Greatness shines in Canning’s bold salvation effort
JOE CANNING stood motionless as pockets of green erupted in joy all around him, the drawbridge on 45 years of anguish finally lifting. It’s a spot in Croke Park that Canning is wholly familiar with in these clutch moments. Six years ago he stood over a free on much the same patch of ground and delivered the equalising score from 45 metres to earn a replay with Kilkenny. But this time the distance was more than twice that in the other direction.
He had 100 metres to cover, everything in the locker even for a striker of such sublime quality and distance as he is, and the knowledge that anything short, or off, would settle this quarrel there and then.
Few doubted his capacity to find such range, especially those green hordes terrorised by the thought of 1994 revisited as an eight-point lead, established after Shane Dowling’s goal, had pushed them to what felt like the point of no return with just two minutes of normal time left.
But this is hurling and this strange and wonderful summer still had a twist in the tale.
Eight minutes of injury time had been added, justified with the injuries that forced James Skehill, Mike Casey and Richie English out, an inviting call to arms to a Galway side to keep pressing and probing. And they did just that with goals from Conor Whelan and a Canning rocket from a free distilling it all down to one last long-range missile for salvation.
That it fell short, allowing Tom Condon to gather and clear for victory, just exchanged one stellar storyline for another. A beautiful one at that as Limerick, at last, washed away all that misery. Otherwise, we’d be toasting one of hurling’s great individual rescue efforts.
There were times in the first half when Canning looked off the pace of the game, Declan Hannon sweeping in to intercept in front of him on 27 minutes to pop a score for a four-point lead perhaps illustrating that best.
But the manner of his second-half leadership – his three points from play and that goal from a 20-metre free on 74 minutes especially – should live long in the memory for Galway, reminiscent of what Henry Shefflin did in 2012 for Kilkenny without, of course, the complementary outcome.
He’ll finish the season without a second All-Ireland medal but surely a second ‘hurler of the year’ award, scant consolation but ironic after another championship campaign without a goal from play, something once considered his staple diet.
“A phenomenal hurler, a phenomenal leader. Just an incredible hurler, one for the ages,” said Limerick manager John Kiely respectfully afterwards. “And I don’t think anyone should hold that (last) shot against him, that’s for sure.”
“His character and leadership qualities can never ever be questioned,” added Galway selector Francis Forde afterwards. “And the same goes for a lot of the players we had out there.”
Indeed, nothing went right for them while Limerick pulverised them in physical contact, knocking them back with a ferocity that Galway themselves have been renowned for over the last two seasons.
Their physical dimensions were of little value to them as collisions developed everywhere, Limerick full-forward Seamus Flanagan throwing himself around like a wrecking ball, Kyle Hayes too taking no prisoners under the dropping ball as Canning found out to his cost at one point.
It was Flanagan’s challenge on Pádraic Mannion that led to Limerick’s first goal, a ball off Graeme Mulcahy dipping beneath James Skehill, who would later be withdrawn with concussion picked up after smothering a Flanagan shot, and then spinning viciously up off him before crossing the line.
At every turn, Galway seemed disorientated. Even their implacable full-back Daithí Burke looked at odds with the day.
At one stage in the second half, Whelan delivered a crossfield pass that Joseph Cooney couldn’t track as it fell from a grey sky, eventually dropping behind him and out over the Hogan Stand sideline.
If anything summed up the chaos it was that. But their credentials as champions have been impeccable and they summoned the resolve to eventually rise above such dysfunction.
“Everyone who’s played the game knows that whether it’s an All-Ireland final or a junior club game, you have days where things will simply not go your way. But I think it’s a true test of character that lads stick at it and try to get something and try get some foothold in the game,” said Forde.
Galway manager Micheál Donoghue chimed with a similar theme, how his team had relinquished their title with honour.
“The third goal was the killer,” he suggested. “We had a bit of momentum coming and just that third goal rocked us. But they worked themselves back into the game again.”
Once again possession was stripped from them as Adrian Tuohey, in receipt of a short puck-out as he had
been for much of the day, losing out under pressure from Limerick substitute Peter Casey before another replacement, Dowling, put it away.
“The plan was obviously to work it out from the back and go through the lines. I’m not going to fault our boys for it,” recalled Donoghue.
“What we achieved together and where we want to go, this huge unity, huge trust, huge collective in that group and they’ve shown massive resilience down through the years when they’ve had setbacks and I’m sure they’re going to bounce back again,” he suggested. “We just seemed to be struggling to get into it.”
The sobering reality for Galway is that, over the course of more than 80 minutes, they probably lost 10 to 11 of the individual battles that unfolded. And yet they went so close with so much going wrong.
Johnny Glynn never got the ball inside to make an impact while the game passed Cathal Mannion, Conor Cooney and even Whelan by for the most part. Only David Burke and Pádraic Mannion consistently rose above the mediocrity.
“When you see our lads with handling errors like that, you don’t come to expect that,” said Forde. “It was just one of those days that if we had ducks they would have drowned. No matter what we tried, and the boys tried everything on the field, but sometimes your touch is off and you can’t find a reason for it.”