Burning Issue: Are Galway the real deal?

Galway’s stunning victory over Kilkenny in the Leinster final has rocked the hurling world. But was that display a flash in the pan or the breakout game of a coming force? Two JOE staffers argue each side.

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Conor Heneghan says... there are a couple of reasons why, of all people, I shouldn’t really be arguing that Galway have a right to be considered as genuine contenders for this year’s All-Ireland hurling title.

For a start, I’m still removing yolk and eggshell traces from my face having suggested only a couple of weeks back that the current Kilkenny side are unbeatable, only to see them obliterated by the Tribesmen on Sunday.

Secondly, I come from Mayo, where, similar to Galway hurling, every victory of even the slightest significance for our footballers suddenly ensures that nearly every GAA fan in the county will get caught up in an unrelenting hype machine that grinds unceremoniously to a halt in Croke Park sometime between August and September.

But, as a man might say while helping Winnie the Pooh cross the road, bear with me here.

The general perception of the Galway hurlers is that they are always capable of producing one huge performance a season before bottling it when it comes to the crunch. The All-Ireland semi-final victory over Kilkenny in 2005 and subsequent defeat to Cork in the final is the most oft-cited example of this, but that was seven years ago and to be perfectly frank, big Galway performances have been few and far between in the intervening years.

Besides, even if the perception exists, it doesn’t mean that the current crop should be unfairly associated with their predecessors. Of the team that started against Kilkenny, four of them played in the All-Ireland under-21 final victory last season and two more from that team were sprung from the bench. Joe Canning, hard and all as it might be to believe, is still only 23. This is a new Galway team; they took time to bed in during the league – a whupping at the hands of Kilkenny is testament to that – but a couple of far from perfect championship encounters against Westmeath and Offaly has helped them settle and they look all the better for it.

Granted, the result on Sunday was a freak, but a lot of the reaction centred on what was a bad day for Kilkenny rather than focussing on the merits of the Galway performance. The Cats weren’t themselves the last day, but they weren’t allowed to be; rarely have I ever seen Tommy Walsh make such elementary mistakes as he did on Sunday.

It wasn’t just Walsh, either; a number of established Kilkenny players were blown away in the tackle at times. An off day for Kilkenny, yes, but give Galway some credit; the intensity they brought to bear was equal if not above what Kilkenny have been doing to other teams for years and when they got the chances, boy did they finish them with aplomb.

And although it was a huge performance, you didn’t hear the Galway players shouting from the rooftops afterwards. GAA players have become experts in the field of dampening hype in recent years, but Galway’s reaction to the win was extremely refreshing.

They may have only been in the Leinster Championship for four seasons, but it was an historic victory and it would have been completely understandable if they celebrated in some style. Instead, they were all back at work on Monday morning and eager to move on.

A few memes doing the rounds on the internet and a few cheeky posters in Galway city prolonged the taste of victory for a few supporters, but the players weren’t getting caught up in it. As far as they were concerned, it was a case of ‘A lot done, a lot more to do’.

And they can do it. The reward for Sunday’s victory was a place in the All-Ireland semi-final, meaning that whatever way you look at it, Galway are only 140 minutes away from a first Liam McCarthy triumph since 1988. They mightn’t pull it off in the end, but outside Kilkenny, who are still favourites and rightly so, they have as good a chance as anyone else and on the back of Sunday’s display, I would rank them at the head of the chasing pack, slightly ahead of Tipperary at this stage.

What Galway did on Sunday was dispel the so-called established truth that Kilkenny are unbeatable; they might also eradicate a few supposed truths about themselves before the season’s out.

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Sean Nolan says... while I would dearly love to think that there is another team capable of challenging for Liam in September, Galway are a long from that just yet.

While all true Gaels were watching Galway do a Kilkenny on Kilkenny, some of our brethren were watching Wimbledon. Those misguided fools saw Andy Murray’s latest bid to win just one Grand Slam title end in defeat yet again, followed by a lot of tears.

Galway are hurling’s Andy Murray. They are good, occasionally great and in another era, like the pre-backdoor era, they would have a couple of All-Irelands under their belts. But they have the misfortune to be around in an era where Kilkenny are better than any team we have ever seen. Tipp are not far behind and Cork are on the rise again.

Like Waterford, or Andy Murray, Galway are capable of beating one of the big boys on any given day, but two is too much for them. Look at 2005. That problem now looms for Galway again. Via a scintillating display, and a strangely bloodless one from the Cats, they knocked off the champs in fine style on Sunday. But doing it a second time is an even bigger task.

Just like the time that Wexford caught Kilkenny in 2004, tactical innovation won it for Galway. While it was the accuracy of Damien Fitzhenry’s puck-outs that did the trick eight years ago, Galway removed their full-forward line and flooded extra men into the other lines. Damien Hayes roamed expertly and Joe Canning, Niall and David Burke and Cyril Donnellan all executed their parts perfectly.

And while some of the locals may already be thinking about bringing Liam to the City of Tribes for the first time since 1988, we need to look at Galway’s year to date for some perspective.

In two games against Offaly and Westmeath, Galway conceded 7-27. In the league against Kilkenny just 10 weeks ago, Galway lost by 25 points and even while holding complete dominance for much of the 70 minutes, they conceded 2-12 on Sunday.

Defensively they are just not good enough and while a sensational day in front of the posts meant it didn’t matter on Sunday, it will catch up with them, in all likelihood in the semi-final.

That jump straight to the semi-final is another problem for Anthony Cunningham. We have seen teams struggle with that gap in the past when they achieve provincial success. Look at Waterford, semi-final losers in 2004, 2007 and 2010. Tipp even couldn’t raise it again after they won their first Munster in seven years in 2008.

Five or six weeks is a long time to be hanging around your native county with everyone telling you how great you are. For all the talk of taking one game at a time and not looking past the Bob O’Keeffe, silverware was a goal for Galway this year. It has been achieved. Lifting it again, in both the performance sense and the trophy one, will be difficult.

Too difficult, at least in 2012.