Outsiders Galway aiming to floor U-21 champions

SELDOM has a Galway underage hurling side been as written off in advance of opening a championship campaign as the U-21 team which takes on raging hot favourites Clare in the All-Ireland semi-final at Semple Stadium, Thurles, on Saturday (6pm).

If you are to believe the bookies, the 4/1 outsiders probably should not even turn up. The reigning All-Ireland champions at this grade are unbackable 1/5 favourites and their side is packed with senior panellists who are on a high after dismissing the Limerick challenge so emphatically in front of almost 63,000 fans at Croke Park last Sunday.

Clare hurling is on a high at the moment, whereas the bitter recrimations in the wake of the Tribesmen’s heavy defeat to Davy Fitzgerald’s men in the senior quarter-final three weeks ago ensure the Galway U-21s are heading into this tussle amid low expectations. Their supporters may be heavily outnumbered in the Semple Stadium crowd.

The poor championship campaign endured by Conor Cooney and Jonathan Glynn with the below-par county seniors contrasts sharply with the wonderful season the likes of Padraic Collins, Tony Kelly, Colm Gavin, and David McInerney are having with the Clare seniors.

With their entire county buzzing about the prospect of a first senior All-Ireland final appearance in 11 years, the pressure will be on the Banner men to register back-to-back titles in the U-21 grade after already overcoming the challenges posed by Waterford and Tipperary in Munster.

Galway, as ever at this grade, are coming in ‘cold’ to an All-Ireland semi-final in late August, but that did not stop them from winning this title as recently as 2011 – under current senior boss Anthony Cunningham – while a number of the current panel were part of the excellent young minor side which thrashed Dublin in that year’s minor decider at Croke Park.

“We are not going down there just to wave the white flag,” said defiant Galway manager Johnny Kelly this week. “We have an All-Ireland semi-final to prepare for and we are going down there to win it. We are not overawed by Clare at all, but we are mindful of what they are capable of. Full preview in this week’s Connacht Tribune.