Walsh warns against complacency as Galway begin championship in New York

The New York starting point may be very different but the intended destination – provincial and, ultimately, national glory – is very much the same.

The Galway senior footballers’ Connacht and All-Ireland championship campaign begins in earnest this weekend at the Gaelic Grounds in the Bronx, the first step in a long road back to the top of the pile in the province where the county hasn’t reigned supreme since 2008.

Around 500 supporters are taking to the skies over the Atlantic for the Connacht championship preliminary round clash on Sunday with the Exiles (throw-in 3pm New York, 8pm Irish time).

The mass exodus of travelling fans, which includes the sold-out Lally’s Tours’ contingent, will be swelled by the large number of ex-pats living in the US, many of whom are fairly fresh off the plane, the latest wave of emigrants force to leave these shores due to the most recent recession.

It promises to be a good old-fashioned knees-up in the bright lights of the Big Apple but for the players and management, the focus is very much on the task at hand as they depart from Shannon this Thursday.

“It is not a holiday of any sort,” stressed manager Kevin Walsh this week.

“This has to be done and done properly and professionally. We’re going to be up against it out there with the surface and the heat and everything else that goes with it – the organising of the travel arrangements and all that. There are a lot of factors in the mix.

“The build-up to most matches is you train and get together on a Thursday and a Saturday. This is different anyway. In this we’re together as a group for four days so there’s a good bonding from that point of view but the big thing is not to lose focus. We’re fully focused on ourselves. There’s not much we can do about what team New York bring but from the feedback we’re getting they’ll be very organised.”

New York, who wear a red, white and blue strip, has been annihilated by visiting county teams from the province in the past few seasons, and interestingly, the last outfit to suffer a scare over there was Galway back in 2010. The only other time Galway took on New York stateside was in 2005, when Galway emerged easy winners on a 3-14 to 0-6 scoreline.

Last year Mayo gave them a 22-points clipping (4-18 to 0-8); the previous year Leitrim inflicted a 24-points defeat on them (0-7 to 4-19); the home team also suffered a 24-points defeat in 2012 to Kevin Walsh’s Sligo (0-6 to 3-21); and Roscommon gave them a 16-points beating in 2011 (1-11 to 3-21).

Galway, in May 2010, needed the brilliance of Pádraig Joyce, who scored 1-7, to drag Joe Kernan’s men out of jail against ill-disciplined New York, who were reduced to 13 men.

There was no backdoor in 2010; if Galway lost they were out of the championship, and that was such a distinct possibility that the ‘powers that be’ have since changed this rule. Nobody in their right mind believes Galway will need it but, for the record, if the unthinkable were to happen, and Galway somehow lost to the Exiles, they would be entered into the draw for the first round of the All-Ireland qualifiers.

Perish the thought.

Just three of the Galway starting side from 2010 (Finian Hanley, Gary O’Donnell and Gary Sice) remain on the current panel; in addition, Danny Cummins came on as a substitute late-on against New York, while Paul Conroy was part of the panel but didn’t make the transatlantic trip in 2010 due to third level exam commitments.

The full Galway team versus New York in 2010 was: Eoin Ó Conghaile; Kieran Fitzgerald, Finian Hanley, Alan Burke; Diarmuid Blake, Gary O’Donnell, Damien Burke; Barry Cullinane, Niall Coleman; Gary Sice, Fiachra Breathnach, Joe Bergin; Eoin Concannon, Padraic Joyce, Nicky Joyce.

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