Canning: it’s time for Galway to deliver

WITH Kilkenny crowned National League champions in Thurles last Sunday after an epic battle with Tipperary, a new All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship season is about to start but it’s a championship with a difference, in one province particularly.

Over many decades now there have been complaints both inside and outside Galway about the lack of any real provincial championship action for the western county. Before the advent of the backdoor system, when they won – as they did in 1980, 87 and 88 – it was said their passage to an All-Ireland semi-final was too easy; when they lost, and even after the advent of the backdoor, the complaint was they were coming in untried. Those arguments fall by the wayside now; after an unsuccessful period in the 60s in Munster, Galway are back in serious provincial action again, but this time, in Leinster, against Laois in Portlaoise on Sunday, May 31.

They came in by invitation, but, as Galway captain Ollie Canning well knows most pundits see Galway as the only realistic challengers to Kilkenny, though their welcome is far from universal.