Pressure rises as Galway hit the championship trail
WHETHER Galway hurlers like it or not, they are the new favourites to win the All-Ireland title. It’s not something we would have imagined even six weeks ago, but there’s been a drastic upheaval in public perception in the interim due to the unexpected meltdown of champions Tipperary.
Hammered by the Tribesmen in the league final last month, Michael Ryan’s charges rapid descent from being hurling’s leading force to now scrapping for championship survival has thrown the title race wide open, with Galway generally believed to be the best equipped to take advantage.
We all know that the favourites’ tag and Galway hurlers have been uncomfortable bedfellows down through the years and their new status certainly cranks up the pressure to deliver a long-awaited All-Ireland title in 2017, but this mantle is also a reflection of the terrific impression the men in maroon made at the Gaelic Grounds in late April.
Can we trust that league final form? Certainly, Tipperary were miles off the pace that day and their defeat to an unproven Cork team in last Sunday’s Munster quarter-final does diminish a little the substance of Galway’s runaway win, but they ticked a lot of the right boxes that day with their physicality and link-up play stand-out features of the county’s tenth league triumph.
It’s been a long time since a Galway team headed into the championship with such expectation – both local and neutral – behind them, but there have been a couple of negative developments since the league final which shouldn’t be ignored in the build up to the Leinster quarter-final against Dublin in Tullamore on Sunday (4pm).
Firstly, the ill-advised move to discourage panel members from lining out for their clubs in the local football championship stirred up a lot of bad feeling in the affected parishes the weekend before last and with the O’Flaherty brothers breaking ranks to field for Monivea/Abbey in any event, it proved a misguided effort to protect the players involved.
More worrying, however, was how sluggish Galway looked in a ‘closed doors’ challenge game against Clare in Ennis last Tuesday week. They were already behind (0-14 to 0-10) at the break when starting to take off players, and by the finish, the Banner men had stretched 2-25 to 1-15 clear.
It may transpire to be the perfect medicine in helping to keep Galway grounded for their clash with Dublin and while challenge matches have to be treated with huge caution, that outcome does raise the prospect that David Burke and his team-mates peaked for the league final and, naturally, will take time to hit such levels again.
Galway boss Micheál Donoghue said that while they had taken “confidence” from their league exploits, there was now a new chapter on the horizon. “The league is gone and we are now focused on the championship. The mood is good in the camp and we obviously have momentum.”
Full preview in this week's Connacht Tribune.