Shefflin family tragedy casts big shadow over league tie

Cork 1-26

Galway 0-23

John McIntyre at Páirc Uí Chaoimh

NOT much is made of what unfolds in National League matches in early March at the best of times, but when an unexpected shadow hangs over one of these fixtures it makes us even more circumspect about what we have witnessed.

That unfortunate scenario materialised at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday evening . . . the Galway hurlers having to cope without the presence of their new manager Henry Shefflin after the tragic passing of his younger brother, Paul, on the eve of the game.

It made for a difficult build up for all involved in the Galway camp. They mightn’t know Shefflin long but would have been naturally rattled by his incalculable loss of a brother who he had shared the trenches with for many a year during some of the Ballyhale club’s greatest days.

The Galway hurlers would have been hurting for Shefflin and though sport is often used as a vehicle to lift a parish or families’ spirits in such distressing circumstances, emotion has become less influential in successful dressing rooms.  It’s more about tactics and science now, but Galway would still have been desperate to lift a little of the gloom on Saturday evening.

In some ways they did, without never really looking like winning an encounter they needed to in order to preserve their interest in the league. Still, it marked a step up on the previous weekend’s tame capitulation to Wexford, and Galway must be lauded for that.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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