Galway to ‘shop local’ after Shefflin steps down as senior hurling manager
Galway GAA officials intend to ‘shop local’ in their quest to find a new senior hurling team manager after Henry Shefflin ended his time with the Tribesmen on Wednesday afternoon.
It is hoped to have a successor to Shefflin in place by early September following the expected exit of the Kilkenny legend from the Galway helm: after three years in charge of the Tribesmen, Shefflin has cut his losses after a disappointing tenure which failed to deliver any league or championship silverware.
Falling to emerge from Leinster this year was the final straw as Galway suffered surprise round-robin defeats away to Wexford (1-28 to 0-23) and at home to Dublin (2-27 to 1-124), as well as drawing with Kilkenny (2-23 to 0-29), meaning their only round-robin wins this year were at home to Carlow (2-25 to 2-14) and away to Antrim (2-25 to 1-14).
With a major upheaval of the county squad required and the prospect of starting all over again, the odds were always on Shefflin calling time on his Galway sideline role.
A shock appointment in the winter of 2021, the arrival west of hurling's most decorated player created a huge buzz of excitement, fuelling expectations that Galway at least would become serial All-Ireland contenders.
A decent first campaign under Shefflin culminated with an honourable two-point loss to hurling's new superpower Limerick in the All-Ireland semi-final (0-27 to 1-21), but that gap between the teams stretched to nine after the teams clashed at the same stage of the 2023 championship (2-24 to 1-18).
The pressure was mounting on Shefflin, and in an attempt to shake things up this year, he brought in former Tipperary All-Ireland winning coach, the Galway-based Eamon O’Shea, to the managerial set-up.
But Galway never really caught fire in 2024, losing the Walsh Cup final to Wexford on a 1-21 to 0-16 scoreline; failing to make the knock-out stages of the National League; before prematurely crashing out of the championship.
Since their fatal home loss to Dublin in early June - a team ironically managed by former Galway All-Ireland winning supremo Micheal Donoghue - the anticipation was that Shefflin would not see out the final year of his term.
But time dragged on, leading to increased speculation that Shefflin – who won 10 senior All-Ireland hurling titles with Kilkenny - was preparing for one final crack at solving the Galway inconsistency riddle
A phone call, however, to County Board Chairman Paul Bellew on Wednesday afternoon removed that prospect as Galway now join Waterford in the search for a new hurling manager, after Davy Fitzgerald also stepped-down for the Déise county this week.