Galway reap rewards for going back to the tried and very trusted

TRIED AND TRUSTED: Galway manager Cathal Murray during the Glen Dimplex Camogie All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-final. Pic: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

When a team enters transition, as Galway have over the past two seasons, standard practice is that young and emerging faces are brought in to replace the older and experienced departing personnel.

Galway have gone a different route in responding to the normal dressing-room churn that comes with an ageing panel. The experience lost has been replaced with experience recalled. Quality lost has been replaced by quality coaxed back.

Instead of attempting to build a new team in 2024, manager Cathal Murray has, by and large, gone back to players who had opted out to go travelling and start families in recent years. He’s gone back to the tried and very trusted.

Galway’s period of transition threw in ahead of the 2023 season. Heather Cooney, Caitriona Cormican, and Niamh Kilkenny stepped away after several years of sterling service, while goalkeeper Sarah Healy and half-forward Catherine Finnerty had gone travelling.

All bar Cooney of that quintet started the 2021 All-Ireland final win over Cork, and Cooney would have too was it not for the cruciate tear that sidelined her that season. Ann Marie Starr, introduced as a second half sub during the 2021 final, was another unavailable last year.

Initially anyway, Murray turned to youth and the up-and-comers to try and fill the gaps. That approach, initially anyway, fed success. They claimed a Division 1 League crown they had not expected to claim.

Three of last year's League final team - goalkeeper Fiona Ryan, midfielder Ciara Hickey, and corner-forward Niamh McPeake - had been promoted from the 2022 All-Ireland winning intermediate team, as had second-half subs Shannon Corcoran, Katie Anna Porter, and Jennifer Hughes.

But no championship silverware followed League success. Cork showed them the exit door at the All-Ireland semi-final stage.

During the subsequent off-season, and for various different reasons, a whole host of household Galway names such as Shauna Healy, Sarah Dervan, Emma Helebert, and Sarah Spellman headed through that same exit door.

Add in Siobhan McGrath’s departure midway through the 2024 campaign and that’s five more players unavailable who began the aforementioned 2021 final victory over Sunday's opponents.

In the face of such a talent drain, Cathal Murray’s approach ahead of this season was to revisit talent that had already stepped away and seemingly retired.

2019 and 2021 All-Star goalkeeper Sarah Healy returned to the panel and eventually returned to the No.1 shirt she had vacated. Ann Marie Starr, whose involvement goes right back to the 2011 All-Ireland final, returned after two years out during which she gave birth.

Seven-time All-Star Niamh Kilkenny, whose championship debut dates as far back as 2006, also returned after giving birth to baby Fionn, while the hugely talented 29-year-old Niamh Mallon transferred from Down.

Last day out against Tipp, 35-year-old Kilkenny struck two points and assisted 1-1. Mallon nailed 1-2 and was fouled for three converted frees. Further back, Healy and Starr bring experience and composure to a rearguard unit of which four of the other five have no All-Ireland senior final experience.

If Galway's final team is the same as started the semi, it'll contain seven players making their senior final debut. Against that light, the approach of reaching out to old hands was necessary and has thus far reaped reward.