WALSH WONDERS
Galway footballers plotting a course to be the headline act
THEIR status as the poorer relation will be reflected again this weekend when they will be reduced to raising the curtain for their hurlers, but the big stage may not be too far away for Galway football.
Their first win in 15 years over Kerry has left them on the cusp of an Allianz League final appearance and it will become more likely if they defeat Monaghan in this Sunday’s early throw-in (12.30pm) at Pearse Stadium.
However, the limelight, on Sunday will be hogged by their hurlers, as usual, who will take on Limerick in the main event where the prize up for grabs is promotion to the small ball code’s top tier.
When you are the All-Ireland champions, the contrast with the journey that their less celebrated footballers are on the brink of completing, qualifies as small potatoes.
It is worth remembering that before a ball was kicked this spring, Kevin Walsh’s team were a hot tip to return to the League’s second tier where they had spent the previous five years.
They were 25/1 shots to win the League for the first time since 1981, and while that is still a longshot — given Dublin’s form —if they win a fifth game on the bounce, they are all but in the final with two games to spare.
A win over Monaghan, along with last Sunday’s success over Kerry, would leave them a minimum of four points clear with just two rounds left with the significant buffer of having a better head-to-head record against the only two teams that can catch them.
That they have reached this point by the end of February is impressive, but it is the manner in which they have done so that suggests there is more than momentum at play.
The danger with good League form is that it can hoodwink you into believing that you are better than you actually are. Galway need not look far to heed that warning; it is only two years since Roscommon reeled off four wins in a row to qualify for the playoffs, but finished the season in a heap. A brutal hammering from Kerry in the League semi-final sent their season into such a tail-spin that by the season’s end they had to endure the break up of their management team.
That’s a fate, though, that Walsh and his newly appointed coach Paddy Tally should avoid because Galway’s improvement over the past couple of seasons has been incremental, and is now rooted in structure.
The indication is that they have already ridden the learning curve, with lessons from their last two Championship exits to Tipperary and Kerry having been taken on board.
They conceded north of 20 points in both of those games, revealing once more the perceived soft centre which has damned Galway football since their last All-Ireland win in 2001.
It is early days but Tally’s hard-nosed pragmatism is already evident in how they play when they don’t have the ball, not in just getting bodies back but in doing so with such purpose that they have yet to concede a goal this spring.
Their average concession rate is running at under 12 points a game and when you are leaking so little, then it makes the job at the other end much less challenging.
There is a changing of attitude, too. The suspicion for an age now is that they had been irritated by the ‘too nice’ label which still applied prior to Walsh’s appointment in the autumn of 2014.
Not anymore and that was never more evident in their last two outings against Mayo and Kerry —two counties who serially bullied them in the past.
Indeed, in the aftermath of unsightly scenes at the end of the Mayo clash in Salthill, Walsh may privately view the €4,000 fine his county board has been forced to pay with some pride if it serves as a reminder that the days of Galway backing away from a scrap belongs to the distant past.
It was evident again last Sunday when, just as they had menaced Aidan O’Shea a week earlier, they appeared to target Paul Geaney.
Three black cards later and noone was in any doubt that Walsh’s team had shed their ‘nice guys’ clothes.
But the bottom line as to why Galway are making strides this spring is that they are simply delivering on the promise that has always been there.
Last year, their Under 21s were expected to be little more than cannon fodder when faced down by Jack O’Connor’s multi-talented winners in the All-Ireland semi-final, but they simply crushed Kerry.
The leading figures in that team have thrived this spring.
Seán Andy Ó Ceallaigh has brought the physicality to the full-back line, which was missing last year when the unfortunate David Walsh was torched by Kieran Donaghy.
Ó Ceallaigh kept the brakes on Dublin’s Con O’Callaghan in last year’s U21 final and he has shown enough already to suggest that was no one-off.
Midfield has been an issue for Galway ever since their manager hung up his inter-county boots, but Peter Cooke has forged a promising partnership with Paul Conroy in the middle of the field.
And Galway’s defensively structured game functions because they possess the speed to counter, not least in another of those U21s Seán Kelly, who along with Shane Walsh and Éamon Brannigan can singe grass.
Add in the power of Damian Comer and Galway are a team who can function working off a diverse gameplan.
And the best may be yet to come. Another of that U21 team, the excellent Michael Daly, has yet to feature this spring while their flawless start been achieved in the absence of their Corofin players.
All in all, there is enough in that to believe that their days of playing support are all but over.