Inside Track
Spotlight on Mulholland as Galway head to Navan
Inside Track with John McIntyre
2014 is a big year for Alan Mulholland. He knows the stakes are high on a personal basis and the stark reality is that if Galway footballers don’t make some progress over the coming months, the Salthill clubman’s managerial tenure will be subjected to unavoidable serious scrutiny next autumn.
Mulholland, facing into his third year as Galway boss, still commands solid support locally as there is widespread recognition that the county currently isn’t blessed with indepth talent despite significant success at U-21 level over recent years. Yet, from a traditional perspective alone, the team’s ongoing struggles for the best part of a decade now remain difficult to fathom.
Having led the Tribesmen to All-Ireland minor and U-21 glory – an unique distinction – Mulholland’s managerial reputation remains in credit, especially as few could have imagined Galway scaring the lives out of Cork in Croke Park last July after a traumatic loss to Mayo in the Connacht championship and seriously dicing with what would have been embarrassing qualifier defeats to Munster minnows, Tipperary and Waterford.
Galway followed up those nerve-wracking wins with a comfortable success over Armagh, also at Pearse Stadium, and the sudden upswing in fortunes continued in that near miss against Cork. That process reflected well on Mulholland’s ability to keep spirits up in a difficult environment and with the critics on both the management’s and players’ backs. Galway looked a transformed team in Croke Park against the Rebels and, clearly, if overall confidence levels could be restored, they have scope for substantial improvement over a short period of time with all the under-age All-Ireland medal winners in their ranks.
Furthermore, he has freshened up his backroom team for the coming year and former county players, Paul Clancy and Declan Meehan, will automatically bring a different input to coaching and training, while their assessment of the individual worth of players could see some reshuffling of the Galway pack in the upcoming National League campaign which gets underway on Sunday with a difficult away opener against Meath. Mulholland will basically be looking for consistency of effort and performance.
Appointing the highly respected Paul Conroy as team captain is a positive step too. The young St. James’ player has become one of Galway’s leaders and is widely respected as someone who takes his football very seriously. The management, however, need to tie the versatile Conroy to one position – and we respectfully suggest that role should be in midfield.
Galway’s failure to reach last Sunday’s Connacht FBD League final is a stark reminder, however, that they have a long way to go before seriously challenging for All-Ireland honours again. They had flown out of the blocks against Sligo only to disappointingly fall to Leitrim at Duggan Park before achieving a routine win over GMIT in their final group outing.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.