GALWAY’S CHAMPIONSHIP COULD hardly have gone much worse.
Two games, two defeats and knocked out before the All-Ireland quarter-final stage for the second time in three seasons.
And yet after the summer league, which concluded with a five-point win over Cork just three weeks before they played Dublin in the Leinster semi-final, Galway were flying high.
They won four from five league outings. Their only defeat was by a single point to Tipperary in Thurles. They started the campaign in stunning form, putting 5-34 past Westmeath.
The Tribesmen defeated Limerick by six points, leading the game from start to finish. They finished as top scorers across both groups with a scoring difference of +44. They scored 16 points more than Kilkenny who also won four from five and topped Group B.
The GAA’s tight timeframe denied both sides the opportunity to play in the Division 1 final. The league title was to be shared, unless the counties met in the championship.
With the teams on separate sides of the provincial draw, a Leinster final doubling up with league decider was anticipated. However, after a barnstorming league, Galway were a flat outfit by the time championship rolled around.
Many pundits predicted that the proximity of the championship to the end of the league would mean nothing more than a ‘phoney war’ would take place in the secondary competition.
Limerick’s fourth place Group A finish arrived after they failed to win any of their opening three games. John Kiely made a conscious decision to bring his team back to individual training later than the rest and it showed in the early stages of the league. But by the end of it, they were showing signs of their old selves.
Sean Finn remarked that he didn’t “pick up a hurley until April.” Limerick’s second-half mauling of Tipperary in the Munster final indicates they’re peaking at the right time.
On the other hand, Galway looked a pale shadow of the team that were on level terms with Limerick in the 75th minute of the All-Ireland semi-final on 29 November.
They were motoring well in the league before giving two poor championship performances. They only started to give the impression of being All-Ireland contenders when they came roaring back in the final quarter against Waterford.
Did Galway peak too soon?
Considering the inter-county training ban was originally scheduled to end on 15 January, many players continued training through Christmas with the intention to hit the ground running in the new season.
When Covid meant the GAA restart was pushed back again and again, the training had to continue or the work would go to waste.
Shane O’Neill’s men might have pushed their bodies too hard in the early stage of the year, hitting the ground running in the league before their performance levels dropped off a cliff by the time the championship rolled around.
They received byes in the Leinster quarter-final and round 2 of the qualifiers, more than likely ran hard during those weeks. Over-training is one potential explanation for the lack of energy the showed against Dublin and for three quarters of the Waterford game.
Limerick returned to their running programmes latest than other teams this year. Speaking to The42 back in April, John Kiely’s S&C coach Mikey Kiely said: “We definitely don’t need the long pre-seasons we’ve had in previous years.
“I’m quite confident on it, and it worked out well last year, I would hope that we’ll optimise use of our time as well this year. A six-week pre-season is more than ample for professional players and that’s what we see ourselves as.”
They now look like a fresh, powerful side with plenty left in the legs. When it was required after half-time in the Munster final, they clicked into fifth gear and blew Tipperary away.
Galway arrived into this season rated on a similar level to Limerick, both athletically and in terms of ability. It concludes with suggestions that it’s time for them to move on from the older guard of the 2017 All-Ireland win and build a new team.
Whatever the reason for Galway’s poor display in the championship, they’d admit themselves the standards slipped against Dublin and Waterford.
The 1-14 they posted in the Leinster final was the lowest tally scored by any team in the championship. Only Westmeath registered a lower score during the league. Many felt the Dublin defeat was Galway’s worst championship performance since the Sky Blues defeated them in the 2013 Leinster final.
And while a kick was expected when they took on Waterford, they were lethargic again for long spells. They trailed by two at the first water break, but lost the second quarter by 1-11 to 0-2.
With the Deise reduced to 14 men for the start of the second-half, when you expected a Tribesmen response, they lost the third quarter 7-3. They failed to live with the Waterford runners and lacked energy during the middle quarters of the game.
They left themselves with a mountain to climb, trailing by 14 points before they staged a stirring rally that fell short.
It certainly looks like a panel that needs to be energised with some pace.
O’Neill’s position may come under pressure after his completing his initial two-year term.
Some of his selection decisions this summer raised eyebrows, like the positioning of Adrian Tuohey, who was corner-back in the All-Ireland final four years ago, at wing-forward against Dublin and the use of Conor Whelan at centre-forward against Waterford when he’s so deadly in the corner.
The decision not to start Jason Flynn or Evan Niland in the same game also came under scrutiny, particularly after Flynn shot 2-1 following his 58th minute introduction.
The relocation of five-time All-Star full-back Daithi Burke to centre-back, when Gearoid McInerney, Padraig Mannion, Joseph Cooney or Shane Cooney could have fulfilled that role for both championship outings drew further criticism.
Meanwhile, Joe Canning became the championship’s all-time scorer after posting nine against the Deise, surpassing Henry Shefflin’s 27-484 by a single point. Despite this achievement, Canning was below his best in a season where he battled various injuries.
He turns 33 in October and has been on the road a long time. The squad would certainly benefit from an infusion of some of the All-Ireland minor four in-a-row winners and last night’s Leinster U20 victors.
But Canning showed enough wizardry and leadership in the last 20 minutes against Waterford to suggest he’ll stick around for a while yet.
“I’m not sure how long he’s got left,” admitted his brother Ollie Canning on the Sky Sports coverage at the weekend.
“The ultimate team player. The ultimate finisher. We see a few of them players in our lifetime, and he’s up there with the best.”
In the four seasons since their 2017 All-Ireland win, Galway’s silverware amounts to a single Leinster crown and a shared Division 1 title.
They’ve been beaten in a provincial final and All-Ireland decider, but have slipped from the heights they reached between 2015 and 2018. Many of their veterans have been on the road over a decade at this stage, with several survivors from the 2012 All-Ireland final still on the panel.
Is a rebuilding job required or did they get their physical preparation wrong?
It remains to be seen if O’Neill will be around to ponder that question in 2022.
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