GalwayÕs poor performance is real head scratcher

Date Published: {J}

SO many questions: so few damn answers. I can now finally empathise with the frustrations of previous Galway hurling team managers such as Jarlath Cloonan, Mattie Murphy, Noel Lane, Conor Hayes and Ger Loughnane after a dreadful performance in the All-Ireland quarter-final at Thurles last Sunday. It was a shambles – short and simple.

As the team manager, I have no intention of running away from my own responsibility for such a limp exit from the championship and I appreciate, more than anyone, my own head is on the chopping block this week. I have no issue with that at all as we operate in a results driven business. Frankly, I didn’t see such a shocking display coming.

There was no question whatsoever of under-estimating Waterford after their humiliation at the hands of Tipperary in the Munster final down in Pairc Ui Chaoimh two weeks previously. We know there would be a backlash from them and I genuinely thought that we were braced for it. Furthermore, we were coming into the fixture on the front foot after two heartening victories over Clare and Cork.

Apart from the injured Alan Kerins, we had the same team out on the field in Semple Stadium as we had in Pearse Stadium and the Gaelic Grounds, but they weren’t the same players which had performed with such vigour, cohesiveness and energy as against Clare and Cork. They looked sluggish and, apart from a brief period in the opening-half, never played with conviction or purpose.

To be honest, I would imagine the players are disgusted with themselves this week. They are way better than Sunday’s tame effort, but just didn’t measure up on the day. Galway had serious momentum heading into the Waterford game and confidence had been restored only to see them produce a really poor effort which was characterised by basic errors, poor decision-making and a lack of fire.

In the context of their previous two championship outings, it’s hard to rationalise where it came from. We had won back the hearts and minds of the Galway supporters who had travelled in such great numbers to Thurles only to throw it all away in a forgettable 70 minutes. I really felt for the fans – they deserved and expected better than this.

Naturally, we are all being panned by the critics and, to be honest, we have left ourselves wide open for it. The camp had worked so hard to get things back on the road after the disappointing defeat to Dublin in the Leinster Championship in Tullamore and most observers were starting to consider us as a genuine threat to Tipperary and Kilkenny.

More immediately, few gave Waterford any real chance of stopping Galway last Sunday, but, unfortunately, every game is different.

Did the pressure get to Galway again? Can they not cope with high expectations? Do they have a suspect temperament? Why are they so frustratingly inconsistent? These are all questions which have been asked so regularly over the past 20 years and still, it seems, we are no nearer any solutions. But, perhaps, the biggest elephant room in the room is that Galway are regularly not cutting it in the really high stakes matches and that successive teams are overhyped due to the county’s impressive record at under-age evel and in the All-Ireland Club series.

In nearly 130 years of championship hurling, Galway have won a measly four All-Ireland senior titles, but yet nearly every spring, the county are generally regarded as third or fourth favourites to bring the McCarthy Cup back west. Where is this inflated rating coming from? The harsh reality is that Galway have only contested two All-Ireland semi-finals in the past decade and that is the grim fact of the situation.

Naturally, a Kevin Moran inspired Waterford deserve a lot of credit for the manner in which they have responded to their Munster final mauling. True, Galway made it all too easy for them, but Davy Fitzgerald and his team were determined to salvage their reputations with Shane Walsh, the recalled Seamus Prendergast and Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh also playing big roles in one of the county’s greatest ever victories.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.