Aidan Harte impressed for Galway against Dublin.
By Cian O'Connell
Galway left Tullamore on Sunday evening encouraged and satisfied following a convincing Leinster SHC win over Dublin.
Aidan Harte, impressive throughout for Micheal Donoghue’s team, acknowledged that Galway were primed for the Dublin challenge following their Allianz Hurling League triumph. “One hundred per cent, they were 10 weeks getting ready for us, focusing on one team,” Harte replied when asked about the dangers of this particular contest.
“You could see from last week that three weeks probably wasn't enough for Tipp to get ready for Cork although there was only four points in it.
“There was a bit of fluency in our game and heads up hurling which was good. The sending off did kill it really, but we still had to see the game out. Thankfully we did.”
One disappointing aspect for Galway, though, was a knee injury suffered by promising LIT student Paul Killeen.
“It was very sad to see Paul Killeen there going off because I suppose other people wouldn't see it, but we are aware of the effort Paul Killeen has put in since last November,” Harte remarked.
“Hopefully it isn't as bad as first feared, we had John Hanbury to come on, other guys that come to mind like Tom Monaghan and Eanna Burke tried really hard when they came on. Apart from their scores their blockdowns and hooks were very important.”
Next on the agenda for Galway is a June 18 O’Moore Park, Portlaoise encounter against Offaly, who finished strongly to defeat Westmeath on Saturday evening.
“Definitely, they will be flying high,” Harte says. “They showed last night that they can go 74/75 minutes, they got 1-1 between the 73 and 75th minute, I was following it online. They gave us a sticky game in Portlaoise last year on a bad day, who is to say it will be any different in three weeks time.”
Matches arrived thick and fast for Galway in the latter stages of the League with Harte content with how the Tribesmen fared in Tullamore.
“We were spoilt at stages in the League with the Waterford game, the two Limerick games, and the Tipp game. It was great - week on week, we love playing matches.
“Coming into today we knew we only had two or three weeks together with the club games at home, Dublin were 10 weeks getting ready for us. We were under no illusions about what today was going to bring, luckily we came out on top, but we need to keep the ball rolling.”
