Galway and Cork like playing each other... maybe too much

With Cork having owned this relationship for over a century, it is now 2008 since the Leesiders last edged Galway in a championship clash. Even League clashes since then show a slight head-to-head edge for the westerners, ahead by seven wins to six, albeit Cork have taken the most recent four.

The most recent championship meeting was the 2022 quarter-final. Cork left Patrick Horgan on the bench and left 3-12 behind them in the first half alone. There was a gift of a Galway goal in the opening minute and a one-point holdout at the end.

Given the transformation in Micheál Donoghue’s line-up this season and the voluminous influx of kids, you’d assume the number of red survivors from four years ago would be far greater, but the difference based on those who saw provincial final game-time four weeks ago is only two, 12 to 10.

That 2022 quarter-final also stands as the closest contest of the five-game winning Galway run, with Cork 12, five, 12, and seven points adrift on the four previous occasions.

Joe Canning was central to four of the five wins. He was also a central character on the Saturday night in 2008 when 14-man Cork toppled Galway and finished Ger Loughnane's failed tenure in the process. The then 19-year-old announced himself on the senior inter-county stage by accounting for 2-12 of Galway’s 2-15 total in Thurles.

“It also bred the wildest of expectations for my future. I’d been the youngest player on the field that day, and despite Cork winning, mine was the name in every headline,” Canning wrote in his autobiography.

His book also housed a revealing insight into why Canning’s team enjoyed such a dominant streak over Cork at summertime.

“Throughout my career, I loved playing Cork because it was always pure hurling against them, whatever the level. They were never overly physical. In fact, the All-Ireland qualifier loss to them would prove my only championship loss to Cork at any grade from childhood to retirement.” 

It’s a theme Canning has also picked up on in an Irish Times column, mentioning in one 2024 dispatch how he always viewed Cork as “fragile” during his playing days.

“Throughout my Galway career we always regarded Cork as fragile. Nice hurlers and all that, but not a team to be afraid of in a close game, going down the stretch. I think I lost one championship game to Cork – and I’m talking about U16, minor, U21, senior.” 

Ben O’Connor was Cork’s top-scorer with 0-12 for that last downing of maroon 18 years ago next month. His previously articulated views of those in the west, while not as unflattering as Canning’s of Cork, certainly couldn’t be deemed complimentary either.

Back in 2020 when assessing Cork’s qualifier prospects against Tipp, the now manager likened his native county to Galway when lamenting their inconsistency.

“For years we used to be saying with Galway, you wouldn't back them or you wouldn't back against them, and Cork are gone like that,” Ben told the Irish Independent.

A further head-to-head positive for Galway followers to cling to on the journey across the M6 this Saturday morning is the semi-final relationship with Cork in living memory.

From 1975-85, the counties met in five All-Ireland semi-finals. It wasn’t just that Galway took the verdict in 1975, ‘79, and ‘85, it was that they stunned the favoured red opposition on each occasion.

PJ Molloy was the sole Galway hurler to start each of those against-the-head semi-final victories. His impressions of Cork, as told to this newspaper last year, were not too dissimilar from those of Canning’s.

“I always loved playing against Cork because they always played good quality hurling. You threw in the ball and whoever got the most scores won the match, that's how it was against Cork in 1975 and ‘79. In 1985, the weather played its part in that it was a terrible day, but I always liked playing Cork.

“That's one thing I always admired Cork for, the quality of hurling they play. There was no negativity in their play ever. They didn't go out to stop someone from hurling. There was no second marking of a player,” he told the Irish Examiner ahead of Cork's 2025 de facto league semi-final thumping of Galway.

Molloy recalled in the same conversation how the reigning champions did not travel for the '85 semi-final. Indeed, after Noel Lane finished to an empty net on 56 minutes to extend Galway’s advantage into double-digit territory, 4-11 to 3-4, Michael O'Hehir, in what proved to be his last match commentary, offered a perfect summation of the shock afternoon.

“And what a marvellous reception Noel has got from the people that are here. They're nearly all Galway, Cork didn't travel. They were waiting for the final. Now it looks a long way off.” 

There’ll be no repeat complacency on Saturday. The crowd of 8,205 will be multiplied 10 times over for yet another sell-out fixture involving the Cork hurlers.

It won’t, mind, be the sheer outnumbering that was witnessed for last July’s Cork-Dublin semi-final. Galway interest in this fixture was of such strength coming out of the Leinster final that the county board asked clubs to accurately gauge membership demand to ensure last week's ticket allocation was fair and satisfying.

Galway never fancied standing opposite Cork on the championship’s concluding day. The head-to-head in that instance is a red landslide. Semi-finals, though, are a different story in this tete-a-tete.