Anthony Daly: Galway are capable of taking this championship by the throat

Galway's Conor Whelan and Mark Coleman of Cork. Whelan is a real leader for Shane O'Neill's side, Anthony Daly writes. Picture: INPHO/Ryan Byrne

With this being the first weekend of the summer open in our pub Murty Browne’s, I asked for it off from RTÉ co-commentary and analysis duty. Thankfully, we were up the walls all day Saturday and yesterday, but I was still intent on watching as much hurling as I could.

We have a TV in the beer-garden but, being based in west Clare, there was no way I was going to win that battle between hurling and football, with Clare and Mayo playing a Division 2 league semi-final in Ennis. The locals weren’t having any hurling on the TV ahead of that match, especially when the hurlers had played on Saturday. Any requests for England and Croatia in the Euros weren’t even entertained.

One of the real luxuries of being your own boss is having that flexibility and ability to steal some time when the opportunity presents itself. I would love to have watched Clare’s heroic display against Mayo but I bought Waterford and Tipperary on GAAGo, and nipped up to the house to watch it, before seeing the Cork-Galway game as a deferred showing on TG4.

In fairness to Cork, they played some devastating stuff in the first half and were full value for a six-point lead at half-time. A team like Galway are always capable of turning that kind of a deficit around but surrendering a five-point lead late on, before eventually losing by seven, has to be a concern for Cork considering the timing of a 12-point swing. Only scoring four points from play in the second half adds to those concerns.

I thought the battle between Darragh Fitzgibbon and Cathal Mannion summed up the match perfectly. Fitzgibbon scored four classy points. Mannion bagged 1-2, but he was far more influential, and certainly more creative in the amount of scoring chances, and scores, he engineered for Galway.

Cork clearly gambled with the match-up, hoping that Fitzgibbon would do as much damage as Mannion. Mannion seemed to inflict most of his pain on Cork when he moved into the half-forward line in the second half, but Cork still didn’t tie him down. And as his influence grew, so did Galway’s grip on the match.

Galway are such serious contenders now that they’re entitled to be the favourites for the All-Ireland alongside Limerick. There is serious depth to their panel but what has impressed me most is how many key leaders Galway have developed in the last year.

In 2017 and 2018, you could hand-pick Galway’s main leaders but the guys who are running this team now are the Mannion brothers, Conor Whelan, and Brian Concannon. More importantly, all the other main men are doing their stuff. More importantly even again, Joe Canning wasn’t even togged out yesterday. If he shows the form he displayed last week against Waterford, Galway are capable of taking this championship by the throat.

Cork won’t get carried away with this defeat but the biggest area they have to tighten up is their shape, not so much their defence, but just to ensure there is enough protection there to prevent them leaking the huge volume of scores they shipped yesterday.

Cork’s goalscoring has been a standout feature of this campaign but I’ve never seen Waterford with as much intent on scoring goals as they showed in Walsh Park yesterday. They only got two goals but they could have had a bagful more because they often only seemed interested in raising green flags when a handy point option was on.

Dessie Hutchinson scored a screamer last week against Galway, but his two goals yesterday were also top-drawer stuff. The only concerns for Waterford were losing Conor Prunty and Austin Gleeson to injury. They may only have been knocks but Waterford can’t afford them to be anything more than knocks or niggles two weeks out from championship.

Austin Gleeson of Waterford leaves the pitch after picking up an injury. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Tipp were lucky that the margin of defeat wasn’t much bigger because they really struggled to handle Waterford’s pace. Tipp will probably expect to meet Waterford in three weeks but, after yesterday, they might be hoping for Clare.

Yet if they are, they can expect a huge test there too. Anytime I’m going on a long drive with more than a half-tank of fuel in the car, I still always pull into a garage and just top it up with another €30. It would be easy to think ‘Ah, I’ll have enough to get me there’, but I rarely take that chance.

I always pull out of the garage with a real sense of satisfaction. Maybe it’s just that knowledge of not having to stop at a garage again for a while, but most of it stems from the security of looking at the fuel-gauge and knowing the tank is completely full.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that was how Brian Lohan was feeling on Saturday afternoon after Clare’s win against Kilkenny. I’m not suggesting that Clare’s tank is completely full now for the Waterford game but, after the early leakages against Antrim and Wexford, Clare ended their campaign full of optimism. Three wins on the bounce will give you that confidence but beating Kilkenny in a game Brian Cody and his crew will feel they should have won is all the more gratifying again.

Psychologically, this was a massive win for Clare. More importantly, it underlined the loyalty and unity this bunch of players have shown to the cause, and especially to a manager and his backroom team which were continually sidetracked by sideshows and distractions for most of the league campaign.

As if they hadn’t enough to be dealing with from the multitude of circuses created within the county, Lohan and the players were getting savaged by some lads on social media after the opening day defeat to Antrim.

The venom was even more poisonous after Clare surrendered an eight-point lead against Wexford seven days later but who is talking about any of that stuff now? Wexford subsequently got a right clipping from Kilkenny and Clare end their league as the only team to have beaten Kilkenny.

Nobody is going to run away with themselves on the back of this result. Kilkenny were already top of Division 1B. Clare are still 33-1 to win the All-Ireland. Waterford will be fancied to beat them in two weeks, but Clare still couldn’t be going into the championship any better than they are.

Wexford will also feel far better about themselves after Saturday’s win against Dublin. They got some brilliant scores while Liam Ryan was outstanding at full-back.

Mattie Kenny will feel totally frustrated. Dublin took too many wrong options. They had little or no threat up front until Liam Rushe went up in the full-forward line beside Ronan Hayes in the second half. Rushey did make a difference but that’s only probably thrown up more question marks than answers two weeks out from the championship match against Antrim. What does Mattie do now?

Laois and Westmeath will be asking themselves similar questions after winless campaigns but that is one of the real challenges of staging the league so close to championship. It’s not like the old days when you could have six to eight weeks after the league to get yourself right for the championship. Any team seeking confidence or momentum now has only two or three weeks to find it.

And find it fast.