Minor final hero Glennon defies bad hand injury

Date Published: 10-Sep-2009

In one of the more cynical trends creeping into both codes of the GAA, team managements, in the build-up to important championship matches, will often try to unsettle the rival camp by inventing ‘injuries’. Or they may have genuine injury concerns but hype them up in an effort to out-fox the rival team, leaving them second guessing as to who exactly will feature in the starting 15.
There was no such nonsense in the Galway camp in the week leading up to the All-Ireland minor final at Croke Park on Sunday, though. Instead, manager Mattie Murphy and his mentors were trying to hide the fact that their star midfielder, Davy Glennon, had broken a bone in his hand in the semi-final, which had the potential to ‘act up’ again and knock him off his stride in the decider.
In theory had the secret got out, Kilkenny may have used it to their advantage – maybe even targeted him for a bit of ‘special treatment’ – but in reality, even if they did know about his injury, such was the unrelenting mood Glennon was in on Sunday, it probably wouldn’t have made one iota of a difference.
“We kept the injury quiet all week and thanks to Ian O’Connor our doctor and David Hanley our physio, they had me in top shape for the match today and thankfully I got through it,” said Glennon afterwards, who had refused to allow doctors to put his hand in plaster because it would have meant being left out of the final.
And Galway were the better for his insistence – Glennon hurled out of his skin, like a man possessed. Haunted by the heart-wrenching agony of being beaten with the concession of a late goal in last year’s final against the same opponents, the Mullagh star wasn’t going to let a broken bone get in the way of exacting revenge.
The 18-year-old was on a mission to lay to rest the ghosts of 2008, which drove him on to play through the pain barrier and give a man-of-the-match performance, in which he covered acres of ground, engineered a couple of scores with visionary passes into his forwards, and more importantly, stepped up to the mark in the last ten minutes of the game to throw over two wonderful points from play when the pressure was on, and the result still in doubt.
“It’s special after last year’s defeat. We were sickened after letting a goal in in the last few seconds in the final last year and we said we weren’t going to let it happen again. We got to the final, where we wanted to be, and thanks be to God we’re All-Ireland minor champions now.