Galway Show Of Strength

By Enda McEvoy

 

Now that’s what you call a show of strength. A bottom line of 1-28 from Galway: serious stuff for a provincial final. A from-play return of 1-22: scary. A first-half tally of 1-16: prodigious. Seven points to spare in the end, and that after conceding one goal that might as easily have been given as a free out and another goal that resulted from the sliotar coming back off the upright.

 

Last Sunday in Thurles wasn’t merely a case of Galway retaining their Leinster title. It may also have been the afternoon that set them on the road to a second successive MacCarthy Cup triumph.

 

They were everything they hadn’t been in Croke Park seven days earlier. Determined, focused, hungry, sharp, decisive. In the drawn game they went out to fulfil a fixture. In the replay they went out to win a match. They won it comprehensively and had they been facing anyone but Kilkenny they might well have won it by twice as much as they did.

 

With three minutes remaining in the first half they were 12 points up. Only a team of Brian Cody’s could have got the gap back to the minimum margin by the three-quarter stage, upon which the men in maroon found a second wind and pulled away again. This was not only the performance of current champions; it was the performance of future champions.

 

Hurling Quarter Finals So Galway join Cork in the All Ireland semi-finals. Two from the quartet of Kilkenny, Limerick, Clare and Wexford will join them there. Contrary to custom, next weekend’s quarter-finals do not comprise a double bill. But that’s no harm either. Páirc Uí Chaoimh being “due” – in GAA terms – a slate of fixtures to make up for the attractions lost during the redevelopment is not a reason to bring all four counties to the venue on the same afternoon.

 

Clare and Wexford will cross swords there on Saturday, the former as beaten Munster finalists, the latter as the team that finished third in the round robin in Leinster. There’s more to it than that, of course. The event is also about Davy Fitz. Davy’s old team versus his new team. The team he led, or at any rate the county he led, to MacCarthy Cup glory in 2013 versus the team he led to an improbable promotion from Division 1B last season.

 

As is ever the way with All Ireland quarter-finalists, both sides will have regrets about their most recent outing. Clare the more so, given that, chasing a first Munster title in 20 years, they led Cork by eight points approaching half-time. That doesn’t quite equate to a winning position, hurling being such a fluid and rapidly changing sport, but it was certainly a position of strength. Yet when the interval arrived the lead was down to four points and in the second half it disappeared altogether. The challengers’ supply lines were cut and they faded badly.

 

Losing last year’s provincial final, in their first season under Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor, had been a disappointment but nothing more than that. Everyone was learning the steps of a new dance at the same time and it was never going to be either easy or quick. Losing for a second successive year, however, was a bitter blow, especially as the stars had appeared beforehand to be neatly aligned following the wins against Tipperary and Limerick.

 

Wexford faded too in the second half against Kilkenny at Nowlan Park. There was an obvious reason for this. Fatigue. The hosts had had a break the previous weekend whereas this was Wexford’s fourth outing in as many weeks. It proved a bridge too far, albeit not by much. Fortunately there was none of the psychological damage that a heavy defeat would have entailed. Rested and fresh, the Yellowbellies will go close next Saturday.

 

Limerick’s outing against Carlow last weekend should have brought them nicely to the boil for Sunday’s clash with Kilkenny. Their failure against Clare in Ennis, with a spot in the Munster final at stake, can be written off as one of those unfortunate things that happens to an emerging team, an unpleasant but necessary lesson on the learning curve.

 

It’s been widely observed that in terms of size and physique, Limerick are the nearest thing in the competition to Galway. Kilkenny will know more about this by teatime on Sunday.