HAVE Galway’s mental scars from their agonising Leinster Final loss to Kilkenny healed? That’s the key question ahead of their All-Ireland Senior Hurling quarter-final against Tipperary at the Gaelic Grounds on Saturday evening (6:15pm).

Nobody can be certain until their latest championship collision with Tipperary unfolds. The Galway camp will have dissected the causes of that defeat to the Cats, especially the build-up to Cillian Buckley’s dramatic winning goal, and try to cleanse that shock to their system as quickly as possible.

Talk is cheap, however. It’s only reasonable to assume that the pain of being nailed on the line by Kilkenny still lingers, but Galway’s challenge is to channel that emotion into a highly charged display against Tipperary. Their pride has been stung and motivation shouldn’t be an issue.

Galway’s priority will be to serve up a more even display than was the case against both Dublin and Kilkenny in the provincial championship. Finding themselves 12 points down against the Dubs is unacceptable for a team of their talent, while going from five points up to eight behind against Kilkenny underlines the wild swings in form associated with the Tribesmen.

If Carlsberg were doing consistency, the Danish drinks company wouldn’t have the Galway hurlers on their shortlist. The legacy of this erratic streak is that none of us can be sure what to expect from them at the Gaelic Grounds.

But it’s not today or yesterday that Galway were prone to peaks and troughs in matches. When they hit form, it’s arguable that they are as good as what’s around which makes their lull periods all the more frustrating. We saw both sides of Galway in Leinster.

The reality is that they can’t afford to let their standards slip so much against Tipperary. This is a knock-out game and Galway have surely absorbed the tough lessons of their Leinster campaign. The defence is being caught too far up the field, while their attack needs a better conversion rate.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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