Big occasions are so hard to come by you just want to win everything
TRIBE’S MANNION ON PURSUIT OF SUCCESS
PADRAIC MANNION has revealed the ruthless mindset that has seen the Galway hurlers break the mould.
Not surprisingly it mirrors the approach of the most successful county of the modern era – Kilkenny under Brian Cody.
Just short of a year ago, Galway ended a 30-year wait when they lifted the Liam Maccarthy Cup. Now they’re back in the All-ireland final again, determined to retain their title.
Mannion insists that before the 2017 decider against Waterford he did not feel there was a “massive burden” on himself or the younger men.
He explained: “Obviously it was there a small little bit, that it was so long. But even this year, after winning last year, it doesn’t matter – you still really want to win it.
“Even the Kilkenny teams when they were winning everything, winning the previous year didn’t really take away from their want to win it the following year.
“They’re so hard to come by that, while you’re here playing, you just want to win everything you can. You take it game by game, year by year and try win as much as you can. You can take confidence from success that you had previously but ultimately that doesn’t guarantee you more.
“The mindset you need is game by game, even training session by training session, when you break it down.
“You hope that you’ve no regrets at the end of it like, ‘I should have trained harder, won more’.
“You hope if you give it everything then you get a bit of success along the way.” Mannion talks about building on the experience of making it to last year’s final and what Galway have gone through this summer in the new Leinster round-robin series and the replay victories over Kilkenny and Clare.
“You have to take confidence from that but I wouldn’t say we’re fully relaxed,” he stressed. “There’s expectation on us but it’s on Limerick as well. When you get to this level, it’s kind of the same for both.”
Manager Micheal Donoghue’s men are where they planned to be after ensuring they celebrated the 2017 triumph.
But Mannion believes it was important to embrace the achievement before getting back down to business.
“It was great,” he smiled. “Fantastic. We just went with it. I know other teams before were straight away thinking, ‘We have to win it again next year’.
“But we were conscious that we wanted to enjoy it and embrace everything that was going on.
“It’s an amateur sport. People are putting their lives on hold for it. When it was so long as well, it was only right to enjoy it.
“Once the winter and January came it was kind of back at it again. It was automatic.”
Like the rest of the Galway players, Mannion has relished the demands of extra games in the summer months.
Last year it took the Tribe five games to win the All-ireland but if they complete a successful defence, it will have taken nine games – 10 if it goes to a replay tomorrow.
Mannion smiled: “As players you just want games, we’ve really enjoyed it. After one game you just get ready and go again.”