Cunningham craving Galway consistency

Anthony Cunningham and his two selectors had yet to sit down before the first words were out of the Galway manager’s mouth.

“Ye might share the questions around lads. We’re all a bit hoarse.”

Perfectly understandable. After so many disappointment, so many defeats and so much devastation, Galway hurling had something to shout about again yesterday but Cunningham, Mattie Kenny and Tom Helebert were not exactly crowing about it.

“It’s no use winning today unless we get consistency,” said the former Roscommon manager. “We’ve reminded everyone we’ve always had great days here in semi-finals and whatever and then failed to turn up. We do need consistency.

“That’s the big challenge for us, for our players and our management, and we’ll be looking to put that record straight. It’s a big message we’ll have for the next four or five weeks. It hasn’t been there and we’ll work on it. That’ll be our new mantra.”

It’s an understandable message given the county’s schizophrenic up-and-down nature this last 20 or so years but there was a recognition too that this one should not simply be filed away in some sterile folder until it is thoroughly digested.

Underage honours have continued to be accumulated with a monotonous regularity by Galway but yesterday marked their first piece of silverware of any distinction at a senior level since they annexed an eight National Hurling League title back in 2004. David Collins played that day. So did Damien Hayes. Everyone else on this Galway panel was experiencing senior success for the first time in their lives and for Collins and Hayes a Leinster title was probably worth a handful of league crowns.

Helebert agreed. “It’s very important because, if you take some of the more established players we have on this panel at the moment, they have not been very successful in terms of silverware. Lads like Damien Hayes, Fergal Moore, Tony Óg Regan and Cyril Donnellan.

“Even Joe Canning at this stage. He has a lot of hurling done without any rewards for it in terms of medals so today is an important day in that regard.”

It was by no means perfect.

Galway will rewind the tape at some point this week and wince at the succession of wides they struck in the final quarter — five of their 11 on the day — and be thankful of the lead they had already established.

That such waywardness was not more costly was a tribute to their ability to withstand the inevitable push from Kilkenny after the break when the Leinster and All-Ireland champions whittled a 16-point deficit down to eight.

“The one thing that Kilkenny can do is get goals that win matches and we had seen that in the league this year with Dublin which was a tremendous game when they were down a lot of points,” said Cunningham.

“Probably through faults of our own, forwards and the middle third losing the ball, we conceded the goals. You probably couldn’t blame the defenders but we were very happy with the responses to them. We got points. Damien Hayes and Cyril Donnellan got immediate scores after them which steadied the ship.’’

Maybe the extent of their achievement had yet to dawn on them or perhaps everything that happened had unfolded just as they expected but there was precious little laughter or exhilaration emanating from the three wise men.

Was it impossible to enjoy such an occasion?

“Ah well, we do enjoy it,” said Kenny. “We wouldn’t be gone every night of the week if we didn’t enjoy it. Our bread and butter is on the training ground. You’re on the training ground preparing teams to give a performance on the day. That’s what drives us on.”

And on to an All-Ireland semi-final.