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Hurling

hurling

The west is awake again

David Burke lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup on Sunday.

David Burke lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup on Sunday.

By Paul Keane

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Joe Connolly sat on a panel with four other Galway hurling legends last week for a local radio discussion about the All-Ireland hurling final against Waterford.

The 1980 All-Ireland winning captain enjoyed the experience but also agreed with a point made by Noel Lane, a fellow panellist, that it was time for younger heroes to step up and replace them.

"He made the comment that, 'look who is up here on this panel; Joe Connolly, Conor Hayes, Cyril Farrell, Pete Finnerty, Noel Lane - we're fed up of being the spokesmen for Galway hurling'," said Connolly, the only member of that quintet not involved in the county's previous All-Ireland final win in 1988.

That new generation of Galway icons finally emerged on Sunday as David Burke captained the team to just a fifth All-Ireland win.

Connolly met Burke at the team hotel on Sunday evening and embraced him warmly. "I said to him, 'Welcome to the club of All-Ireland winning captains from Galway - there's only three of us alive'," revealed Connolly, who believes they are well placed now to win more titles and make up for lost time.

"I think that Micheal Donoghue has brought a new mental toughness to the setup. I was confident on two fronts going into the final; number one was that we had gotten consistency.

“I think the final was our 11th or 12th game in a row to win and, secondly, Micheal had brought Clarinbridge to an All-Ireland club final and, by a mile, the best performance by that Clarinbridge team was in the All-Ireland final, where you'd expect that nerves and other things to be a bother.

"Myself and himself had lots of chats over the years before he ever got the job and you'd always think there's something about this guy. I think we're right up there now with the best management setups in the game.

"It's up to us in Galway to put the structures in place so that this won't be a one off."

Connolly refused to sugar coat the situation over the last 29 years or so, describing it as particularly difficult at times. "We haven't been ambitious enough, we haven't been hungry enough in Galway," said Connolly, a selector for a period under John McIntyre. "We're a rich county, there's plenty of employment in Galway, there's two third-level institutions.

Former Galway selector and captain Joe Connolly.

Former Galway selector and captain Joe Connolly.

"We have a quarter of a million of a population. We shouldn't be picking up All-Irelands every 30 years. The reason we haven't been winning them is that it's our own fault.

“Our standard going forward, in both hurling and football, needs to be excellence. We were long enough just happy with being in the middle and when you're that way there isn't a hope."

Connolly feels that, deep down, Galway's rivals haven't feared them over the years though he believes Sunday's win will change that.

"I think we had to earn the respect of the hurling counties on Sunday, I think we had to earn the respect which we had lost," he said. "As much as hurling counties would say to us, 'Galway are there or thereabouts', I think deep down they thought, 'we'll always be able for those lads, when the heat of battle comes on'.

"That's why I think that the statement of winning, and of the minors winning, and in the performance of the Under 21s, which I took an awful lot from because it was their first game out against a really good Limerick team, it was all important. I'm just glad, in the soul, that this question of our character was answered. And it's up to us to go forward with it now."

Galway selector Francis Forde admitted that the current panel of players simply weren't prepared to lose another final.

"I know that was in the commentary from the players, that quite simply they were not going to let that happen again," said Forde. "I know that was said between Davy Burke, Johnny Coen, Joe Canning, even out on the pitch, 'this is not happening again'. I think that pain, that hurt that these lads have been through, that probably drove them over the line in the end."

Forde said that when the present management team took over they acknowledged the county's past failings but were quick not to make any guarantees about success.

"You had to admit that as a player, things didn't go well for us and our generation," said Forde. "You could dwell on that or you could just say to the players, 'look, we don't have all the answers'. And that was kind of the message, but we'd do our utmost to look for those answers together with the players."

Galway supporters will hope that the management team remains in place to defend the MacCarthy Cup in 2018. "We haven't even discussed that," said Forde. "The objective was to come in to try to get Galway back to an All-Ireland final and if we got there then we absolutely had to do everything in our power, players and management, to get over the line and win it. In a few weeks' time, we'll sit down to see what the future holds."