By John Harrington

Galway footballer Gary Sice has hailed team manager Kevin Walsh for doing the ‘dirty work’ necessary to make the Tribesmen a competitive team again.

Sice believes that until Walsh’s appointment two years ago the Galway team hadn’t been given the ‘tools’ necessary to go toe to toe with a Mayo side that won five Connacht titles in a row from 2011 to 2015.

“Before we had a management team who didn't do the job in my opinion,” says Sice.

“They didn't give the tools needed to deal with a Mayo that were grinding out results and developing a machine.

“And they did develop a machine over a five year period, they dominated Connacht completely through organisation, through ruthlessness, through what I could only describe as bully tactics. They really played senior football.

“And the management team in place did not equip us. The two U-21 teams that came through weren't given the tools to live at senior and Kevin has now given it to them. He's given them a set of tools to play senior, and lo and behold they've turned around and beaten Mayo.

“It's not rocket-science really, is it? But it takes someone to come in and do that and do the rough work and do the dirty work and get it right and he has done that and I think he's onto something good.”

Sice is confident that Galway will keep improving under Walsh because the players are now benefitting from the sort of long-term planning that was marked absent in the past.

“I think we had a three-year period of management there where even as a management they were jumpy, they weren't in any way organised, they weren't in any way building something, they were just kind of hoping Galway football would take off, that's not what happens,” says Sice.

“Kevin has a very distinct plan in place, he wants it done this way and we're going to build this way and this is going to suit what we have. And when you have something like that and you can see where it's going, we got a marker of progress this year, a Connacht final, you kind of jump on ship and say 'yeah okay this makes sense we're making a bit of progress'.

“Hit a rock against Tipperary, took in a bit of water, didn't sink though. The group stayed together and we'll go again and see where we end up. Getting out of Division 2 would be lovely and a crack at Mayo in June in Galway would be a real marker again.”

Walsh steered Galway to their first Connacht title since 2008 this year but the Tribesmen  were brought back down to earth with a resounding thud when they were then well-beaten by Tipperary in the All-Ireland quarter-final.

Until that happened there had been loose talk in the county that they could come from nowhere to win an All-Ireland just like they had in 1998.

“It wasn't in the panel but it was definitely there floating around a bit,” admits Sice.

“That eventually Galway football was going to come through and we'd blitz someone. That's not what wins championships.

“You look at what Donegal did, you look at what Mayo are doing, you look at what Dublin did. You don't blitz someone once and win something. You have to build something concrete. And Kevin knows that and he's doing it.

“He is doing it. He's building from the rock-bottom up. And he is slowly getting us up there and is slowly making us into what I think will be a formidable enough team for a while to come. It's going to be hard to beat Galway, whatever about fleecing us like Tipperary did. You're going to have your hands full with Galway every time you play them now.

“And there's some more good footballers coming through. There's another bunch coming now out of the minors and U-21s that will be electric as well. Let’s hope they stick it out and develop into what we need.”

Despite that shock defeat to Tipperary, Sice believes that 2016 can be looked back on as a positive year for Galway with the potential for even better ones to come.

“Progress. I'd have taken it,” he says. “I had this conversation with a few people the Christmas before and said 'right what's the story? What are we looking for here? We've got Mayo in Castlebar first with Rochford over the team'. A two-point win would be a great start and then to clip Roscommon and play like we did was super.

“We definitely imploded against Tipperary but when you have a group of young lads coming together who've just achieved something quite often that can happen.

“We're not all negative, we're quite positive, we've had a meeting about it and take it from what it us. A lot of learning's done, a lot of confidence built up in the way Kevin does things.

“Sometimes when you have a new manager in you need an instant hit to get to get confidence built up around him, the older guys would've understood who Kevin Walsh was but I'm not so sure if the younger quantity would've totally understood who they were dealing with and now they've seen it and lived it with him, it could be the start of something.

“And quite often things go in cycles, Mayo have had a pretty long cycle, I think there could be a wheel turning with them, I think our group is getting a little bit older, a bit cuter and hopefully they can turn the wheel on Mayo.”

Prior to this year’s Championship, Galway manager Kevin Walsh estimated that 52 players turned down an opportunity to trial for Galway in his first 18 months in charge.

Sice believes the real figure is a good deal shy of that, but does think that a greater number of players will now make themselves available in 2017 on the back of the progress the team made this year.

“I think that was taken out of context which was maybe what Kevin wanted,” says Sice.

“When Kevin said it where he said it, it took a bit of limelight off things we were doing and it was a good idea and it worked out well.

“But I don't think it was a clear picture of what was going on around the place at the time. I think if he went looking and digging deep he wouldn't have found 10 that he wanted, never mind 58.

“I think at the moment things have changed, there are a lot more after surfacing. I won't say surfacing out of nowhere, they've been developing through the club championship for the last two or three years.

“These guys are coming now and hopefully they get into the League team and make some progress. Two or three more players could really swing things for us, make a really strong unit out of us. Panels are key now.”

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