WE HAVE TO SHOW WE’RE THE GRAIL DEAL
Quest for GAA’S ultimate prize has been fruitless for Tribe talisman
GALWAY great Joe Canning admits he believed he would have won an All-ireland winners medal by now.
Canning, 28, has played in two finals with the Tribesmen and they proved to be close calls.
It was his point that ensured a first replay in 53 years in the 2012 decider, but Kilkenny won the replay.
And the Cats proved a hurdle too far to clear in the final two years ago, though Canning scored 1-8 in the decider.
The talented Portumna man is still waiting to achieve the Holy Grail.
“I don’t know if it’s just naivety or something like that,” Canning said.
“When you are younger you think you can and you have a chance - you think you have a chance every year to win an All Ireland. We’ve had a couple of at it and it hasn’t worked out but you are always thinking you are good enough, because you wouldn’t be doing it if you didn’t think deep down that you were good enough.
“I thought I might have one, anyway.”
Naturally the disappointment and frustration has grown within Galway hurling – and within their talisman Canning - with each passing year.
It was no different last August when Galway went toe to toe with Tipperary in the All-ireland semi-final.
With Canning gone by halftime due to a serious injury, the Premier men emerged after a thrilling battle by a point - 2-18 to 2-19 and went on to break Kilkenny’s hopes of securing another three-in-a-row.
“It seems to be the story for the last few years,” sighed Canning.
“It’s been that close, but I suppose it’s better to be nearly there than be very far away, in a way. It was tough, watching it (the final). I wasn’t going to come here for it but then I got a ticket the day before the match.
“I was still in the brace and on crutches after surgery. “To be straight up about it, it’s not the best feeling looking at an Allireland when you lose a semishots final, and with a bit of luck you could be there.” He added: “You’d be kind of half-sickened, to be straight up.
“There’s no point in saying any other way. You become very selfish in those kind of situations and you’re kind of going, ‘F*** it, like, we could have been there, that could be us.’ But still, if we got to the final, you don’t know what could have been the result. Kilkenny could have beaten us.”
The Tribesmen also lost Adrian Tuohy just before the break in that semi-final.
And Canning insists that had more of an impact on the team than his own withdrawal.
“I think Aido’s loss was bigger because we’d to move a few more guys,” he remarked.
“It was a pretty straight swap for myself. You kind of go, ‘If we had everybody, maybe’...but you don’t know those things.
“It’s not feeling sorry for yourself in any way – it’s just frustration, I suppose.
“You’d like to be a part of winning. You see other guys winning so many – Kilkenny winning 10, 12, in the last number of years.
“And you’re kind of going ‘Jesus, if I only got one I’d be happy enough’.”