Helebert admits some soul searching to be done after bad defeat

Date Published: 05-Apr-2012

STEPHEN GLENNON

GALWAY manager Anthony Cunningham and coach Tom Helebert ambled out to face the media crush. A 25-point drubbing by another top flight county – even it was to All-Ireland champions, Kilkenny – was big news.

It was Helebert who made his way over to the Galway media – a far smaller posse than those from the national outlets looking for their Monday morning sound bites – and, as always, he was honest and free with his assessment.

Words like “humiliating” and “painful” punctuated his sentences, the former All-Star noting it was “a poor day” for Galway hurling. “We needed something big to happen from a results point of view with the way the relegation play-offs have played out. Today, we just didn’t get what we were looking for,” he reflected.

“Kilkenny had set up to get goals early on. They got three and the game was over after 15 minutes. It is disappointing from our point of view. It is not a happy dressing-room in there right now and the lads are very down and very demoralised.

“When you are dealing with a young and relatively inexperienced panel, days like this hurt a lot and it is going to take a bit of push to reshape things and to get them thinking positively for what is ahead. And what is ahead is a difficult time.”

He was not wrong there. To preserve their Division 1 status, Galway now meet Dublin in the relegation final at O’Connor Park, Tullamore on Sunday, April 15 (4pm) – so returning to the scene of last year’s crime, when the Liffeysiders took apart the Tribesmen in a one-sided Leinster championship semi-final. Those in maroon and white will need little reminding.

In any event, Helebert maintained that the Galway hurlers must be willing to fight tooth and nail – “putting lives on the line” – if they are going to preserve their top flight status.

Defeats to Tipperary and Waterford – both games Galway were in contention for up until the final whistle – meant the Tribesmen had to get something out of their visit to Nowlan Park to avoid the relegation quagmire, but instead they went down badly on a 3-26 to 0-10 scoreline.

Again, Helebert said that once the third of those Kilkenny goals were netted, the outcome was “inevitable”. From the Cats’ opening salvo, he maintained it became a case of “rearranging the chairs” in an effort to stop the Kilkenny onslaught and the withdrawal of all three full-forwards in the opening 29 minutes became part of that process.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.