Canning defends Galway mettle

JOE CANNING has said the former Galway players who slammed the current team were wrong to question their mental fortitude.

The two-time All Star yesterday admitted to reading the Saturday newspaper article in which ex-selector Brendan Lynskey and former managers Conor Hayes and Noel Lane heavily criticised John McIntyre’s side.

Some of their arguments appeared to be justified given the poor performance by Galway in going down to Dublin. But Canning defended his team and insisted they are not as bad as the six-point defeat suggested.

“I don’t know. I didn’t go back and read it again,” he said at an adidas boot launch yesterday. “I don’t think there is (truth in what they said). We’re not going out to play badly, we’re going out to win for Galway and we’re trying our best.

“I don’t think there is a lack of mental toughness or anything like that. We were well prepared for the game and we had chances during the game.

“Personally, I had eight wides and if I had half of them, we would have been a lot closer to Dublin. We only lost by five or six points.

“Looking back on it now, a bit of luck and if we had of taken half our chances we could have nearly won the game.

“The guys are wondering what happened but that’s life. It was just one of those days when nothing went right for us.”

Two-time All-Ireland winner Lynskey, a selector under Ger Loughnane, remarked the current crop of players are “a little bit on the shy side. Afraid to put up their hands or a little bit cowardly”.

Canning said Lynskey is entitled to his opinion.

“I don’t know, he said what he thought and you have to respect that. He’s been an All-Ireland winner with Galway and none of us are.

“You just have to take it on the chin.”

Getting back to Portumna from Tullamore that night, Canning retired to bed long before his parents called it a day.

The next day he was up early with a bag of balls and headed down to the local pitch. To iron out the wrinkles in his free-taking.

“I was supposed to answer questions in my own head the following morning so I just went to the pitch but it nearly was worse when they were all going over,” he revealed about the Sunday morning’s frees.

“I thought there might be something else wrong but it was just one of those evenings that nothing goes right and you have to move on.”

It’s a testament to Canning’s maturity that at the age of 22 he readily accepts most of the responsibility for Galway’s scoring woes on Saturday.

“I had the majority of chances compared to the some of the rest of the lads and I just didn’t take them. It was bad decision-making and if we had got closer to them at half-time, you never know, the game could have taken on a different life.

“Championship games like that come down to small decisions even in the first couple of minutes of the game.

“A lot of people say if a ball is waved wide in the last couple of minutes or whatever but the decisions in the first couple of minutes that people forget about (that matter).

“We’re not that far off. We’re working hard and we’ll hopefully give a good account of ourselves in two weeks’ time.”

The visit of Clare to Salthill gives Galway the opportunity to get back on track but after the brickbats thrown at Canning and his team-mates by Lynskey, Hayes and Lane, he knows capturing the Liam MacCarthy Cup is the only way to silence the team’s detractors.

“I think if we don’t do that... the big prize is still there and that’s what everybody sets out at the start of the year to try and win and we’ll be no different from now on in.

“We just have to refocus and get back to the drawing board.”

Canning has no doubt that Galway still see themselves as genuine All-Ireland contenders. “If you don’t have that belief that you’re going to win an All-Ireland, you might as well not turn up on Saturday week. It’s a pothole along the road and we just have to get over it and move on.”

Although Canning does not blame referee Michael Wadding for contributing to Galway’s defeat on Saturday, he questioned some of his decisions.

“A few of them were funny enough. We seem to not get what they got down our end but that’s the way he interpreted it and fair play to him, he’s human at the end of the day.

“It’s tough. On the frees count, I don’t think we were any more hard in the tackle than Dublin were. That’s just the way it is. It was our own missed chances that cost us the game, not the referee.”

Home advantage against Clare is a plus for Canning in the sense that they don’t have to go to Ennis. He doesn’t expect the Tribe fans to throng Pearse Stadium for the game.

“It’s going to be a bit of a help. The few supporters that we might have left will come out and support us. It’s going to be tough for us but that’s the challenge. I know all the guys and all the management will step up to that challenge and hopefully we can get over Clare.”

Hutchinson out of decider

WATERFORD full back Wayne Hutchinson will miss next month’s Munster SHC final against Tipperary after fracturing a bone in his hand in a weekend club game.

He sustained the injury while helping Ballygunner to championship victory over Passage East at Walsh Park on Sunday. Hutchinson played the full game but x-rays on Monday confirmed he had broken a bone in his hand, and is set to be sidelined for up to six weeks.

The defender suffered a torrid time against Limerick sensation, Kevin Downes, in the Munster semi-final win, and was substituted midway through the second half, after the Na Piarsaigh clubman scored a second goal.

Better news for manager Davy Fitzgerald however is that Fourmilewater’s Liam Lawlor has shaken off the injury problems that ruled him out of the last outing and has resumed full training.

He showed no ill-effects when helping his club defeat a fancied Ballyduff Upper and is set to contend for a start in the decider. All of the county players in action in the six club championship games last weekend came through unscathed, and now both senior championships have been put on hold until after the provincial final.

by John Murphy

Picture: SAY IT AIN’T SO: Joe Canning feels the frustration after missing a chance against Dublin at Tullamore last Saturday. Picture: Inpho/James Crombie