Galway legend John Connolly envies current crop

Connolly says he envies the current side who get to play several games in the Leinster championship each year. Connolly played only 26 championship games for Galway between 1967 and 1981

ENVIOUS: John Connolly says he is envious of the current Galway players who get to play in the Leinster championship. File pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Galway hurling legend John Connolly says he envies the current side who get to play several games in the Leinster championship each year and he believes the Tribesmen teams he featured on throughout the 1970s would have benefitted enormously if they could have played more games.

Connolly, speaking in Salthill on Monday at the launch of a huge fundraising drive for his club Castlegar, played only 26 championship games for Galway in a senior career which started in 1967 and finished in 1981.

Four of those games were All-Ireland finals, winning in 1980 and suffering defeats in ’75, ’79 and ’81, and Galway’s first All-Star reckons they would have progressed more quickly if they had more matches.

“The biggest regret I have is that the system was terrible when I played. For many years we played one match, an All-Ireland semi-final, and that was it for the year. It was always around the time of the Galway Races at the end of July, so we were training all summer and we couldn’t even get challenge matches because all the other teams were playing their provincial championships.

“So we would go into the All-Ireland semi-final against a team who is up to the speed of the All-Ireland championship having come through Munster or Leinster. They would have their team settled after three or four matches, they would know where they were going and there we were, first day, Croke Park, live on television, thrown in at the deep end and we just wouldn’t be ready for it most times. How could we be?

“Most times it was one game and we were out of it again for another twelve months. How could we develop or get stronger? It was nearly impossible.

“So I envy the players now. They have all these games and they can go on and play five or six matches before they go into the All-Ireland stage. I would have loved that. The thought of welcoming Kilkenny to Pearse Stadium on a Sunday afternoon in the summer for a championship match, or heading to take Wexford or Dublin or Offaly or whoever, I would have loved it and it would have benefitted Galway a lot.

“We have seen how much they have progressed since going into Leinster but that was something we never even dreamed about. It is fantastic that it has changed that way.” 

Connolly was speaking at the launch of Castlegar’s fundraising event to win an apartment in Salthill — www.winahomeSalthillGalway.ie — where they hope to raise the finance to pay off a superb new indoor training facility which they opened during the summer. It cost over €800,000 and they hope to clear the remaining €400,000 debt on the facility through the raffle to win an apartment worth €300,000 in a prime seaside location in Salthill.