Cunningham raising bar for Galway

Galway hurling manager Anthony Cunningham isn’t a man for looking back and enjoying the past. His focus is firmly on the future.

Their first year in charge, Cunningham, Matty Forde and Tom Helebert coached and coaxed their charges first to a historic Leinster title win over Kilkenny before losing to Brian Cody’s men in an All-Ireland final replay.

With such a fine debut season behind them they’ve set the bar high. If progress is to be made, well, only an All-Ireland title will do.

A tall order but then again Anthony Cunningham isn’t in the business of setting low targets. Anywhere he’s been, as player or manager, he has been a high achiever.

And that approach will remain the same for Cunningham and all involved with Galway hurling in 2013.

“We’d have to be very happy with the progress but the challenge now is to repeat it — it’s not how well we did last season, it’s how well you do in your second year. Everything we’ve done in 2012 is worthless really if we don’t build on it and that’s what we’ve got to do now.

“Looking back on the year though we’d have taken what we got. A first Leinster title for Galway, an All-Ireland final and replay – those experiences will have brought on a lot of those lads.”

No shying away from the pressure to finally – after a wait of 25 years – deliver another All-Ireland title to Galway? “No, but we’re going to have to get better in our play if we’re to go on and win it. There’ll be a lot of teams out there looking for our scalp now. Everyone we play will be saying ‘well you’re the Leinster champions, All-Ireland finalists,’ and that incentive is there for them to beat us. We’re going to have to be ready for that, we’re going to have to improve again.”

Certainly Galway have shown the potential, their first half display against Kilkenny in the Leinster final was probably as fine a performance as any team put in last year. Cunningham admitted: “it was a super display and showed us that we can get to that level. We weren’t at our best then in the All-Ireland semi-final win over Cork but I think we got back up to that level of intensity again for the All-Ireland final and produced a very high level of play in the drawn game. We were extremely satisfied with that, not so satisfied with the replay. But overall it was a good year, a lot of the younger players got great experience and the older players got back into form. They had shown what they could do in 2005 and it was good for them to get back up there to Croke Park.”

One of the earliest decisions taken in 2012 by the top table was to completely overhaul the panel with a host of experienced players dropped and replaced with youngsters from the 2011 All-Ireland-winning U21 side.

Cunningham added: “We kept a very close eye on the club championship in 2012, especially on the fellas we have on the panel already, and we’re looking for at least another two or three players from that panel to come through and push for starting places. Then you have the likes of Jonathon Glynn, Conor Cooney, Joseph Cooney, who all played but we’ll be looking for them to take another step forward. We believe those lads have that talent, they’re examples of players that we’ll be expecting a huge push from. We have confidence in the current panel of players but having said that, we’ll also be looking at every player we think has the potential.”

The team departed for Dubai on their team holiday and on the return the focus will seamlessly shift to Sunday, February 24 and their league opener at home to Kilkenny. As usual Galway will be taking the league seriously but there is an even greater imperative this year to do well according to the manager.

“We’d like to reach the final stages, especially this year with our first championship game not taking place until June. We’d like to be in contention for as long as we can, even get to the final which has been pushed out to mid-May so we can try and build up some momentum for the championship.

” Having said that, we wouldn’t be looking further than our first match. It’s all very condensed again this year with five matches in a very short space of time — I think we have only a six-day turnaround between Cork and Tipperary. We’ll be hoping to do well, expecting to do well, but we saw what happened to Dublin who were relegated the year after winning the title.

“We were actually very, very close to reaching the league semi-final ourselves last year and lost out by maybe just one score, yet ended up in a relegation game against Dublin. That’s how tight it is in the top division. Definitely we’ll be putting our best foot forward, trying to do as well as we can, but every player on the panel will have to improve, in every aspect, and there’s no better place to do that than in the league.”

Already the plans are in train. “This team holiday to Dubai will be a working holiday, we’ll be getting in a few training-sessions as well. They’ll do a bit of training in the morning then be able to relax in the afternoon. After that, when we come back, it’s all systems go.”

Picture: ALL SET: Galway captain Fergal Moore with Aer Lingus crew, Edel Staunton, left and Suzanne McPartlan in Dublin Airport as the team set off for to Dubai on the team holiday. Aer Lingus are sponsors of the Galway Hurling Supporters’ Club. Pic. Robbie Reynolds/CPR.