‘Steel’ was additional ingredient, says Anthony Cunningham

Galway manager Anthony Cunningham believes the manner of his side’s semi-final win is worth three-years of “development work”.

Cunningham pointed to the character and steel of his team as the crucial components in the county’s first championship win over Tipperary since 2005. The ghosts of last year’s qualifier collapse, he added, had finally been exorcised.

“That result is huge,” he stressed.

“It’s worth two or three years of development work. You can work in the gym and in the winter and summer, but you don’t get that experience until you’re out there and it’s a draw match going into injury-time and you have to get the last ball to win it.

“I know the character of the lads, I know their ability, their skill and their courage. We’re picking up experience along the way too. This is a young team and you only get experience out there in a tight battle.

“Shane Moloney came on there, missed the first one, which was probably scoreable, but he had the composure to hang around and wait, and he got the breaking ball for the score.

“Shane wasn’t on the league panel, he wasn’t fit enough. Shane went away, worked tirelessly and then presented himself. We played Wexford in a challenge, brought him to make up the 15 and he got two or three goals. That point today will bring him on a ton.” Cunningham continued: “This was a game that had everything. We had a sucker punch at the start but we hurled really well.

“We were winning in more positions than them after that but then we had a sucker punch again, Seamus Callanan, then a third one. We came back from that, there were fantastic saves on both sides… a penalty over the bar, a penalty on our side saved by the Tipp goalie, a super save.”

Amid all of that, however, Galway refused to lie down. Back they came after each “sucker punch”.

“I suppose this year we tried to add a bit more steel.

“We looked at that very methodically and tried to teach a lesson that you have to keep your shape in hurling.

Seamus Callanan was described by Cunningham as unmarkable and when pressed on the lack of cover provided to full-back Pádraig Mannion, he replied: “We wanted to keep three backs, it was man-to-man out there. Tipperary are great to get goals, we saw that last year. We have loads to work on.”

As was the case in 2012, Kilkenny again provide the final opposition.

“Guys down in Galway this year… there wasn’t massive belief there. Now it might run away with itself. You won’t get that in Kilkenny. We have got to learn from that. We will be using the lessons of 2012 and all the points you saw out there today will hopefully stand to us.

“The clear message that Eamon O’Shea is after leaving with us is that the losing dressing-room is no place to be in Croke Park. We will bring that with us and we will need to improve. Kilkenny will be hot favourites and will deserve to be.”