Warning to Tribe - don’t count your chickens
THEIR League final exertions anticipated the rumblings to come in the Championship, but Galway make their summer entrance under tremendous pressure as a result.
The expectation is two-fold: their win by 16 points over Tipperary in the springtime decider stirred reservations about the defending All-Ireland champions that thickened into doubts following the tumult in Thurles last Sunday.
But the League final also made Galway the logical beneficiaries were Tipperary to stumble this summer, and with the fall of the latter against Cork, the presumption is that Galway will uphold the first part of their end of that process against Dublin today.
Presumptions have never fared well when shaped by the unreadable tempers of Galway hurling.
It is at their point of seeming strength that they have stumbled in the past.
In the matters of experience and power, they are capable of trampling all over a wan-looking Dublin, but the Galway manager Micheál Donoghue will understand that negotiating the challenge safely is their only task.
They are on the more sympathetic side of the draw and can reasonably anticipate a Leinster final place should they win through in Tullamore this afternoon.
It is an early test of their attitude.
Physically, they are the most impressive team in the game and look capable of grinding out an All-Ireland – but only if they are mentally robust, too.