Oh Ger – you don’t pull the wool over our eyes

Date Published: 02-Aug-2007

If former team managers Jarlath Cloonan, Mattie Murphy or even Noel Lane had presided over such a year of underachievement as the great Messiah from Clare has just done, the ground would be taken from under them by the Hurling Board and club delegates.

Let’s not be the victims of a con job here — Ger Loughnane has messed up. Supporters and officials shouldn’t be blinded by Galway’s admittedly rousing effort against the All-Ireland champions at Croke Park last Saturday. For a start, if the team management had gone about their business right, they would have avoided Kilkenny until later on in the campaign while Loughnane’s post match assertions that you ‘can’t build a team overnight’ is a complete red herring.

The propaganda has already begun in an attempt to divert attention away from a disastrous season, never mind the baseless suggestion that Galway are trying to build a team from scratch — as if there was nothing there before Loughnane arrived on the scene.

Remember, eight of the players who lined out against Kilkenny in the weekend quarter-final started the 2005 All-Ireland final while Damien Joyce and David Forde, who were introduced as substitutes last Saturday, were also around for the throw in against Cork.

The reality is that…..