Plotting Tribe downfall from behind enemy lines

Before Alan Mulholland goes thinking otherwise, Joe Bergin doesn’t want him gone.

But when the player says the man hoping to plot the Tribesmen’s exit from the Connacht championship this evening is a Galway manager in the making, he means it. In Bergin’s opinion, it’s a case of when, not if, his former team-mate Kevin Walsh will take over his native county.

“Ah, definitely,” he gushes about the Sligo manager. “Alan’s not going to be in the job forever, hopefully he gets a few years out of it anyway.

“But there’s no doubt about it, Kevin is definitely a future Galway manager at some stage.”

Standing 6ft 7in, most people look up to Walsh but Bergin did so in the metaphorical sense as well.

When he started to figure in John O’Mahony’s plans in 2000, his midfield guru was the totemic Walsh.

“I came in at 19. He was a father figure to a lot of us, even to some of the more established players, the Padraic Joyces, the Michael Donnellans who were still only 22 or 23, they were relatively young as well. The likes of Kevin were a huge influence in the dressing room and on the field.

“It’s always interesting coming up against him as a manager for Sligo. He’ll have his homework done on us.”

Mulholland is paid his dues too, though. Bergin had been considering inter-county retirement before the start of the season. However, a pre-Christmas lunch meeting between the pair assured the Mountbellew man that remaining for at least another season was the best decision.

“Championship time is great and you would miss it. But I found the winter training tough. Thankfully now I got through that and I’m looking forward to the Championship. Given the last number of years, the way things had gone and the fact we’ve had no success, I was kind of wondering was it time to move aside and let some other fellas take up the helm. I was still only 30, it’s quite young. I know I have 13 years played or whatever it is but I’ll be long enough retired. I said maybe I’d regret it then.”

Mulholland, says Bergin, has Galway’s footballers playing the game with smiles on their faces again — the significance of which can’t be discounted.

“He wants us to enjoy our football. Training has been very enjoyable. There’s no doubt about it, our traditional style is the direct route. I suppose the more defensive role just isn’t in us. We have to play to our strengths and obviously there’ll be other teams out there that will set up to try and stop us and we’re going to have to adapt. I think he’s brought with him an All-Ireland winning team and an All-Ireland U21 winning squad. There’s a gang of young lads after coming in there and they don’t give a damn. They just want to play football.

“For us, the more experienced guys who have been around a number of years and suffered some of the bad defeats, it’s a great distraction.

“I think the whole set-up is very enjoyable. Alan trusts us to go at it and work hard and hopefully it’ll pay off.”