O’Neill is braced for big battle with rivals Wexford

ALL may have changed, and changed utterly, but with Galway’s senior hurlers drawing Wexford in the semi-final of this year’s revised Leinster and All-Ireland championships, the recent rivalry between the two counties is sure to remain undiluted.

Galway boss Shane O’Neill has acknowledged as much, noting it’s a game both sets of managements and players will be looking forward to. “I think Davy Fitz (Fitzgerald) has done a fantastic job down there; you can see that yourself. They have played Galway over the past three years and those matches have been tight.

“They won the Leinster final (defeating Kilkenny last year) – and they have been very strong now for a few years – but, generally, the games between Galway and Wexford have been extremely tight.

“I think the way they are hurling they get some great scores and they are also very hard to get scores against. So, overall, we will have our work cut out for us because they are the Leinster champions and, I suppose, we finished fourth, albeit on scoring difference, in Leinster last year.”

Believing that his players, no more than Wexford’s, will be relishing the challenge, one such player that Galway supporters will be delighted to see returning to the maroon and white is Sarsfields’ Joseph Cooney, who has returned from Australia.

“Yeah, Joseph came back just as Covid hit so he is back,” confirmed O’Neill. “He has had an awful lot of work do himself and he has put in that work. He is no different though than others. We have had other players who have been in and around the squad who we asked to do a bit of work.

“Some of those will be coming back in – and we are looking forward to seeing them – because our squad is fluid. Where we have 36, it isn’t a defined squad now or it won’t be for the remainder of the year. We are going to see who has form and who doesn’t and look at how they get on in the club championship.”

Indeed, given the limited amount of time O’Neill and his management team have in assessing and preparing their players, the revised 2020 Galway club championships now take on greater significance.

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “They will be playing every second week in the championship themselves, so it will come thick and fast. They won’t have time to breathe, effectively; but, it should just make for a really exciting championship.

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

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