Ennis to prove true test of the Tribesmen

WELCOME to the minefield, that will be the reaction of the Clare public to Galway’s hurlers for their All-Ireland qualifier in Ennis this evening.

For years, the Galway hurling public has complained about the fact that under the old system, where they invariably kicked off their championship season with a game against a sacrificial lamb before entering the qualifier maelstrom, they didn’t have a genuine second chance.

Well, this year, even after their introduction to the Leinster championship, you’ll still hear complaints up around the Corrib. Galway kicked off with another easy win, against Laois, but were then drawn against Kilkenny in the Leinster semi-final. They put up a superb display but went under eventually, victims of a brilliant 10-point late run by the All-Ireland champions. Their reward for that display? Second out of the hat, an away draw against Clare, in Cusack Park. Ochón, ochón went the cry, but they’ll get no sympathy in Ennis, nor in any other Munster county.

What has happened to Galway, you see, is what has been happening to all the southern teams for years — out of the frying-pan and into the fire. Take Clare as an example. They too put up a heroic display in their provincial semi-final loss, came back from a nine-point deficit to almost deny Tipperary. This isn’t exactly going to be a picnic for them either. A minefield, that’s what you enter when you’re forced through the backdoor of the All-Ireland qualifiers, and Galway’s Joe Canning is only too aware of what now awaits them in the visit to their next-door neighbours.

“It’s going to be tough,” he said, speaking at a ‘Get Your Back Up’ campaign launch. “Any time you go to Clare, it’s very rarely you get a win. Over the last 10 or 12 championship matches against Clare at senior level we’ve only won two or three (Clare actually hold an 8-2 advantage, with one draw, in the total of 11 championship meetings), so that statistic speaks for itself. Cusack Park is a pitch where the crowd is almost in on top of you, and the Clare supporters are very vocal, they get behind their team. After their performance against Tipperary the last day, that’ll add on another couple of thousand to the support and it’s just going to be very tough to block that out and try concentrate on our own game. But that’s all we can do, we’re hoping that the Galway support will come out as well and lift us a small bit. It’s almost like Munster in Thomond Park — Clare very rarely lose a championship game in Ennis.”

This is a knockout game now with all safety nets gone, but if that isn’t incentive enough then Galway can draw on the memory of a couple of years ago, the 2007 qualifiers, when again they went to Ennis, only to lose by a couple of points (2-10 to 0-14). The qualifiers at the time operated on a league basis, and Galway had already secured their spot in the All-Ireland quarter-final, but that result seemed to have an adverse affect and they went on to lose heavily to Kilkenny. Canning wasn’t on the Galway team at the time, he had declined the invitation on the basis that at 18, he was still too young. However he was an interested observer that evening and it left an impression.

“That was a terrible result. Galway were expected to win it and I suppose there was a lot of talk before the match, which didn’t help. That’s something we need to rectify, we need to win this game. For the guys that were involved in 2007, I suppose they felt it didn’t go right for them that day, and any match you lose, you want to beat the team that beat you the day before. That’s going to be the thing for us, to try and win the game, first of all, that’s all we’re concentrating on. But it’s a new year, it’s a new game; I don’t think we’ll be talking about 2007, there’s a lot of new guys since then and a new management also. We’ll be concentrating on this year and this game alone.”

There is huge pressure on Galway, huge expectation again in the county, but as Canning points out, Clare in Ennis are a serious proposition. Young Colin Ryan came forward in the semi-final loss against Tipperary and showed himself to be a major upcoming talent, they have size, strength and hurling, most evident in centre-back Brendan Bugler and centre-forward Diarmuid McMahon. They’re a solid team and if Tony Griffin works out in midfield, if Tony Carmody can put in a good 70 minutes at wing-forward, Galway could find themselves in real trouble here.