Galway captain says Bob will come out of hiding only if Liam turns up

Bob O’Keeffe is taking a break in the west this year and spending his summer in Galway.

However, don’t expect to see him out and about enjoying this very welcome spell of good weather. Poor auld Bob is in hiding at the moment and locked away in Anthony Cunningham’s wardrobe. In fact not since the day after he was presented to Galway senior hurling captain Fergal Moore on July 1, when the Tribesmen shocked Kilkenny and the hurling world, has this magnificent trophy been on display.

All very deliberate policy, Fergal explains.

“Bob O’Keeffe was locked away on the Monday morning after the match and he hasn’t been seen since,” he said. “Anthony has him.

“To be honest with you, it was a great occasion and all of that but that’s not the cup that we want, that’s not the cup that we were training for at the start of the year.

“It was great to win it. When you’re in a final you want to win it and we did, but it is very clear to us that this is just a step along the way. There is only one cup that everyone starts training for at the start of the year and if we win it we won’t be locking that one away too soon!”

That’s Liam MacCarthy of course, a far more modest trophy but with a far bigger significance. Tomorrow in Croke Park, against Cork, Fergal and Galway hope to take the last step on the way to that All-Ireland final.

The above attitude to Bob O’Keeffe and the Leinster title, however, isn’t in any way meant to denigrate that historic provincial competition. Quite the opposite and Fergal is absolutely delighted not just to win the final but to even have been invited into Leinster in the first place.

“Yeah, and I’ve said this before from a player’s point of view all we wanted to do was play matches.

“It was very tough in Galway for years when everyone else was playing good, hard championship matches and you were sitting on the couch at home watching them. You had to train to get to that intensity and then you were coming up against a team in the All-Ireland quarter-final that had a couple of good games under their belt, a team with momentum and confidence.

“From a player’s point of view any system that they came up with that got us playing regular big games at big venues was always going to benefit us and we’re delighted with the move to Leinster.”

The decision to ‘park’ Bob wasn’t out of any disrespect, it was simply a matter of one job done, bigger job ahead – much like Kilkenny’s attitude to the same trophy for years, in fact.

“It was very important that we got our feet back on the ground. In the aftermath of the match the focus was moved pretty soon onto the semi-final. We just came back to Galway, the tail of the Ocean race was on.

“It wasn’t a mad night. We went out and enjoyed ourselves but the preparations for the semi-final began on the Monday morning and it’s been all systems go since then.”

Staying with Kilkenny, Fergal sees another game against the Cats this year as more significant in Galway’s progression to serious All-Ireland title contenders, a 3-26 to 0-10 league lesson handed out to the visitors in Nowlan Park on April 1 last.

“We learned a lot about ourselves and things we can and can’t be doing. For a lot of your younger players who are in development, they got a real sight at what the standard is at senior inter-county hurling that day because a couple of them made very small mistakes and all a sudden the ball is in the back of the net.

“Especially our younger players learned an awful lot that day and they have used that experience to good effect.”

Used especially to good effect in that Leinster final, an intensity that simply swept Kilkenny away in the first half, at the end of which Galway led 2-12 to 0-4 – no way back, not even for Kilkenny.

Same again against Cork now tomorrow, that kind of massive intensity, that’s got to be the order for Fergal and his troops if they want Liam to join his old friend Bob in Galway. Otherwise, well, Bob could be coming out of the closet sooner rather than later.