REACTION: Tipp's Ryan rues missed chances; Galway boss 'delighted to get through it'

Eoghan Cormican looks at how both sides felt after yesterday's epic between Galway and Tipperary.

Galway reaction: ‘I am just delighted to get through it’

That 12 of yesterday’s Galway team have played in at least one All-Ireland final will be a “huge help” when the westerners return to Croke Park next month.

Defenders Adrian Tuohey and Gearóid McInerney and half-forward Joseph Cooney have no prior September senior experience, but manager Michaél Donoghue insists the team’s collective familiarity of All-Ireland final day will stand them in good stead.

“It’s a huge help,” he said. “They have massive experience, but I think the thing with them is that they just have something there, they just trust the process. Every game that passes, they are getting better and better and more confident. They are in a good place.”

With Tipperary and Kilkenny removed from the equation, there is a growing consensus that Galway won’t get a better chance than this to end the county’s All-Ireland title famine.

Donoghue knows he has a task on his hands to ensure the collective focus doesn’t waver between now and September 3. “There is going to be a lot of euphoria, a lot of hype and going on about it being our best chance and so on, but my job and the rest of the management is just to bring the boys back and make sure we don’t change or deviate from what got us here.

“I’ve alluded to it many times: They are driving it themselves. They have a huge hunger, a huge desire. We keep challenging them and saying to them, the good experiences and the bad experiences, they have to draw on those. Hopefully, that will stand to them going forward.”

Donoghue’s worst fear of a third consecutive August shootout between the counties played out. Thankfully, from his perspective, it was Galway who were still standing when the game “of cat and mouse” had come to an end. That they were was largely down to Joe Canning’s 74th minute wonder strike. Indeed, Canning was the sole Galway hurler to score from play beyond the 41st minute.

'I was lucky it went over' - Match winner Joe Canning on his last-gasp score pic.twitter.com/oXIexoD2kW

— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) August 6, 2017

“When he gets the ball in that position, there’s a great chance it’s going over. In big games like that, big moments are defined by your big players and he really stood up to the mark at that point.”

On the Portumna man’s performance as a whole, Donoghue said: “In the first-half, it was probably bypassing him a bit and in a game like that, you want your big players on the ball. We moved him inside because there was a lot of ball going in in the first-half. It just seemed that wherever he was, the sliotar wasn’t going to.

“In the second-half, it was just a case of bringing him back out to midfield, get him going through the lines and get back into the game again and he came up with a few scores.”

Two other players who stood out were McInerney and 20-year-old Conor Whelan. The latter finished with four points from play. “Gearóid had a savage second half. He has been really underestimated. His own journey over the last 16, 18 months has been phenomenal for us. We put him in centre-back and he’s really flourished in it. He is a great character, really strong-minded.

“The biggest thing Conor brings is his attitude. Once the ball is thrown in, he just works and works and works. He knows no different. If you show that attitude, you will get your just rewards.”

Having been edged out by the bare minimum at this very hurdle 12 months ago, for Donoghue, the overriding emotion was relief. “I looked up at the clock at one stage during the second-half and there were 64 minutes gone. I just remember thinking, ‘Where did the time go?’ Obviously, it’s a realisation that it’s nip and tuck and it’s going to go down to the wire. I am just delighted to get through it.”

Tipperary reaction: Ryan rues chances that got away

So, 2016 becomes yet another Tipperary All-Ireland to stand in isolation. 2017, thanks to Joe Canning and that ridiculously audacious strike, is added to the relatively substantial list of campaigns where Tipperary have failed to retain Liam MacCarthy.

In case you’re not up to scratch on the Premier stats, they haven’t successfully defended any of their last seven All-Ireland titles, 1964 being the last occasion in which they did so.

The pressure to bridge that gap, claimed manager Michael Ryan, hadn’t impacted on his players. “In terms of retaining anything, it was the opportunity that was. Up to today, that opportunity was alive. You can’t win a final unless you are in it. Today was, obviously, the most important game we’ve played in 2017. We’ve just come up one-point shy to a very, very fine Galway team,” said a clearly crestfallen Tipperary manager.

Having gradually remounted the horse following their mid-May defeat to Cork, yesterday was, by some distance, their most impressive performance of 2017.

But it did not, however, reach the heights scaled in 2016.

“I think we got close to our best on occasions this year. Credit to the opposition, too. There was literally nothing in this. What a fantastic score Joe Canning pulled off at the end. He is a heartbreaker. It is not his first time.

“It is harsh on any team to lose that kind of a match. This is the exact reverse of what happened last year. We beat them by a point. They beat us in 2015 by a point. We are no stranger to these tight games with Galway. I just thought they were really, really good here. So too were our guys. A great bunch of fellas. They tried so hard to stay in that game and get something out of it. It just wasn’t to be.”

Where there were regrets about the handful of goal chances and half-goal chances that weren’t taken. Colm Callanan repelled the ground stroke of his namesake Seamus after 24 minutes. There was Noel McGrath’s second-half strike, also kept out by Callanan.

“This is what will haunt us over the winter, those half-chances. In that kind of game where the margins are so fine and you’re beaten by one point, we will be certainly saying to ourselves, lads, in those situations, take your points. Give us a bit of a break and if you could, eke out a bit of daylight, but that was very hard to find out there.

'Tipp fought like All-Ireland champions - @ShefflinHenry and @LiamLSheedy on a titanic semi-final battle pic.twitter.com/rsGJogParr

— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) August 6, 2017

“Some of our decision-making, that is really what will occupy our minds for the next couple of months, the ones that got away from us. You put everything, your life and soul, into those games out there because the prize is fantastic. To get back here to Croke Park on All-Ireland final day is just a fantastic achievement for any team. It is Galway’s now and congratulations to them.”

Much of the commentary beforehand had centred on the frailties in the Tipperary full-back line. James Barry was restored to full-back, Michael Cahill was brought back into the corner and on the whole, Ryan felt his last line of defence coped manfully.

“It was fairly obvious there were some issues in our full-back line at various stages [throughout the year]. But I was very sure coming in today that the full-back line was not going to be an issue. And it never is. I’ve seen the pattern before where a perceived weakness doesn’t come out like that at all. Each game is a live event, it is so full of action and half a touch, a poor touch, a slip in any direction, and its advantage to the opposition. Very fine margins.”

He signed off: “These boys will bounce back in 2018 and I don’t want to be talking about 2018 here tonight but that’s, unfortunately for us, what it is.”