Iggy Clarke says Galway can use this chance as launchpad

“It’s all over, it’s all over. Galway are the National League champions, their third national league title and first in 24 years.”

Mick Dunne’s commentary at the end of the 1975 hurling league decider chimed in perfect unison with the frantic leaping about of Galway’s Pádraic Fahy. The corner-forward had just taken a pass from Marty Barrett when referee Frank Murphy sounded the full-time whistle at Limerick’s Gaelic Grounds.

Cue scenes of wild ecstasy.

John Connolly being carried shoulder-high by hordes of maroon-clad supporters was hardly surprising given the 4-9 to 4-6 victory over Tipperary brought to an end one of the worst famines in Galway’s hurling history. And there have been many, the current one included. Prior to that three-point triumph, not a single piece of national silverware had travelled west since the ‘51 league final victory.

The surprise win, achieved courtesy of a late PJ Qualter goal, brought the Tribesmen in out of the wilderness and put them firmly back on hurling’s map. It also served to banish the inferiority complex which had hamstrung the players for so long and more pertinently, gave them the belief that no county was beyond them.

The current crop, says ‘75 class member Iggy Clarke, are similar in many ways to the team which took to the field that afternoon in Limerick, not least because Galway also came from the second tier on that occasion to reach the final. Take out the survivors from the 2010 league triumph over Cork – Colm Callanan, David Burke, Joe Canning and Aidan Harte (corner-forward that day) – and none of the players to see game-time this spring have a national medal in their collection. Breaking that duck today, believes Clarke, could be the leap forward which propels the group to further glory come September.

“To win the ‘75 league was a real breakthrough for the team, for the county,” the four-time All Star recalls. “I was trying to mark Francis Loughnane, he was one of their top forwards at the time, and I remember I got a lesson in the sense that this is tough stuff, this is hard hitting and real quality hurling. I was black and blue after it.”

He added: “We had come from Division 2 and even though we had beaten Cork and Kilkenny in the quarter-final and semi-final, we weren’t expected to beat Tipperary. At the time, we were trying to establish ourselves and break the lean period where the county hadn’t won a huge amount for a good number of years. It was a good boost for us. We were able to say we had a national title behind us and that was the biggest thing for me.”

The majority of Micheál Donoghue’s squad can’t yet say as much. And for a team who fancy themselves as a cast-iron top four county, this is somewhat of a blight on their copybook, particularly given the other three counties in this group – Tipperary, Kilkenny and Waterford – have hoisted the league trophy or the Liam MacCarthy in the last two years.

“I was looking back at the quarter-final against Waterford and even the semi-final against Limerick and thinking this is a bit like ‘75, coming from where we did and starting from a low base. I know a lot of the team have a Leinster medal from 2012, but for me, you want to be winning national titles. The league is one of them. It shouldn’t be underestimated. People will say it isn’t the championship and they are correct, but if you look at it, a lot of top teams have won the league and gone on to win the All-Ireland. I don’t go with the argument that it is not important.

“To win the league would be a huge boost to them. They can say to themselves, ‘we have won a national competition, we are as good as anybody else’. They’ll obviously need to step up a couple of gears ahead of championship but they are well capable of doing so. They’ve been there or thereabouts the last couple of years. You could say they should have won an All-Ireland, but that is only talk at this stage. It doesn’t matter what you should have done if you didn’t do it.”

Clarke’s contention is the Tribes need this piece of silverware far more than the Premier men. Michael Ryan’s charges may be driven by a desire to put further distance between themselves and the chasing pack, their opponents, on the other hand, require visible proof they’re moving in the right direction – and away from the failings which have plagued so many Galway teams, namely they’re inability to deliver on the bigger afternoons in hurling’s calendar.

Since the beginning of the 2013 season, Galway have come up against Tipperary and Kilkenny on 18 occasions. They emerged victorious in four of those games. Of the six that were knockout – the 2013 and ‘14 league semis against Kilkenny, the 2014 qualifier against Tipperary, the 2015 and ‘16 All-Ireland semi-finals against the same opposition and the 2015 All-Ireland final – they came out on the right side once. They also lost three Leinster finals during this period.

“That is why it is so important for this team to bridge that gap and come out on top on Sunday, to be able to put back your soldiers and say, ‘we are as good as anybody else, we believe we are and we are going to show it’. That kind of breakthrough is very important for this team. At this level, there is no point being second best and coming out second best all the time.

“At the moment, Tipperary are probably the best team in the country. The game will give us a good indication of where the team are at. The win is far more important for us. To have a national title has to lend some confidence. If you are able to stand up to the top team in the country, that’s a good indication. Before when we weren’t in Leinster, the league was massively important. It is still important irrespective of that.”

What encourages Clarke, the Mullagh native was ordained during his playing days but left the priesthood after 17 years of service, is that management are almost at the finishing line in terms of nailing down their strongest team. Eleven players have started five or more of their seven games this spring. Joe Canning, Jason Flynn and Conor Whelan, meanwhile, started four games and were introduced off the bench in at least one further outing.

“There is a consistency about them,” he continues.

“There is very little experimentation. In the seventies, the team picked itself. That is what I like about this present set-up. The team is nearly picking itself. For the last few years, we were wondering who was going to be playing where. You could have said our forwards were strong and our defence wasn’t as strong. It has balanced up in the last while.

“Now, the last day, I would be kinda saying, maybe, we need more killer instinct, that the attitude would be, ‘this is my ball, you’re not getting it and if you do, you are going to sweat for it’. If we had a bit more of that, we might be able to make the breakthrough. I don’t mean that as a criticism, though.

“I think Galway are good enough to win on Sunday. You would have to say Tipperary looked formidable the last day. That is great for us. If we are to be as good and better, then we need to be beating them.”