OLLIE CANNING HAS hit back at Ger Loughnane over his criticism of the Galway hurlers following their Leinster SHC final defeat to Kilkenny last Sunday.
Galway appeared in control of the provincial decider as they led by three points at half-time, before Kilkenny completely turned the game on its head in the second period.
Richie Hogan gave a virtuoso display as a substitute after the break, contributing five points from play as the Cats ran out seven point winners.
Loughnane, who managed Galway in 2007 and 2008, was highly critical of the Tribesmen in his column in the Irish Daily Star. Loughnane labelled the Galway players as “gutless” and added that ”you can forget about this Galway team.”
“There was lots of days where we had stuff thrown at us after a bad or weak performance. You have to take that as a player,” Canning told Newstalk’s Off The Ball in response last night.
“I don’t consider any inter-county hurlers to be gutless. I think they go out to do their best. They train hard. It didn’t work out the last day.
“This result is not like Iceland beating England. This is a fantastic Kilkenny team who bring on Richie Hogan and he scores five points from play in the second half. It’s a phenomenal team.
“Galway do have to ship a certain amount of criticism. It has to be asked: ‘What happened in the last 10 or 15 minutes?’ The fight just seemed to go out of them. They have talent, they have players but there’s something just missing. Whether it’s a psychological thing or something I don’t know.
“But no way would I go so far to say these players are gutless and it’s a real insult for him to say that about any inter-county hurler or footballer.
“Ger (Loughnane) will say things. He had comments about Kilkenny earlier as well. When Ger was in Galway, a 10-point loss to Kilkenny was probably the highlight of it.”
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