Mighty Moore determined to make most of second chance

“I think we were just excited to be looking forward to an All-Ireland final replay was the overriding emotion on the Monday afterwards.”

Moore was one of the players on the Galway goal line when Henry Shefflin lined up to strike his penalty and maintains a strictly neutral view on whether the Kilkenny captain might have gone low with the strike rather than opting for the point.

“I don’t know. I was just focusing on the ball. A lot has been said and written since about whether he should have gone for one or the other and the fact is he took the point, it was a draw and we have another game. Myself and Tony Óg were on the line. But it is in the past now.”

He is equally uninterested in the fact this Galway team has managed to do something that has eluded all maroon teams since 1988 – go to an All-Ireland final and not lose.

“The squad that is hurling now is the Galway hurling squad 2012. Anything that any team has done before it or any the team of 2013 will do has no relevance. This year, we made a pact that we would fight for every ball until the final whistle and that was the most encouraging thing – nobody gave up and thankfully we got the free late on and all credit to Joe (Canning), he nailed it.”

And with that equaliser by Canning, Galway were back at square one – on the bus heading towards midnight and thinking about an All-Ireland final yet to be played.

“After any game you are sore and tired. We were well able to sleep. We had been on the go since seven or eight in the morning when we left Galway. We had a day or two booked off and you need that to get the body recovered. I work as a physiotherapist in the regional hospital and was back to work on the Wednesday.

Since then Galway have analysed the strengths and weaknesses of their performance. They spent the first week in recovery and the second week in full training.

This week, they are back in preparatory mode.

“I think it will be more of the same,” Moore predicts of the replay. “There is a huge prize at stake and what the draw brought us was another chance at an All-Ireland final.

“We are still playing the All-Ireland champions; it is still a 50-50 game. We are still up against it – they are odds-on favourites so it is all on the day, who gets the best performance out of themselves. So it will be hell for leather on the 30th and whoever plays the best will win.”