Micheal Donoghue pleased with spirit in Galway senior hurling team
IT would have been hard to blame Micheal Donoghue if he publicly turned on his players in the wake of Sunday's terrible opening 25 minutes against Wexford.
He and his management surely could hardly believe what they were seeing as a Wexford team in crisis were running rings around Galway in establishing a remarkable 13-point advantage.
The Tribesmen were a shambles. Hardly anyone was taking responsibility and only Tom Monaghan was escaping the ‘challenge game’ mentality which had infected the Galway ranks.
Make no mistake, Galway were possibly just one or two scores away from sinking without trace. Things were that bad. Wexford were tearing into everything and had raised three green flags inside 24 minutes.
In contrast, Galway just weren't switched on, which was a surprise given the way their match had finished up against Dublin the previous weekend – a Brian Hayes stoppage-time goal carrying the day for a team which, in the context of the upcoming Leinster final, has zero fear of the men in maroon.
At least, Galway got going just in time and the management must take some credit for that, with the introduction of the long-serving Conor Cooney at the interval having a major impact on the second-half action.
But if Galway have serious All-Ireland aspirations they shouldn’t be finding themselves in such a hole against a team whose only victory in the round-robin series came against minnows Kildare.
There is no doubt now that given the way Kilkenny's season has panned out, we read too much into Galway's trimming of them in the opening round, but that still doesn't excuse how they were run ragged for large parts of the first-half by Wexford.
We are obviously not privy to what is being said behind closed doors, but Donoghue surely lowered the blade at half-time. Granted, the dynamics of the contest were already changing, but the Galway manager has been making a big deal all along about his team hitting certain standards.
Well, there was little evidence of that early on. The defence was floundering and we must remember Darach Fahy made a smart save in the opening minute from Conor Hearne or Wexford would have rattled the Galway net four times inside 25 minutes.
The Galway attack went from the fourth to the 24th minute without landing a score from play. Eventually, Conor Whelan followed the impressive Tom Monaghan's lead while Jason Rabbitte, Tiernan Killeen — whose touch must be sharper — and a rousing effort from defender Ronan Glennon also helped to turn things around on the approach to the interval.
Donoghue, understandably, put a positive spin on how the match evolved, praising Galway for not throwing in the towel and lauding a comeback which amounted to a staggering 21-point turnaround.
“The job is accomplished. We didn't get into the game as much as we would have liked to. We made a few mistakes and they ended up being very costly. The big thing out of today is the spirit and fight of the group.
“We were missing a few today, but I thought the lads that came on made a massive contribution and I'm glad to be in a Leinster Final now. It didn’t look good but the lads have shown over the past few weeks they have great pride in the jersey and stay going.”
Donoghue said he was delighted with the response coming up to half-time when Galway trimmed the deficit to six points. “They thundered back into it and got a great result.”
The Galway boss said that when they got into a rhythm you could see the belief and confidence rising in the players, while stressing the importance of Rabbitte's goal in helping the team to push on.
He is concerned, however, by the attritional rate of such a hectic schedule which sees Aaron Niland, Cathal Mannion, and Rory Burke all sidelined; while Kieran Hanrahan joined the walking wounded when forced to retire with a leg injury against Wexford.