Our road to redemption starts here
WHERE did it all go wrong? Fergal Moore isn’t wrapped around a former Miss World on a four-poster bed in a fivestar hotel with a bottle of chilled champagne on the bedside locker, but there are times this summer when he must have felt a little like George Best staring back at that confused bell boy.
Last September, their own supporters would hardly allow their feet touch the ground such was the appreciation f or a ground-breaking summer which saw them win a first ever Leinster title, and then rock Kilkenny to their core to force the All-Ireland final to a replay. The warmth they felt went beyond gratitude; it was also the latent promise that this year would be different and even better. The air has turned a bit colder since, both locally and nationally.
The backing soundtrack to their year thus far has almost been a constant whinge, and not just when they lose.
Moore, their 31 year- old- captain, could be forgiven for assuming that their season is already done; dead, buried and alongside Tipperary’s in the grave. It isn’t, though. In fact, results wise, they are coming off a better spring than last year and tomorrow they are the oddson favourites to take down Clare and move to within one game of a return to the final. Little wonder then that he casts a jaundiced eye on the perception that Galway are a team stumbling from crisis to crisis: ‘I suppose people will talk about second- season syndrome and that is always a risk but people said we had a bad League but we still reached a semi-final and I would class that as a fairly decent run considering we were in a relegation play-off last year.
‘The facts are that we showed up in the Leinster final off the pace and our performance was nowhere good enough and it wasn’t anywhere near the standards of last year and we paid the price.
‘We have not become a bad team overnight. We were on a great run last year and everything was great; we have one loss this year and suddenly it is doom and gloom.
‘When you are playing well and winning I don’t think you are as good as people make you out to be and on the other hand when you lose you are not as bad either. You are always somewhere in between and it is important to keep a balance and perspective on that,’ says Moore.
He is, of course, right to a point. Last year was not without its speed bumps — a 25-point mauling against Kilkenny i n the League when the wisdom of Anthony Cunningham was questioned in taking a cleaver to the squad he had inherited.
And that often referenced game, when they trimmed Dublin by four goals in a relegation play- off, wasn’t perceived as such a turning point when they leaked seven goals against Westmeath and Offaly on the way to making it to a Leinster final
It is not very scientific, but sometimes it really is about ‘on the day’ and Galway tomorrow are now at the same place they were when they eyeballed Kilkenny in last year’s Leinster final and put in a performance that electrified their whole summer.
‘I think one performance — for the supporters anyway — and the whole thing lifts again in the county,’ says Moore.
‘ Because one performance would get you through to the same stage as if you had won the Leinster final, you would be t hrough t o an All- I r el and semi-final.
‘In times past, you would have had nine months to lick your wounds and think about what you had done wrong and what you might change but, with the qualifiers, it gives you a second chance. Everyone is delighted to have it and motivated to make full use of it.’
RATHER than nine months, they have been given just three weeks to examine the scorch marks that Dublin left when they torched them by 12 points.
The inevitable post-mortem was held i n the immediate aftermath of the Dublin game, the findings, if any, kept within the room. It is hard to believe that it is entirely a personnel issue, although the perception lingers that there is a soft spine to their defence.
Kevin Hynes has endured a couple of torrid afternoons this season, most notably in the League semi-final defeat against Richie Hogan and against Dublin’s Paul Ryan, while you may have to go back to Tony Keady’s era for the last time they felt secure at No 6.
But those problems aren’t new, it was just that last year they found a way to protect themselves, mainly through a manic work ethic which saw their half-forwards drop deep, but it was a game plan that left them legweary and impotent in attack in the final quarter of big games.
There is no evidence to suggest that they have managed to tweak that game plan, but also no reason to believe that they are locked into such a bad form rut that they can’t find a way out of.
They have been here before, and the fallout from the Leinster final defeat might just be the spark they need to fire again. ‘You win together and you lose together. It is not all about the players or the management. For a team to be successful it is everyone, the whole backroom team, the hurling board, the county board; pulling in one direction. ‘We all took responsibility, we had to shoulder some blame for the performance in the Leinster final. The beauty is that we have a chance to redeem ourselves.’