Archive News
Kenny sets Galway sights on meeting own targets
Date Published: 05-Jul-2012
STEPHEN GLENNON
GALWAY coach Mattie Kenny pauses. It’s a long pause and it’s hard to gauge if he is formulating his thoughts or, maybe, is just a little flummoxed. Given the question – and that so many others have failed to find the answer – it is probably somewhere in between.
The question regards the breathtaking movement of the Kilkenny forwards, their ability to ghost in on goal, and how does a team go about counter-acting that. In the end, there is a mutual, nervous laugh but, in light of the Tribesmen’s impending Leinster senior hurling final visit to Croke Park, the question had to be asked.
“On one-to-one challenges, Kilkenny are very, very strong,” concedes Kenny. “So, it comes down to the team playing as a defensive unit, reducing the amount of one-to-one challenges and getting as many numbers behind the ball as possible. The Kilkenny attack is the best attack out there and our defence is going to be tested on Sunday.”
Indeed, given Galway have conceded a whooping 7-65 to the Leinster men between the Walsh Cup (2-20 to 1-14), Inter-Provincial series (2-19 to 1-15) and the National Hurling League (3-26 to 0-10) – and scored just 2-29 – already this year, the Galway rearguard can be excused if they feel a measure of trepidation. Kenny insists, though, that right across the set-up, this is a test they are relishing.
“Overall, playing Kilkenny at this time of the season has to be good for Galway hurling. We are in early July and it is going to give an exact reading of where we are at. All the players, management and backroom team are looking forward hugely to the challenge and we want to bring the Galway style of play to Croke Park.
“We will not be going up there to just stop Kilkenny hurling either; we will go up there to bring the Galway style of hurling, our game, to Croke Park. As I have said before, this is a process we have embarked upon now for the next couple of years. So, we have to have confidence in our own team and our own ability and that we can bring our own style of play to the game on Sunday. And, most importantly, that we ask Kilkenny as many questions of them as they will of us.”
That seems like fighting talk, but Kenny – be it with his native Tynagh/Abbey-Duniry or, previously, with the Galway U-21s, who he has coached to All-Ireland victories in 2005 and 2011 – has never been one to shy away from the battleground and, more often than not, is the first soldier to charge over the parapet.
Galway certainly will need some of that steel on Sunday, particularly given the Tribesmen are not being given a shadow of a chance by the bookmakers. Kilkenny are firm favourites at 1/6 while the more optimistic pundits can acquire Galway at 5/1. Kenny is having none of it.
“We have prepared as best we can for a Leinster final. If we go up as favourites or as underdogs, doesn’t make any difference. We are going up to give the best performance we can on the day. I remember, the last time we spoke, you asked me did we feel we were making progress. On Sunday, we play a top team, so it is a good opportunity to see how far this team has come.”
Still, with expectation low going into this game, both inside and outside the county, that has to be an advantage. After all, who needs that pressure? “Well, we don’t see it as pressure,” retorts Kenny. “The only pressure we are under – and this is the pressure we are putting on ourselves – is to perform to the best of our ability.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
images/files/images/x3_Courthouse.jpg
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
