Concentration left us down, says Hayes

ANOTHER day of what-ifs for the Galway hurlers.

Given their tremendous underage success and last year’s All-Ireland final appearance, hopes were high that the westerners could land the Liam MacCarthy Cup this season.

But Kilkenny survived a tremendous second-half fightback to leave the Tribesmen continuing to wonder that it takes to win the championship.

Inconsistency was one word haunting team manager Conor Hayes.

Said Hayes: “Apart from the opening 10 minutes we simply didn’t perform and left ourselves too much to do in the second half.

“Our first half display was abysmal and there is no better county than Kilkenny to put you through the wringer.

“We conceded two very soft goals which put too much daylight between the teams and we were playing catch-up from very early on.

“Our concentration left us down at vital stages and we made too many mistakes and paid the price.”

Credit to Galway — in the second half they cut a 17-point deficit to five, but Hayes was quick to point out that Kilkenny were down to 14 players.

“It meant the game opened up for us into the type of game we wanted,” he said. “Their defence were marking our forwards tightly but after they had a man sent off things began to go well for us, and we caused them a lot of problems when we were able to run at them.

“After scoring the two goals, we had a third disallowed for what I don’t really know, and had we pegged them back to just two points, anything was likely to happen. But you can afford to give Kilkenny a 15, 16, 17 point lead and expect to pull it back.

“Losing Fergal Healy when we did was a blow to us because he would have thrived on the open spaces which began to appear after Kilkenny had Derek Lyng sent off.”

Of Kilkenny’s All-Ireland chances, Hayes said: “People have being saying they are slipping back a bit, but I saw no sigh of that out there today. When they are in the kind of mood they were in today they are exceptionally hard to beat.

“We pegged them back today but the game will bring them on quite a bit.”