has paid tribute to the character of his players after the Tribesmen recovered from a seven-point second half deficit to narrowly edge out a plucky Laois outfit in a tense Leinster senior hurling quarter-final at O’Moore Park, Portlaoise on Sunday.

With Galway trailing 0-16 to 1-7 to a wind-assisted Laois at half-time – and falling further behind when the home side extended this advantage to seven with a Charlie Dwyer sideline cut on 39 minutes – Cunningham must have, in a sporting context, watched his life flash before his eyes.

In any event, he didn’t portray any such inner turmoil at his post match briefing, paying tribute to both his charges and the resurgence of Laois hurling under their manager Seamus Plunkett.

“Laois are a very good team and I think the hurling public have to acknowledge that. They are as good as any team you will meet now and it was a great match for us – a great match to win. It took great character from us in the second half,” began the St. Thomas’ man.

“We started well and then we had 20 minutes where we were out of sorts. In saying that, there was a big wind there but we knew we still had the capability and the skill but mentally we had to show that [to come back in the second half]

“Look it, there is a lot of character in this team and it took a lot of character to come back in a match like that. They had to show that and we had to persevere. You have to stick with it because you will have days when you might not be going as well as you can and it is then you need character from the team.”

In saying that, Cunningham acknowledged the overall performance of his side was not acceptable, adding: “To be honest, our first half performance there would be way off championship hurling but, our second – we got some great scores there in the second half – that is something we can build on. We will have to put 70 minutes of that together.”

See full coverage in this week’s Sentinel.