The bench battle - will Galway v Limerick be won by the backups?

Galway subs have contributed 6-29 across the championship with Conor Cooney scoring 4-12 of that. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Galway’s All-Ireland final bench will bear no resemblance to the bench that began the championship. Galway’s bench has thinned for forward quality as the championship has progressed - and with good reason.

Should Darragh Neary deliver another performance of athletic punch and on-the-run flag-raising this Sunday, he’ll be among the three nominees for Young Hurler of the Year.

Should Tom Monaghan deliver another performance of supreme spatial awareness and equally supreme long-range shooting, he’ll be among the three nominees for Hurler of the Year.

For over half of Galway’s seven championship outings on the road to Sunday, Neary and Monaghan were Galway’s bench impact. Such has been their impact since first-team promotion, it’s incredible to think they were held in reserve for as long as they were.

Monaghan was used off the bench in their opening three games of the Leinster round-robin. Neary was similarly sprung in Rounds 1, 3, and 4.

It wasn’t until the visit to Wexford, in Round 5 of the Leinster SHC on May 24, that they first appeared in the starting line-up together.

Of the 2-17 supplied by maroon subs across the county’s first four outings of summer, Monaghan was responsible for 1-5 and Neary 0-5.

Colm Molloy chipped in with 0-2 of that 2-17 but has since travelled in the other direction to the promoted pair. The Kilnadeema-Leitrim clubman, who started last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final and was a scoring replacement against Tipp, Cork, and Limerick in this year’s League, has been an unused sub for the past three games.

With Monaghan and Neary now marching behind the band, bench bounce has been impressively taken on by 33-year-old Conor Cooney. He’s endeavoured to continue on his own the work that had been carried out by two men with far less mileage than him. The responsibility has revitalised the longest serving member of Micheál Donoghue’s panel.

Galway subs have contributed 6-29 across the championship with Conor Cooney scoring 4-12 of that. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Fourteen years later, he’ll reprise the role carried out as a first-season teenager for the 2012 drawn and replayed All-Ireland deciders.

Galway subs have contributed 6-29 across the championship. Cooney is way out in front with 4-12. In each of the last three games, he’s come in and raised green. In the Leinster final, he was fouled for a converted black-card penalty. 51% of bench scores bear his name.

With no changes forecast to Galway’s All-Ireland final team and hamstring-afflicted Rory Burke unlikely to outrun the clock, Cooney will again be the first forward in.

Maybe slightly drowned out amid the semi-final delirium was the 10 minutes banked by Brian Concannon. Injury was a factor in Concannon not being part of the matchday panel across the opening four rounds in Leinster. The Cork cameo was only his second of the summer. The same as Cooney, he offers significant experience come the endgame.

Working back the field, Cian Daniels and John Fleming are the middle-third reserves. 2026 debutant Daniels was a first-team regular up until the Cork game. He executed a turnover and assisted a white flag when introduced a fortnight ago. His cover extends to the half-back line.

Fleming, who has had an injury-blighted year, has written his initials onto the scoresheet in the final round-robin fixture, the Leinster decider, and All-Ireland semi.

Corner-back Joshua Ryan, the same as Monaghan and Neary, began this championship outside of the first 15. His promotion has thinned the bench of full-back line options. Outside of Fintan Burke, who is a like-for-like replacement for his namesake Daithí, there is no one else to go to.

The compensatory approach, if necessary, will be to throw a Daniels or Seán Linnane into the half-back line and move back whichever of Darren Morrissey or Ronan Glennon is not gripped to a key man-marking role.

Because of Rory Burke’s absence and because of how they all stood up in stunning Cork, there are no selection dilemmas for Donoghue. There are two for Kiely, if not three.

TJ Ryan and Liam Sheedy, on last week’s Irish Examiner hurling podcast, articulated succinctly the Limerick questions that will be tossed about and teased out over the coming days.

Dan Morrissey is an obvious fit for Jason Rabbitte, but would management be tempted to start Mike Casey?

Mike Casey in action against Tony Kelly, left, and Cathal Malone of Clare in the semi-final. Pic: Daire Brennan/Sportsfile

“They will look at this to the nth degree as to see who is best positioned to take on Jason Rabbitte. Mike did a job on Johnny Glynn before,” TJ noted.

“You have three for two in midfield in terms of Adam [English], Darragh [O’Donovan] and Cian [Lynch],” added Sheedy.

But if English and O’Donovan were to be retained, with Lynch deployed at No.11, that would shove the three-into-two conundrum onto the inside line where one from Aaron Gillane, Shane O’Brien, and Aidan O’Connor would lose out.

Sheedy, for his part, doesn’t see Peter Casey losing out in any scenario.

“I think that role he plays will be critical against a set-up like Galway because they’ll want him out there.” 

Gillane’s championship total sits at 2-1. He sits 10th in the Limerick scoring chart. He was removed 49 minutes into the Munster final. He lasted just three minutes longer in the All-Ireland semi-final.

In his 100-minute involvement across the two games, he scored a point, assisted a point, was fouled for two converted frees, registered four wides, and completed seven passes.

Albeit they have played one game less than Galway and operated against steeper provincial opposition, Limerick’s bench has contributed just 0-16 to date.

That doesn’t tell the full story, though. Of the match-winning 1-5 Limerick conjured after falling six behind against Clare, subs Cian Lynch, David Reidy, and Tom Morrissey won converted frees. Mike Casey broke one puckout away from Peter Duggan and was fouled under another.

Indeed, it was Casey, surrounded by four Banner shirts, who released possession from danger in the play that finished with O’Connor’s lead goal.

It doesn’t matter that Limerick are working off a canvas of 19 players. They have the seventh defender that Cork didn’t have. They have a third midfield option. They have forwards to arrive in and arrest incredibly difficult situations.

So far, that’s been sufficient.