Corofin heap the pressure on Walsh

BY pretty much any objective assessment Kevin Walsh is doing a remarkably good job with the Galway senior footballers.

The All Star winning midfielder took over a side a decade or more adrift and turned them into a competitive force again. The soft touch became hard to beat. They knocked Mayo off their perch. Reached a league final. Qualified for an All Ireland semi-final.

On both big Croke Park days last season Galway fell short to the four in-a row winning Dubs – no shame in that. It was a really good year for the maroon and white and, yet, the plaudits haven’t exactly been flowing in Walsh’s and Galway’s direction, have they?

There’s a certain amount of frustration with Walsh from the casual fan and the neutral. How can a manager with such talented players at his disposal, play such prosaic football? How can the steward of Galway’s tradition so wantonly abandon it?

Walsh, no doubt, would point to the hard figures, to wins and losses, to their improved position in the league and standing more generally, but the feeling nevertheless persists that the Tribesmen won’t make the step to the next level without evolution if not revolution.

It hasn’t helped Walsh’s case either to have Corofin out there playing the type of football that they do. Yes, the club game is different, less intense physically with a little more latitude for expansive football, but it’s hard not to look at Corofin and wonder... what if?

What if Walsh let his men off the leash? What if Corofin boss Kevin O’Brien was handed the reins of the Galway senior footballers? That’s probably not going to happen – not in the short term at least. O’Brien will probably give at least another year to his club in a bid to claim an unprecedented third All Ireland senior club title in-a-row.

All the same for Walsh the very fact of Corofin’s existence and their continuing excellence stands almost as a silent rebuke to the direction he’s taken Galway in. It’s not fair – nor is it in any sense anything Corofin are doing by design – nevertheless it exists.

Still if it nudges Walsh towards a more expansive game-plan, you wouldn’t complain, would you?