Galvin: we now have winning mentality
“We came out of Croke Park after losing to Westmeath in a very mean mood,” said John Galvin, who yesterday received the Vodafone Player of the Month Award for April.
“We were not dejected but we were hurting inside because we knew that we had left behind us a game we should have won.
“That’s where the anger and frustration was. The hate of losing is now not acceptable to us. We were back in training at 11 a.m. the morning after the Westmeath game and we were looking for a scalp, any scalp, to appease our hurt.
“People say we should have beaten Westmeath. We could so easily have done so. But, in my book, there’s no such thing as a moral victory. You either win or you don’t.
“We had to get our emotions sorted out. We are winners, no longer losers, and that has been the psychological drive since we won the Munster U-21 Championship in 2000. We lost to an outstanding Tyrone side in the All-Ireland semi-final but we no longer consider ourselves to be inferior beings.
“We needed to get that winning feeling again after the Westmeath setback and we desperately needed to do so at the expense of one of the big guns.
“We were confident we would beat Cork by a point or two and thus appease our anger and frustration at having lost the League final. But, I must confess, we never thought in our wildest dreams that our margin of victory would be so emphatic.
“We were determined to fight for this one. We challenged, harassed and kept fighting for the full 70 minutes.”
Galvin and his team-mates are not getting carried away by the success over the Munster champions. “We are not looking beyond our next match with Clare at Cusack Park. It will be a sell out crowd and we know that Clare will come at us with a vengeance.
“But we will have to take that in our stride. If we are to go places it is up to ourselves to achieve the goals we feel possible,” said the outstanding midfielder who decided to concentrate on Gaelic football instead of basketball.
Indeed, the sporting story of John Galvin reads like a fairytale. He represented Ireland in the European Junior Basketball Championships in 1998. But his prowess as a footballer was also recognised then and he went to play in Chicago for three months with St. Brendan’s. He came home for two weeks and then returned to the US for another two months.
His sporting career was then torn in two between basketball and GAA. But the 22-year-old from Croom, whose parents, John and Helen, hail from Kerry, decided that gaelic football was his destiny. He proved it on Sunday at Pairc Ui Chaoimh and much more will be heard of this young fellow.
Wexford’s Paul Codd received the Hurler of the Month Award.
Grandson of the legendary Martin, Codd is Wexford’s captain this year and proved to be a true leader as they completed their League campaign with an impressive victory over Clare and a draw with Kilkenny.
Codd scored an extraordinary 1-10 against the All-Ireland champions despite playing with a broken finger. Yesterday he revealed that the injury is coming along okay and he expects to be fit for Wexford’s opening Leinster Championship game against Offaly.
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