New manager must restore pride in the players

Date Published: {J}

There has been a strong desire for change in the Galway hurling heartlands ever since the senior side capitulated so tamely to Waterford in the All-Ireland quarter-final in late July, ensuring there will be few surprised to see John McIntyre step down as manager this week after three years at the helm.

Hurling is a results-driven business and the annihilation by Tipperary in the League at Pearse Stadium, followed by the collapses against both Dublin and Waterford in the championship, effectively called time on McIntyre’s reign.

Galway followers are notoriously fickle; and impatient after a 23 year wait for the Liam McCarthy Cup, but it was the manner of those defeats that hurt most – had the players shown a bit of passion or pride in the two championship defeats, then the current management might have been granted a fourth year in charge.

McIntyre himself admitted that the Tribesmen were as far away from an All-Ireland as they’ve been in 20 years after the 10-point defeat to Waterford. It was an admission of failure in his third year, when reaching a first semi-final since 2005 would have been seen as the minimum required.

The team had gone backwards after the 2010 League success and the one point defeat to eventual champions Tipperary in last Summer’s All-Ireland quarter-final, which gave supporters false hope throughout last Winter.

People in this county are sick of seeing successful underage hurlers ‘disappear’ when they come of age as seniors. It was interesting to hear minor boss Mattie Murphy say on RTE Radio One last Saturday that there were far too many players with massive egos on the current senior panel.

Not one of them came out of the debacle in Semple Stadium on July 24 with honour intact, after they collapsed so tamely against a spirited but limited Waterford side. It was incredible to hear some of the players say afterwards that Waterford were ‘unbeatable’ that day.

They weren’t. They won easily because the men in maroon had no heart, no desire, no passion. The Galway lads were not willing to fight for the cause.

With Kilkenny and Tipperary so far ahead of the rest, Galway supporters just could not accept that the Tribesmen were so lacking in passion in losing to the third and fourth best teams in the country this Summer. Media criticism ahead of the Dublin game hardly helped, but the performance in Tullamore was simply appalling.

If we wanted passion, we had to look to the minors and U-21s, who delivered a fine All-Ireland double over the last two weekends. The hope now has to be that we can get more from these sides than the 2007 winning U-21 side, which only provided goalkeeper James Skehill and Joe Canning to the starting 15 who underperformed so badly against Waterford this summer.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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