ALL-IRELAND UNDER-21 HURLING FINAL: KEITH DUGGANtalks to under-21 manager Anthony Cunningham, a man closely identified with the great days of Galway hurling

WHEN DUBLIN met Galway in the 1983 All-Ireland minor final, several records were broken.

Later in the afternoon, Kilkenny’s goalkeeper Noel Skehan set a record when he collected his ninth All-Ireland senior medal – an achievement that might now be eclipsed by a band of contemporary Kilkenny players led by Henry Shefflin.

In the curtain-raiser, everything was novel. Among the Dublin forwards was a gangly target man named Niall Quinn, who would go on to enjoy greater adventures on soccer fields.

Dublin were seeking a first minor title since 1965 but it was Galway’s day and their captain, Anthony Cunningham, spoke eloquently and at length about what it meant to the county to capture its first ever minor title.

Today, Cunningham will coach the Galway under-21 team in their bid to defeat Dublin and he laughed as he recalled his first taste of success with his county.

“1983. Yeah. Well, it was a big thing then. That was the first Galway minor team to win. They are getting used to it now at this stage. But it came on the heels of the Galway team winning in 1980.

“As I recall Dublin had a very good Leinster campaign and had a very good win over Wexford. And we had two matches – we beat Tipperary in a very hard-fought semi-final and had a replay down in Ennis and it was just as hard there. That really set us up. That was our third minor final and it did all seem to catapult.

“But there was a big interest in the game then too. But what has disappointed for so long and for some reason or another is that there has been no senior success. We feel the ability is there and it will happen. We are just all hoping that it happens sooner rather than later.”

Cunningham had played in three minor finals before the 1983 success. He made an appearance in the 1985 senior final, captained the under-21 team to success in 1986 and started the All-Ireland finals of 86, ’87, ’88 and 1990.

He was in the thick of it for the brightest years for maroon hurling. More recently, his management career has been quietly excellent. Although his club, St Thomas’s, is rooted in the hurling parishes of Castledaly and Peterswell, it was as a football manager that Cunningham began to impress, with Westmeath side Garrycastle and the St Brigid’s club in Roscommon.

His return to his first sport and native county coincides with typically contradictory opinion about the state of the game in Galway. Cunningham has guided the under-21 team to an All-Ireland final for the second successive year.

With Mattie Murphy coaching his sixth All-Ireland-winning minor team last week, the county is on the threshold of two more underage titles. And yet the pessimism about the senior squad has never been greater. It has come to the point the benefits of Galway’s underage success has come to be questioned. But in a period when Tipperary and Kilkenny have contested the last three All-Ireland senior hurling finals, the need for other teams to challenge them is obvious,

“A major part of under-21 – even more so than minor – is to give guys a springboard to make it at senior level. The development and coaching is a huge part of it at that age because, as we all saw last Sunday, the standard is very high. So it is very important to find players that can add to the senior set-up.

“We have seen Kilkenny and Tipp there there for the last three years. It is refreshing for everyone to see Dublin making the progress they have done. They have put a lot of work in for sure and no matter what sport you are talking about you need new teams coming through to keep the vitality. It is the same in football.

“And in Galway there is a huge population playing hurling now and it needs that breakthrough to keep it going and to keep the voluntary element going. When you see the success at minor or under-21 that keeps the momentum.”

Momentum is a tricky thing. Dublin’s appearance in 1983 did not lead to the kind of springboard that was hoped for. Today’s final represents the last chance for the Metropolitans to mark what has been a fabulous year with an All-Ireland title.

Anthony Cunningham is back where he started: trying to lead Galway to hurling success. His years coaching football have stood to him. The sport may be different but the overall framework remains the same.

“The principles are the same. You have to put the hard work in and you have to give the players a game plan and a pattern and the work rate is common in both of them. That is vital and for us on Saturday, it is going to take a huge hour of work.”