It’s all about finding the right formula, insists Silke
At least that's the theory, according to team coach Sean Silke, who joined the management at the start of the year after having been involved with the intermediate team since the mid-nineties.
Specifically, it's a matter of getting the balance right between club and intercounty competition, something he feels Galway didn't get right last year and which manager Conor Hayes himself has acknowledged.
Silke feels Galway's recent experience mirrors the experiences of the teams he was involved in from the mid-seventies, which were quite competitive but lacked the cutting edge of the stronger counties.
He remembers them "getting a dressing down" from Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final of 1975 and was reminded of when he saw Galway suffer in similar circumstances in last season's qualifier game.
"The Kilkenny team that Galway met were on the rebound from losing the Leinster semi-final and they were very advanced. They were very big individually and as a team they were very strong.
"We didn't have the answers and we didn't have the preparations for a game of that nature,'' he said.
The League this year was helpful up to the point that they tried out a lot of new players and gained some promising results.
It meant that coming into the round robin series they had certain ideas about the "main structure" of their team. However, due to injuries and players suffering dips in form, they have had to continue striving to get the "shape" right.
With the actual line-up not due to be finalised until tonight, he conceded that they could go into the match with "an untried" team: "It might be their first time playing together, but we have tried out the players in different positions.
"We're going into the match with a certain amount of hope, that the team will fuse together. A lot of the current crop of players would not have been around in 2001 in the semi-final against Kilkenny or the final against Tipperary so it's a big occasion for them.''
Asked if he believed that Galway will be better prepared than they were this time last year, he responded: "I'd like to think so, because of a few things that were done this year.
"We have always had the challenge in Galway in terms of our isolation do you have your club games right up to date, concurrent with the county team being involved or not?
"Last year after the League, after fellows went back to their clubs it was hard to re-ignite the whole thing. You had a situation where some players got distracted a bit and focused a bit more on the club.
"What we have tried to do this year is get more of a balance you depend on the club to infuse a bit of confidence and for the county to try and mobilise them together as a team.
"We mightn't have the formula exactly right, but we are working with that shape. I can't compare to other years when I wasn't involved, but it's a big challenge to get everyone playing together as a team.
"It's about finding the right formula for Galway and that's evolving in the light of the changed structure of the championship.''
Silke says he was very impressed by Tipperary's second-half performance against Cork in the Munster final, believing that they were close enough to winning the game. And, in respect of their more demanding campaign in Munster, he had no doubt that they are "the form team" coming into the game.
"They had two games against Limerick, then they met Clare and played the Munster final. We have not been exposed to that type of competition, the closest was our match against Limerick.
"You could say that Tipperary got a return in the second-half against Cork for a modest effort. And that's a concern!"
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