Galway not that far away but gap still to be closed

THE dust has started to settle on Galway’s latest All-Ireland final defeat, but the sense of disappointment lingers even if the Tribesmen are just the latest in a long line of victims at the hands of relentless Kilkenny in All-Ireland hurling finals. Galway also fell short in 2012 and putting those big-day defeats together could led to the erroneous impression that they simply don’t have the necessary package to get over the line.

Tipperary, more times than I care to remember, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Clare have also been ruthlessly cut down by the Cats in September during Brian Cody’s extraordinary reign as team manager, which leads to the inescapable conclusion that Kilkenny just have too much of everything for all their title pursuers.

That fact that Galway are not alone in failing to halt the black and amber juggernaut is probably no consolation to the Westerners’ camp, but it does provide some perspective on how difficult their task was in trying to topple the champions last Sunday week. When it comes to hurling obduracy, Kilkenny remain frightening foes.

True, Galway have no shortage of big men, but most of the Kilkenny team are more muscle bound, ensuring that when it comes to trench warfare they have no equals. The trend of the second half underlined just as much as Michael Fennelly and company won the vast majority of rucks and overpowered their opponents in terms of most collisions.

Of course, there has been criticism of Galway’s fade out after half-time and, certainly, they could have helped themselves more by not bombing so many puck outs down on the top of the very area where Kilkenny were so heavily staffed. Taking Aidan Harte off so soon and not replacing the struggling Cathal Mannion at all were other surprises, but this final defeat should in no way be heaped at the management’s door.

Still, some Galway supporters were disgruntled over the performance of the sideline against Kilkenny, with Anthony Cunningham and his mentors also attracting flak for the introduction of two defenders, Fergal Moore and Greg Lally, to the midfield sector during the course of the final. Both, however, were only used briefly in these emergency roles as blood substitutes which, by their nature, occur unexpectedly and put pressure on managements to get in replacements as quickly as possible. The likelihood in both cases was that Moore and Lally were already warming up and close at hand.

Cunningham, of course, has now completed four years in charges and faces a review of his role over the coming weeks. One assumes he is anxious to it give one more crack, but if he finds that the mood in the boardroom is not overwhelmingly supportive, the prospect of him walking away can’t be entirely discounted. Granted, it would be out of character for Galway to leave a manager in situ for so long without delivering an All-Ireland title, but Cunningham has got the county to two finals and surely is entitled to one last hurrah in the position.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.