‘WE HAVE THE BELIEF. WE’RE GOOD ENOUGH TO DO THIS NOW’

Galway skipper is up for a tight, ‘difficult’ battle with Premier men

DAVID BURKE understands why this Galway hurling team can’t escape its past.

The current generation are standing on the shoulders of giants in the shape of the double-winning crew of 1987-88 and there is no getting away from that sense of history, not when the search continues for the Liam MacCarthy Cup.

It is only on landing the big one that Burke acknowledges the conversation will change.

‘It is, really. It will keep going until we can stop that. I think they want us to do well. They aren’t begrudging us as well, if we win that they are going to lose their sense of greatness – they aren’t. In my eyes, they will always be great.’

So far this year, Burke has formed a close double act with president Michael D Higgins, the former Galway Lord Mayor having an obvious grá for this bunch of players.

Each time the Galway captain has lifted a major trophy — first the National League and then the Bob O’Keeffe Cup in Leinster — a certain poet, scholar, academic and statesman has helped to cradle it aloft. There is one more trophy left to go. Until that happens, the image of Conor Hayes on the steps of the Hogan Stand in 1988 will remain a frame of reference.

‘We talk about it a bit,’ admits Burke of the county’s last success. ‘Obviously you admire the lads that did it. That time it was back-to-back. It is more frustration, for me anyway it is. We are definitely good enough to do it.

‘I think the general public in Galway sometimes can be a bit soft. That seeps into the players and the panel as well. It is just a matter of getting that overriding factor away from the players, just getting them believing that they can do it. That can be a slow process at times, but I think we are in a good place to do it now.’

Until the torch is passed on, the achievements of another era will continue to be the measure. ‘It was probably no different in Clare in ’13 from the teams in the ’90s. They have all become serious leaders, that team in the ’90s in Clare. It is kind of the same in Galway as well. Every time Galway go well they go back to these lads and look for their insight. It is just time for us to step up, to deliver a performance that is good enough to beat Tipp.’

In the build-up to the League final against Tipperary, the reigning AllIreland champions were held up as the team to beat. That all changed when Galway routed them to the tune of 16 points. And yet Burke describes it as a far from complete performance.

‘It wasn’t really, no. We were disappointed with some of it, a lot of shooting we had that day, myself included. We hit a lot of aimless ball in the first half; it was only Jason’s goals that separated us at times.

‘I suppose when it came to it Tipperary were that small bit flat and tired after going a few weeks in a row. We pulled away in the end. ‘This is going to be a difficult game. There is nothing separating the sides. As we have been saying before last year, and the year before there was only a puck of the ball in it. I can see it going no other way. They took a lot of criticism in the last number of weeks, they are going to be up for it, but we are going to be up for it as well.’

The last two semi-finals have put fresh gloss on the cliché of only a puck of ball between the sides, Galway edging the 2015 semi-final by the tightest of margins until Tipperary repaid the favour last year. Burke has painful personal memories of the latter’s endgame.

‘I still have the memory in my head of missing the point chance to bring it back to one point. I thought we’d get a draw out of it. If we got that draw, I think the belief that it would have given the rest of our forwards, the fact that Joe [Canning] went off injured, we’d have been saying “right, yeah, we can do this ourselves”.

‘The talk all the time in the media is Galway don’t have a team outside of Joe, but we do. We’ve serious forwards there and you could see it the last day [against Wexford in the Leinster final]. I think that would have given those lads massive belief if we’d have gotten over the line to go on the next day again.

‘You can see that even in our play this year, it’s a whole team effort. We’ve been building on that the last couple of years. Look, Joe is a massive team player as well, and obviously we’re going to need him playing well the next day if we’re going to get over the line. He’s moving well again in training. We’ll be hoping four, five or six of the forwards will be on top the next day.’

The sweet-striking midfielder knows that the League final offers all the motivation the All-Ireland holders need.

‘It won’t be a big factor for us, but obviously will be a huge motivation factor for them coming into the game. They will obviously want to put a few things right, but they have a few things to work on, no more than ourselves. They will be focusing on themselves coming into the game.

‘The couple of players they’ll have back will be a big bonus for them, the likes of Bonner Maher – he got through a serious amount of work the last day, unseen work. He makes the forward line tick.

‘We took the view that they were too good of a team to just go away like that, we knew they would be back. Whether we would be meeting them in August or September we knew we would be meeting them at some stage.’

Winning the Leinster trophy for the first time since the historic, breakthrough title of 2012 was an important stepping stone, for this team, although the nature of Galway’s outsider’s status meant the celebrations were a bit muted.

‘Yeah, I think the fact that Galway isn’t a Leinster team. I suppose the sense of belonging to that Championship isn’t really there. The fact that we won that time, it wasn’t really, “oh yeah, we won a cup at Croke Park”.

‘The last time, I suppose, there was a big crowd from Galway there as well. Any time you win a trophy in Croke Park is a good day. Look, I think everyone in Galway knows the thing they want and they know what we want as well as a team.

‘That is to get to September, to have a crack at it again.’

‘It’s a whole team effort. We’ve been building on that for last few years’