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Francis Forde: 'We knew that we had a tight bunch'

Galway selector Francis Forde pictured at the Loughrea Hotel & Spa.

Galway selector Francis Forde pictured at the Loughrea Hotel & Spa.

By Cian O'Connell

Francis Forde, the highly regarded Galway selector, acknowledges the 2016 Leinster Final loss to Kilkenny was an important day.

Galway suffered a disappointing defeat at Croke Park, but many valuable lessons were learned at GAA headquarters.

Following that encounter Galway's management team of Micheal Donoghue, Forde, and Noel Larkin were forced to deal with heavy criticism. "When you put your hat in the ring for this job, you are very conscious of the fact that if things go wrong, it is going to be management’s fault," Forde says.

"Going back to that one, we certainly got a lot of flak, but you take it on the chin. Did any of us lose any sleep over it? No, I don’t think so because if I remember correctly at the time, I would say we had three weeks to prepare for an All-Ireland quarter-final after we lost the Leinster final and the lads had a club match the week after a Leinster final."

Since then, though, Tipperary are the only team to better Galway in the Championship in the semi-final that campaign with a high level of performance attained in every crucial clash.

"I suppose the results would say that we have," Forde admits. "And I just think the lads themselves, you always learn more when you suffer a defeat. And we suffered a defeat again that year against Tipp, but we came out of that game, in '16 against Tipp, yes we had died' but we had died with out boots on that day.

"We realised leaving Croke Park that day that there was a massive spirit within the group. And maybe as a consequence of that Kilkenny match, when we were really tested because we were tested by what people were saying outside the group, we managed to get to a position where that didn’t infiltrate our thinking in any way. We knew that we had a tight bunch and a bunch that really wanted to go to succeed.

Galway manager Mícheál Donoghue and selector Francis Forde.

Galway manager Mícheál Donoghue and selector Francis Forde.

"The Championship performances last year, by and large, we are very happy with. But as I said, that is all parked and we are firmly focused on the next game."

In four matches so far this summer Galway have registered 7-89 and Forde is adamant about the willingness of the panel to make adjustments to improve further.

Conor Whelan's relevance to the Galway cause shouldn't be underestimated. "Like so many, he is just so keen to learn," Forde states.

"He's really dedicated to trying to improve his game, maybe different strings that he can add to his bow and so on. When you have a fella like that, and there's several of them, they just want to try to continually improve. "That's the attitude you want to have throughout the squad.

"And I would say the same for a number of them, they can probably be a bit hard on themselves if they don't have a performance that's up to the standard they set for themselves. That's great, but you don't want them to be burdened by that either. You want lads to have that freedom to go out and hurl.

"It's just a case of trying to put the foundation in place for them to go to do that. Yeah, look, he's a top player.

"His form in the Championship this year we would be very happy with. We hope that he'll be able to continue in that vein of form."