If the Tribe Shea to their strengths they can earn glory this season
COULD Eamon O’shea bring the x-factor to Galway?
When I consider who is most likely to topple Limerick this year, there is no one county that comes to mind straight away, and so I considered who could be that little bit different. I landed at Galway.
I’ve never bought into the talk Galway are streaky and inconsistent. Take the last couple of years; they’ve gone very close to winning a Leinster title, particularly last year when they had it all but won.
They had Limerick in trouble in the first 25 minutes of the Allireland semi-final but then fell apart. In the previous year’s semi they went all the way and were only beaten by a puck of a ball.
So do you call that inconsistent, not good enough, unlucky or just missing some vital ingredient? I’m inclined to lean towards the last one.
When a team puts themselves in good positions to win games, as Galway have done repeatedly, well at least you know that you have something to go to war with. So you’re looking for the one-percenters here and there to push you to the next level.
I have no doubt Henry Shefflin has gone after those, looking both within the camp and without. He’s in his third year and will be on thin ice if there isn’t a marked improvement in 2024.
When he looked outside the circle, he decided to call O’shea. I’ve never worked under Eamon or even met him, so I can’t talk with authority on what he brings to the table but I do know the Tipperary lads who he coached worship the ground he walks on.
Exploiting space up front appears to be his speciality and we know Galway have some talented forwards. But have they really maxed out over the past few years?
Shefflin wouldn’t be putting all this time and energy into Galway if he didn’t believe there was potential to achieve something and while they have a number of very experienced players, they also have a stream of young talent approaching their prime.
And I believe St Thomas’s winning the All-ireland infuses some extra confidence into the county set-up.
In Leinster, with all due respect to the other teams, there are four counties – Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny and Wexford – fighting for three places.
All the hype is around Munster and while their round robin is fierce, don’t forget the final day drama in Leinster in 2019 and again last year.
It’s too simplistic to dismiss the Leinster Championship. Kilkenny have been in each of the last two All-irelands after beating Clare, who are ‘closest’ to Limerick.
Galway have at least matched Kilkenny in the last couple of seasons and pushed Limerick to the brink.
They now have one of the game’s great strategists in their camp as they go to Thurles to face his native county on Sunday.
There may be a phoney war feel to the League but we can still find nuggets of information in it, and I’ll be looking to see if Eamon O’shea has brought something to Galway that they’ve been missing for the past few years.