‘It’s sure to be a special day’
delighted for that bunch of boys inside. ‘They’ve exceeded my wildest expectations and we have a day out. ‘I was coming down the road this morning, coming from the gym and I was driving down to meet the boys. I saw the Clare flags and the fellas togged out. It’s the first time in a long time I felt, this is great, that they’re going to do that. ‘I’ve said it… we have a lot of genuine supporters, we have supporters that are on our back all the time but 99 per cent of our supporters are great. ‘The way they got behind us today … as I keep saying, give the team a chance. ‘We’re hurling in the third week of August. A lot of people wouldn’t have thought that and I’m very proud of the boys that are in there.’ He glanced towards his dressing room and mused: ‘My mother’s a Limerick woman… I’ve massive respect for what they have done. The atmosphere after the Munster final was great. ‘We’ll be trying to beat them, they’ll be trying to beat us. We know each other well. I don’t think there will be much in it but it will be an occasion. ‘That occasion in Dublin will be something special. We look forward to it. ‘We’ll be going in as underdogs, which isn’t too bad for us. But we’ll be fighting hard — we have a bunch of fighters.’ For Galway boss Anthony Cunningham, the inevitable questions. And a straight answer, too: he wants to stay on. The former Under 21 All-Ireland-winning boss has served two seasons in charge but has another year to run. When asked if he is anxious to remain at the helm, Cunningham responded: ‘Oh absolutely. We are in it because we love it and we would have to say the county board, the hurling board and management structure that is there, is tremendous and I have to thank them this evening even though it’s difficult times.’ He added: ‘I mean, whoever is there it doesn’t matter, it’s the players that are there. ‘They win matches and I have the utmost faith in the hurling in Galway. ‘The club championship is very strong, the underage is very strong and these players are very, very strong players, and we will kick on from this.’ Cunningham admitted that Joe Canning’s overall display and missed frees were out of character. But he insisted: ‘Nobody is going to blame anybody in our camp. Days they go over and other days they don’t. He hit a bad patch there today.’ And Cunningham paid tribute to Clare, having met them on a thrilling upward curve. He said: ‘They are a fantastic young team coming through. ‘They would have been bitterly disappointed against Cork in the Munster Championship. ‘You know, [they] could have won it that day. Clare missed three or four goal chances early on, so we knew it was going to be very tough here today. ‘We are disappointed but we have to learn from here and move on. ‘We have trained even as hard as we did last year. The effort we’ve had from the 31 or 32 guys on the panel has been tremendous.’