Hard to put brakes on hype when Galway play like this

June 1st, 6:00am May 30th, 11:49am

John McIntyre

Connacht Tribune

Inside Track with John McIntyre

Though the serious tests lie ahead and Galway hurlers find it excruciatingly difficult to win All-Ireland senior titles – they have six lost finals since their last triumph in 1988 – this could be the year when the Tribesmen go the whole way for only the fifth time in the county’s history.

For starters, this is arguably the most complete Galway team to hit the championship trail since the eighties and while they are potentially vulnerable in a Leinster final due to the lack of resistance – semi-final opponents Offaly will hardly keep it ‘pucked out’ to them – they will encounter on their way to Croke Park in July, we can’t keep qualifying what we are seeing with our own eyes.

Big wins over Limerick, Tipperary and now Dublin show how good Galway currently are and if some other team was running up the kind of victory margins that the men in maroon have been over the past six weeks, we would all be saying that they are setting the standard for championship glory. Even the Westerners’ biggest doubters are sensing that they are a different beast in 2017.

Last Sunday in Tullamore could have been a minefield for Galway if they were in anyway complacent or had got caught up in all the hype, and though Dublin failed to fire, the fact that the league champions coasted home with the minimum of fuss reflects well on the mentality of the squad. Players and mentors appear exceptionally well-grounded and they bare all the hallmarks of men on a mission.

You got the impression that Galway could have shifted into a higher gear if the need arose, while they now possess a lethal forward line that’s going to take some subduing. Sure, the team’s backs had moments of trouble against Dublin, but the way the game of hurling has evolved amid unprecedented levels of conditioning, a defender’s life is not an easy one.

We are not going to be a hostage to fortune and insist Galway are going to win this year’s All-Ireland, but no team is going as well as them at present, while the hunger, ambition, experience and overall quality in their ranks makes them a formidable package. Individually, David Burke, Joe Canning, Aidan Harte, Padraic Mannion and Conor Whelan are setting the standard, but their colleagues are also rising to the challenge.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.