GALWAY MANAGER HENRY Shefflin will decide on his future in the coming days after his side were sent crashing out of this year’s championship.
Shefflin has a deal to stay in charge of Galway until 2026 but said it was always his intention to review it after three years.
“It’s something after three years that I was always going to reassess, and that will be no different now,” he said after his team were beaten by 2-27 to 1-24 by Dublin at Pearse Stadium.
“But I think today is not the day for that. I’m absolutely heartbroken because you put so much into this and we’ve thrown everything at it.
“We tried everything, but the more we seemed to try, the more it seemed to come back on us and it was very hard for us to catch a break, and it was just one of those years I think.
“It will be hurt for a few days and just kind of take a break and just try and get back to normal after a few days and see how things lie at that stage. What we said in the dressing room was that we’d take a few days and don’t make a rash decision, and that’s the only logical thing.”
The dismissal of 2017 All-Ireland winning captain David Burke was the key moment in this contest. He was sent off after a late shoulder charge on Fergal Whitely which Cork referee Colm Lyons deemed was a red card offence after liaising with one of his kinsmen Niall Malone.
Shefflin saw it differently. “For me it was a yellow card. When you have the opposing manager as well in the linesman’s ear telling him that it should be a red card, I think the linesmen and the officials need to support each other.
“We lost our shape a bit after the sending off before we restructured ourselves and the lads worked extremely hard and put in a big shift so it got us back in the game.
“They had a bit of youth and a bit of speed in their team and they had obviously identified that as well. The early goal gave them a footing against the breeze.
“The sending off had a massive bearing on the game. We felt we had reset and re-energised in the last couple of weeks.
“We are not the youngest team so we needed everyone on the field. Dublin are younger and they used that space and that was a big influence. We needed to be six or seven points up at half-time, that was a strong breeze.
“We threw everything at it but we just couldn’t catch a break. It’s very low and there is a lot of hurt in the dressing room and that’s something we now need to reflect on,” added Shefflin.
