Cunningham keen to develop winning Galway brand

STEPHEN GLENNON

NEW Galway senior team manager Anthony Cunningham believes the landscape of Galway hurling has to change if the county is to be successful at senior level and, to this end, he is advocating that the club championships be run in tandem with inter-county games.

Cunningham insists that the championship structure – as it stands – along with the prolonged Summer break in the local senior and intermediate competitions have impacted greatly on the respective performances of Galway’s most talented players at both club and inter-county level.

“I think the players are there, the hunger is there and players want to go on and continue to develop and win,” says the new Galway boss. “However, for the young players in particular, they have to show a bit more when they go out and play club senior and intermediate hurling. 

“So, we will probably be looking for the club championships to be played in tandem with the inter-county set-up. The landscape has to change on the club scene and on the county scene and I think we need everybody rowing in the one direction.”

No doubt, the St. Thomas’ man’s views on the club championship will endear him to everyone associated with club hurling in the county, but he insists, again, things have to change. “I mean, it is now almost 25 years since the Liam McCarthy was won by Galway and there must be common threads that are not helping the cause. I think the club championship is one of them.

“There are a lot of days and weekends that they [the Board] can play these games and they are going to have to push on with that and we look forward to working with them on that. There is a lot of good work being done by the Review Group at the moment and we are looking forward to endorsing it and working with as much of that as we can.”

“What I also would be saying – and I go to a lot of the matches, and so do the lads [selectors Tom Helebert and Mattie Kenny] – there are a lot of meaningless matches played in the championship. If you win a match now, you are almost guaranteed that you are in the preliminary quarter-finals. That is a very unhealthy situation because there are a lot of clubs going through the motions. I don’t think the players are getting the cut and thrust of championship hurling, which they should be.”

For now, though, Cunningham, Helebert and Kenny continue to apply themselves to the finer details, such as establishing their backroom team while they are, of course, also in the process of drawing up a panel for 2012, although it will be a number of weeks before it is announced.

While Cunningham notes that a core set of players will be retained from the 2011 squad, he says there will be changes, with a bigger emphasis now put “on the transformation of minor and U-21 players to senior.” He believes addressing that huge concern is central to building a successful team.

Allayed to this, he agrees it is now time for Galway to hurl to their strengths and not wholly focus on reacting or adopting the styles being nurtured by frontrunners Kilkenny and Tipperary. “We will be pushing hard to impose our own coaching style on the set-up and we will have a Galway style of play,” stresses the former All-Ireland senior medal winner.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.