Inside Track with John McIntyre

DON’T give up on the Galway hurlers. Yes, we know that will be a difficult message to endorse for some supporters given another big-day display racked with inconsistencies at Croke Park on Sunday, but the men in maroon are not that far away from doing something special this summer.

Of course, the Galway camp now faces a tough challenge to regroup after being agonisingly nailed on the line by a typically obdurate Kilkenny team in the Leinster Final. It was a stomach-churning defeat, especially as several players will be kicking themselves for not handling the Cats’ final assault on their posts much better.

When any team loses to a goal with the last puck of the game, it’s a killer. Shock and dejection are the two immediate emotions but as team manager Henry Shefflin said afterwards, the Galway players will need time to get the loss out of their system and that they simply must “go with it” in terms of recovering mentally.

Shefflin is a long time around and he knows Galway just can’t move on as if nothing negative has happened. If it had been a nip and tuck decider, their last-gasp defeat might have been a little easier to process, but when a team is after superbly rallying from eight points behind against the wind, to see all that effort go up in smoke is particularly disheartening.

Sure, Galway have made their task of winning the All-Ireland title much harder given that they are now probably going to have to take down Tipperary, Limerick and either Kilkenny or Clare, but it’s not beyond them provided they can stamp out those valley periods when they go asleep at the wheel.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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