Comer using Keane blueprint for success

IT is a long way from Saipan to Salthill, but Damien Comer has been able to join those dots with a little help from Roy Keane. Comer recently attended a fundraiser breakfast in Loughrea, in aid of the Galway ladies, where Keane was the guest of honour. It proved to be an illuminating experience and a timely one for Comer as he leads his Galway team into a new phase, which will stresstest their ambition as much as their ability. The question, starting with Sunday’s mouth-watering clash with Kerry, is whether they see the Super 8s as a prize or a pathway to greater things. Listening to Keane reflect on Ireland’s sporting civil war left no doubt in Comer’s mind which way they have to view the next four weeks. ‘I was very impressed,’ admitted the 24-year-old Galway captain. ‘Some of the stuff he had to say, even about Saipan, was very interesting. ‘He wasn’t happy with the standards. He went to Saipan and he hadn’t a pitch or balls or anything like that for training. ‘They felt they were just happy to be qualified for it and no aspirations to go any further. It would be like us now if we were going to the Super 8s and we didn’t bother bringing balls or anything,’ muses Comer. Now regarded as the best out and out full-forward in the game, Comer, alongside the likes of Shane Walsh (right) and Enda Varley, has been the catalyst in a season which has already seen Galway reach the League final and win the Connacht League. He is hoping that isn’t the end of it, but Sunday will provide a measure of where they are at. It is 53 years to be precise since Galway last beat Kerry in a game of Championship ball but form suggests they go into Sunday very much as their equals. While they lost 12 months ago at the same stage to Kerry, their failure to convert three clear goal chances made it a lot easier for the Munster men than it should have been. And when the teams met earlier this year in Tralee, Galway’s one-goal winning margin would have been far greater if they had converted the four other three-point chances they created. ‘That is the ruthlessness needed to beat the top teams and when you get these chances you need to take them,’ he said. Roy Keane could not put it better.