John Maher: ‘Every player can’t be a Matthew Thompson or Oisin Conaty’

The Galway man's route to the top was not a straight line.

Galway footballer John Maher at the Salthill Hotel. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

The player pathway is a funny thing. In a perfect world, it is a straight line from county minor to senior, fully formed out of the underage ranks and ready to deliver. For Galway and John Maher, that is far from the rule.

Maher’s route has been well charted now. He reached an All-Ireland minor final in 2016 and advanced to start midfield against Mayo in the 2020 league. They were hammered by 15 points and he was taken off at half-time. He didn't play again for over two years.

Maher returned in 2023, was nominated for Footballer of the Year in 2024 and named Galway captain this year. Remarkable? Perhaps. But look around the squad. His story is far from unique.

Cein D’Arcy left the panel and returned a man reborn. The star of the league so far, Shane McGrath, has a similar arc. Dylan McHugh had a decent underage career but thought he was too old at 23 to get a call from Pádraic Joyce before it eventually came.

“If you look at all those players, they would have come up and played loads of football, loved their football growing up, and maybe not have been ready for senior football straight away,” says Maher, speaking ahead of their Allianz League clash with Roscommon.

“All those players you mentioned, me included, would have played every season with their club and had strong seasons and would have grown and played in a really strong Galway Championship. Shane is the most recent example. Dunmore are on an upward swing, having come up from Intermediate a few years ago, and now they're getting to the quarter-finals, and that is what they expect in Dunmore.

“He's been a huge part of that. The Galway Club Championship is a factor there. As well as that, every player coming up can't be Matthew Thompson, that is ready off the back or Oisin Conaty. These players that just come and they instantly fit into a senior team. They have not only the talent and all that, but they have the physicality.” During his time away from the panel, Maher saw the world and advanced his career. An engineer, he was based in Dublin when he first returned to the squad which proved challenging. Now his environment is fully aligned with the demands of playing football.

“There is a benefit to not being involved in an inter-country set-up as well. You can go and develop as a person, grow as an individual and live your life, travel. Go and do different jobs, enjoy your time in college, all those things that players, when they're in the system, and they're straight from an under-20s team into a senior team, miss out on. Look, sometimes pathways are different.” Even still, Galway’s ability to turn unpolished gems into diamonds is striking.

“You'll be given every chance in there. As you see, there's been six debutantes so far in the league. It is not one thing and there is not one right way.” Some careers take time. Then there are meteoric rises like Matthew Thompson. Maher’s club-mate was nominated for Young Footballer of the Year in 2025 after a stellar rookie campaign. A talented underage soccer player, he enjoyed a whirlwind January before jetting off to study at the prestigious University of California, Berkeley.

Thompson kicked 2-6 in an FBD League game and took part in a Leader NFL Kicking talent ID session in Abbottstown, where he converted from 56 yards. Maher is glad to see the gifted athlete experience the world outside the routines he has always known.

“The last training session he was at, he left with a few footballs, a few cones and a GPS. He wouldn't have left the country without them himself. He wasn't told to bring them. Trust me. He is over there playing some (Gaelic) football. I'm sure he is playing some soccer, staying fit. Yeah, growing and seeing the world and all those things that I think will stand for him. I'm delighted for him personally.” Look around the Galway dressing room and there is a lot of resilient experience from players who came through the hard way. Paul Conroy suffered a horrific leg break but returned to win Footballer of the Year. Some of their most talented stars have endured taxing injury runs. The team themselves have made two All-Ireland finals, won four Connacht titles and lost five championship games since the 2022 decider, all by a single point.

How should we think about that resilience? A virtue? Their captain acknowledges it but wishes they weren’t defined by it. Their ambition is to be more. Much more.

“I suppose it is a good quality to have within a group, resilience and that never-say-die attitude. Is that a value that you really want to have coming out in every game?

“Unfortunately, we've actually had to show it in a lot of times, but because we put ourselves in bad positions through performance mistakes, I don't think you'd look at, I’ll go outside of GAA just to not ruffle feathers, but Man City and their pomp, you wouldn't say they're a resilient team.

“It's great to know that we can do that in games, but what I would love from the group and what we're working on continuously, and what we're working on week in, week out, is how can we improve our performance so that we get to a point where we don't need to show that resolve every second game, or nearly every game that we're going out.”