All set for Limerick

Canning aggravated the hamstring injury he sustained in Portumna’s All-Ireland club final victory over Mount Leinster Rangers on St. Patrick’s Day in training late last week and it looks as if they will have to plan without him for Sunday’s knockout fixture against the Munster champions.

Cunningham, though, was hopeful to have him back sooner rather than later. “We will have to wait and see to be honest with you,” said Cunningham. “We've a lot of other knocks and bits and pieces and we've played every Sunday since the middle of January, including Railway Cup.

“So, we are tired but having said that there is not a better place to be in [than a National Hurling League quarter-final],” stated the Galway manager.

The Tribesmen secured the point they needed to qualify for the knockout stages with a 1-15 to 0-18 draw against All-Ireland champions Clare in Ennis last Sunday, although Cunningham was somewhat disappointed not to have taken the win.

“We had the winning of it really so we would be a shade disappointed,” he admitted afterwards. “All we needed was a point though. Any time you come to Ennis to play the All-Ireland champions and you get a draw, well, we'd have taken it during the week.”

Overall, Cunningham said he was very happy with the team’s performance – particularly in the number of battles Galway players won – but pointed out that there were other aspects of the contest he was not pleased with, particularly some of the refereeing decisions that went against them.

One such call referee Diarmuid Kirwan failed to make was to award Galway a 44th minute penalty after Cathal Mannion was clearly fouled by Clare goalkeeper Patrick Kelly as the corner forward looked to net. Had Galway scored it, the outcome may have been different.

“Yeah, it would have probably closed out the game,” he said. “I think the free count [against Galway] was double so home advantage obviously makes a big difference. Having said that we'd hope we'd have better days out there.”

In any event, Galway can now look forward to a National League quarter-final against Limerick, a team they have not had many competitive dealings with at this level in recent years, although Galway has defeated the Treaty County at All-Ireland semi-final stage at U-21 (2011) and minor (2013) in the interim.

Indeed, the last time Galway and Limerick met in competitive action at this grade was in the opening round of the National League in 2010, with the Tribesmen, despite trailing 1-7 to 0-9 at half-time, winning the fixture 1-18 to 1-11.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune