Micheál Donoghue admits shock at speed of Galway turnaround from low ebb

The Leinster champions overpowered Cork at Croke Park on Sunday. 

EMBRACEABLE YOU: Galway manager Micheál Donoghue with Laura Donoghue after the game. Pic: INPHO/Tom O’Hanlon

As absolutely stunning as their second 35 minutes were, we’re actually going to begin with a broad picture view of Galway’s season. Don’t worry, the 35 stunning minutes will be got to eventually.

Just over 12 months ago, former Galway manager and Connacht Tribune sports editor John McIntyre wrote that in 40 years he’d never seen the mood so low surrounding Galway hurling. He made the comments in the wake of tame and fairly toothless surrenders to Kilkenny and Tipp in the Leinster final and All-Ireland quarter-final respectively.

Fast forward to 5.25pm on Saturday evening, July 4. Micheál Donoghue enters the media room underneath the Hogan Stand. His team have just skewered one of the pre-ordained All-Ireland finalists by 11 points. His players were serenaded off the field to the iconic N17 chorus.

The Galway manager is asked if he is shocked - and shocked is absolutely the word - by the scale of the turnaround and speed of progress across those 12 months.

“Look, you'd have to say, yeah,” the Galway manager replies, not attempting in any way shape or form to downplay the season-to-season transformation.

“Like, we went through a fair transition with the squad and personnel. But from early on when we came back, you could just see the enthusiasm and the energy that was in the group.

“The whole group has done brilliant, they've forged and have a great chemistry, they work for each other and they drive that themselves, which is great.” 

The tactical rebuild is a Donoghue masterpiece. The rebuild in personnel, though, must see credit go to the kids who were flung in at the deep end and have not stopped flourishing.

Joshua Ryan, on his first Croke Park start, held Alan Connolly to a solitary white flag from play. Darragh Neary finished the opening goal and never stopped haring down the respective flanks.

And then there was 20-year-old Jason Rabbitte. Damien Cahalane was yellow-carded after his third first-half foul on Rabbitte. He dispossessed Damien for a Conor Whelan first-half point and also threw over a monster of an effort himself on the Hogan Stand sideline.

All that before a second 35 minutes of fetching and earning frees. It was a second half where he again did the grunt work for Conor Whelan to swell his respective tally.

“We see them every night in training, like, do you know what I mean? Since they've come in, it was a seamless transition,” Donoghue said of the newcomers.

“We've seen how good they are at underage and with their club and you know, Jason has just done brilliant. He's a really quiet personality and he just comes in and does his work and the big thing for us is, he just goes out and expresses himself.

“So, it's been brilliant for him, as it has for all the younger lads. It's a massive experience in big meaningful games like a Leinster final where there is a consequence and again today in the All-Ireland semi-final, nearly full house, so that's a massive experience for them as they go deeper into their career. Long may it continue.” Finally, to those second 35 minutes. Cork outscored 1-14 to 0-5. Cork outthought and tactically outmanoeuvred. Within that, nine unanswered maroon points between the 38th and 50th minute. No Cork score between the 37th and 53rd minute.

A second half teed up by a crucial finish to the first where Galway clipped five of the last six points to cut a five-point deficit to the minimum.

“I think throughout the league and throughout the Championship, as the team has evolved and as they've gotten more comfortable with what we wanted to do, we've had some really good second-half performances.

“And we knew that if we were in the position we were in going into the second half, that we were well capable of pushing on again and thankfully we did.

“I think after the Leinster final, you could see the confidence growing in the younger fellas, and I think they transferred that now into another good performance today.

“We didn't say a whole lot to them [at half-time]. Like I've said this a lot of the time, there's a brilliant team spirit, there's a great mix of youth and experience.

“The older fellas take control of it and as I said, we were comfortable where we were at.” 

In the end, there was a comfort on the scoreline that nobody outside of Donoghue’s transformed camp could have envisaged.