Helebert explains Canning thinking

Much has been argued over what Joe Canning said a couple of weeks ago about Henry Shefflin and his unsportsmanlike efforts to influence the referee in the drawn All-Ireland final.

In the week that’s in it, however, it’s worth revisiting. Here’s what Galway selector Tom Helebert said on the overall import of Joe’scomments.

“On reasoned consideration on what Joe said he was genuinelytrying to reflect a point that we hold very strong as a group of players in Galway, that Kilkenny have so many role-models that we want to be like and aspire to beat,” he said.

“The point he was making was Henry is willing to fight tooth-and-nail for every ball, forevery call, for every decision, to make things happen. And at hislevel, so he should. He has been the best hurler in the country for the past nine years, almost without dispute. For Joe Canning at 23 to aspire to be like Henry is an admirable thing in Joe’s make-up. We can see in the way he trains that he wants to be successful. The commentary that came out in the aftermath honed in on one moment in the total interview that maybe under-represents the essence of the point Joe was making. Has it done damage? Not at all.”

Hopefully it has not done damage, neither – in the very narrow sense – to Joe Canning himself, nor to the wider Galway-Kilkenny relationship. In two championship meetings this year, the Leinster final and the drawn All-Ireland final, the spirit has been exactly as it should be portraying hard, sporting games.

It would be a pity now to see that spirit soured and all involved in the Galway management setup are at pains to emphasise the respect everyone within the squad has forKilkenny and Henry Shefflin inparticular.

This isn’t to suggest that Galway are intimidated by the All-Ireland champions. Far from it. They pay due respect but there it stops and none better than Helebert to draw a line under that.

He is from a family and tradition that bends the knee to no-one and, charged with having the Galway players in the proper frame of mind, his attitude this week is firmly focused on the positive.

“The easiest thing for us to make them feel like winners was to repeat to them that they are not losers.

“We keep repeating that message. We have beaten every team in the championship so far this year and we are the only team in the country right now that are unbeaten. That is the biggest statement we can make in training night after night after night. And the guys understand it, they feed off it now.

“They train, we train to be winners. That’s our training motto and nothing will change that.”

Nothing much will change either in Galway’s approach to the replay.

“Our opinion would be ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it’. We have a game-plan, a game process and a group of players capable of playing the hurling we played in the first 35 minutes, notwithstanding the five-minute lapse before half-time when we gave away three critical scores.

“We know the ability we have in the group. We know the pace we have, the skill we have, the touch we have. We know we can play hurling with a bit of width and a bit of speed. We know that troubles Kilkenny. Both teams brought that little bit of tension to Croke Park the last time in respect of us trying not to get blown away and in respect of them trying not to concede a big lead. There is as big an onus on them now to stop us going into a big lead as there is for us to stop themblowing us away.

“There was as much doubt in their head as there was in ours so we both have a lot to work on.”