Tipperary remain ‘standard bearers’, warns Micheál Donoghue
The county’s 10th Division 1 title couldn’t have come much easier than this but Donoghue was insisting the team they felled were still “the standard bearers, the team to beat and we’re under no illusions about that”.
He added: “We’re delighted with the win but we’re still very, very conscious of the year and trying to get our ship in order. We had the win and the margin was wide but there’s still a lot to work on now over the next couple of weeks.
“I know after today everything will be exaggerated again but we just have to keep these boys on the ground and stay working hard. As I said, there is a lot of work that we need to take on and while Tipp had an off-day today they’re still the All-Ireland champions.”
After a sixth win in a row, Donoghue did acknowledge Galway can look forward to their Leinster quarter-final against Dublin with optimism.
“Winning is a habit and we’re trying to feed the habit as much as we can. It’s going to be good for our confidence but May 28 still isn’t far away.”
Donoghue’s side became the third in as many years to win the league crown from Division 1B.
Asked what that meant, he shrugged that he wasn’t the man to ask but then added: “From my limited experience last year I thought Division 1A was cut-throat every week. A lot of pressure for teams to perform — get a bad result, get a good result the following week so you are under pressure to get results.
“With ourselves in 1B, every game was still hard but the objective was to stay in the league and get as far as we could and get to the quarter-finals and push on from there.”
Defender Pádraig Mannion extolled the strength of the Galway panel.
“There were a few changes there, Paul Killeen came in today again. There’s any amount of lads on the sideline who could pop in and pop out, it wouldn’t make any bit of difference. You saw Seán Loftus coming on there.
"We’ve a bit of a panel there now. If one lad comes in or one comes off it doesn’t make much difference. You just keep fighting your own corner and keep going.”
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