Robert Finnerty: Some stories seem to grow legs. People have said: ‘I hear you’re getting surgery?’

STORIES GROW: Galway's Roberty Finnerty is fit and ready to go for the All-Ireland football final displaying stories of knee surgery. Picture: ©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo

LIKE clockwork. Given their injury-blighted campaign, maybe it is only natural that before every Galway championship game, some dummy tale does the rounds. A new knock, one late change, in Robert Finnerty’s case, scheduled surgery.

Completely inaccurate,
unsurprisingly.

“A lot of people are saying that to me,” the corner-forward said with a smile. He
suffered a knee injury against Derry in the Sam Maguire series and missed the Westmeath tie. The sharpshooter played with heavy strapping versus Armagh and Dublin. For their semi-final triumph, he sported a smaller band on his leg.

“Some stories seem to grow legs and people have said, ‘I hear you are getting surgery?’ But I’m definitely not. The knee is all good — it’s all cleared up.”

The Salthill Knocknacarra star has enjoyed a superb season and is Galway’s top scorer with 1-33. Finnerty finished with four points last time out against Donegal. It was a game that started with a touching tribute to two-time All-Ireland winner John O’Mahony, who previously managed Finnerty’s club.

They reached the 2022 county final, losing out to Moycullen by one point.

“I was one of the few lads on the Galway panel who was lucky enough to work with Johno and he had a massive impact on me personally — even just as a person let alone as a footballer. He was great and he meant a lot to all of us.

“In Salthill, he came in and he almost changed the culture in the club. He had a huge impact on our team in a short period of time and he brought that belief to a dressing room. Straight away, from the day we met him, we knew we had an opportunity to go and contest the Frank Fox anyway and we almost won it.

“My dad always spoke very highly of him and he trained him as well.”

Robert’s father is former Mayo footballer Anthony Finnerty, who came off the bench for Mayo in the All-Ireland final of 1989 and 1996, while also starting the replay that year.

O’Mahony managed them both. With Salthill, he deployed Robert at centre-forward with considerable success. “He played me in a deeper role at Salthill, kind of a play-making role at times and he was the first person to do that with me,” Finnerty explained.

“That is something he had seen in me that maybe other coaches hadn’t and we spoke a lot about that and about kick-passing and things like that. He had a great effect on me.”

Finnerty is one of five Salthill footballers in the squad. Cathal Sweeney, Daniel O’Flaherty, and Tomo Culhane have all played their part in this championship.

Meanwhile, John Maher has become a driving force. He made his debut against Mayo in the 2020 league. That fixture ended up a 15-point hammering. He was replaced at half-time and not part of the panel for the next two years.

In 2023 he returned to the squad and has become a guaranteed starter in recent months.

“With Salthill, the whole way up we’d have won everything and that went the whole way through to minor; we won two Connacht minor titles together. John was always a massive cog in that team and he went straight into the senior team at Salthill and had an impact straight away. He has always been a serious footballer,” said Finnerty.

“John would be my best friend the whole way growing up, so it is special now that we are going on to hopefully win an All-Ireland together.”