NIALL HEALY WAS only just emerging from the minor grade when he stepped into the Galway senior hurlers’ dressing room for the 2005 season.
He knew nothing of the horrors in 2004 when Galway’s campaign crashed to a 19-point defeat against Kilkenny in the All-Ireland qualifiers.
So when the two sides were reacquainted in the 2005 All-Ireland semi-final, the perception was that the Tribesmen were doomed to suffer another drubbing.
Healy was aware of all the outside talk but wasn’t burdened by the negativity. He had already tasted championship game time that season against Laois, Antrim, Limerick and Tipperary, and was motoring well in training.
An encounter with Kilkenny was just another game to him.
“Nobody was giving us a chance,” he recalls in conversation with The42.
“It is so long ago, I can’t remember the lead-up to the game but I remember nobody giving us a chance, especially when we got beaten by 19 points the year before.
People were saying if we could get within 10 points of this Kilkenny team… they were an unbelievable team. They’d won All-Irelands in ’02, ’03 and were beaten by Cork in ’04.
“We had a bit of a break before we played Tipperary in the quarter-final and I remember I was going well at training and I started. We beat them by a point so we took a lot of confidence from that.”
Galway may have been carrying the underdogs tag going into that game, but they showed their teeth to the Cats before throw-in.
There were wild swings and some shape-throwing in the middle of the field as Conor Hayes’ charges sought to show Kilkenny that this was not going to be a repeat of the 2004 affair.
“I suppose it was just laying down a marker,” says Healy of the pre-match scuffles.
“That was the way we were going to approach the game and we weren’t going to let them bully us.
“That was just the way players thought themselves before the game, that’s the way we were going to approach it.”
Kilkenny made the stronger start to the game, an Eddie Brennan goal helping them into a 1-3 to 0-2 lead after less than 10 minutes.
But there was still some venom left in Galway’s bite, and they were one point in front after 27 minutes when Richie Murray split the posts with a great score on the run.
By that stage, Galway had weathered the early Kilkenny burst. Damien Hayes was industrious at corner forward while David Tierney dominated in midfield.
The pair combined to put Ger Farragher through for a goal on the half-hour mark which put Galway four points ahead. The Castlegar forward finished with 2-9 that day.
Kilkenny snatched two quickfire goals through Henry Shefflin and John Hoyne before half-time, but Galway’s brilliance throughout the first period ensured they had a 2-11 to 3-5 cushion at the break.
Meanwhile, Healy was becoming agitated as he struggled to impose himself on proceedings.
“I was having slight doubts because I was marking John Tennyson. I would have marked Tennyson a good few times in minor times and probably would have gotten the better of him.
“I probably was having slight doubts at half-time and was probably expecting to have been on the scoreboard before half-time. John’s a fantastic hurler but I would have felt I had the measure of him.
“I was getting a bit bothered when I hadn’t registered a score.”
The 2005 All-Ireland semi-final was a game of two halves, but not in the traditional sense. Galway’s first-half heroics were not followed by a major fighbtack by Kilkenny after the restart, although they did manage to produce a strong finish.
This final-four tie belonged to Farragher and Healy, with Healy stealing the show in the second half with three goals.
The first was a tap-in effort as he pounced to drill the ball into the net after Murray’s initial shot was parried away by Kilkenny goalkeeper James McGarry.
His second was an exceptional individual score. David Forde fired possession into Healy’s path after pulling the ball sweetly along the ground. Healy then rounded James Ryall before sticking his shot in the bottom corner.
Healy’s hat-trick came at the end of a foot race with Tennyson after a long ball was delivered in by Alan Kerins. Healy was first home to toe-poke the ball past McGarry and put Galway 11 points ahead with just under 15 minutes of normal time remaining.
To do that at 19 or 20 years of age in an All-Ireland semi-final against a team like Kilkenny is stuff you’d be dreaming of as a young lad,” says Healy looking back now.
“It was phenomenal and it’s so long ago now you can hardly remember.”
Galway almost coughed up their advantage as Kilkenny rallied back to slash the lead to three points in the final stages.
But the final whistle eventually arrived to secure a 5-18 to 4-18 win for the men from the west and bring an epic clash to a close.
“You’d often meet people who would refer back to it,” says Healy of that nine-goal thriller. “A lot of lads in Galway say that I didn’t do a whole lot else after that game.
“I was off for the last few minutes and Kilkenny came back at us. I think we were 11 or 12 points up in the second half and they were coming back and coming back. Kevin Broderick came on and got an awful important point to kind of just seal it for us.
“We were just delighted at the final whistle.”
It was certainly satisfying for Galway to silence the doubters with that emphatic display against Kilkenny, particularly for the older crop who suffered through the 2004 disappointment.
But they failed to fire against Cork in the final, slumping to a five point defeat in Croke Park.
A wide-eyed Healy was marshalled by the veteran defender Diarmuid ‘The Rock’ O’Sullivan that day. Looking back, he wishes that Craughwell youngster was a bit wiser in how managed the game.
I was a bit naive going into it. Marking Diarmuid O’Sullivan, this was a man playing in his fourth or fifth All-Ireland and I would have looked up to him massively.
“I definitely would have regrets from that day, that I played it wrong. I stood up beside him instead of bringing him for a run around the field. Hindsight is a great thing.
“They were a phenomenal Cork team.”
Galway would have to wait another 12 years for their next All-Ireland SHC crown, but Healy’s legacy is cemented in that three-goal display in ’05.
“It’s something I’ll always take and I always say to people that I think I played better against Kilkenny in the years after that. But ’05 is probably the one I’ll be remembered for but at least it’s something good to be remembered for.
“I don’t think it’ll ever be forgotten, it’s just a pity it was the semi-final and not the final.”
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