O'Dwyer happy with hard road

Could there be more contrasting paths to an All-Ireland football semi-final? Galway have run through Connacht as if it was a 100 metre sprint, completing three games without ever being fully stretched. Compare that to Kildare, finally emerging from Leinster after a marathon five games, each time having their backs to the wall and foot to the floor.

Yesterday in Dublin's Bank of Ireland headquarters, the respective managers attempted to assess what this might mean come throw-in on Sunday. Mick O'Dwyer was the obvious target for enquiry, with almost six hours of fast-forward football already driven into his players and not exactly a whole lot of time for any of them to catch their breath.

"Well we have escaped any major injuries, and that's the most important thing," he said. "Having a good share of young players helps as well. Sure, it has been a rollercoaster in a number of ways but we didn't mind as long as we were winning. And every game in Leinster has been like an All-Ireland final for us."

For John O'Mahony, it goes without saying that he would have preferred a more difficult campaign: "To be quite honest, it would be better for us if we had been tested a little more at this stage. If you think back to 1998 (when Galway won the All-Ireland), we did struggle to win Connacht, especially against Roscommon.

"Kildare have certainly uncovered a lot more about themselves having had the pressure games a number of times this summer. They've been able to fine tune and alter the team on the basis of that. But we have to play the cards we're dealt and we're certainly not complaining about it."

Galway may have escaped the stressful games but they certainly haven't escaped the injuries. Before they played New York last June, the availability of regular players was rapidly dwindling and forced O'Mahony to call in the new recruits. "I suppose Ja Fallon is still the big absence factor for us. He was very much Galway's favourite son in 1998 and the farther you go in the championship the more you're going to miss a player like him. But Tomas Mannion is another huge loss for us. Many people regarded him as the best defensive player around two years ago.

"Having said that, we have brought in some new players who have done very well so far. That's always important, new players coming in and coming to the fore. But the modern game also requires the whole team to gel together and that's something we'll be looking for on Sunday."

Now that Dublin have been disposed of, the hype around Kildare is very quickly reaching the heights of two years ago. Cross the borderline into the county at any point right now and never will so much white look so colourful. In the immediate aftermath of the Leinster final, O'Dwyer ranked the victory as good as anything he'd achieved with Kerry and yesterday he stood by that claim.

"Of course it was a major achievement for us to beat Dublin in a Leinster final. For a long time we just couldn't get past Dublin at that stage. Some people will say we had a bit of luck on the day but that's what you need to win matches like that. And we'll be looking for a bit more of it on Sunday. I just hope it's as good as 1998. That was one of the best games of football we've had in a long time."

One thing that Galway won't forget is that they have won an All-Ireland in recent years and Kildare have not. "Well I noticed at the Leinster final that there were 10,000 replicas of the Sam Maguire handed out by Bank of Ireland," said O'Mahony, "and we didn't see any of those at the Connacht final. It seems that Kildare, Dublin or Kerry were the big favourites for this and there was no real pressure in the west. But we have worked really hard in the past few weeks, and we know the intensity of the game will be a step up from what we've experienced in Connacht so far.

"Of course we will have to show a lot of improvement. We had a dream run two years ago and to repeat that would be fantastic. But sport is not an exact science, and that's what makes it interesting. There's a lot of talk about the quality of our forwards but we scored one point in the second half of the Connacht final last year. That's the reality of it sometimes. No matter how much you analyse our build-up to this game on Sunday, things can change so quickly. I think we have two teams who want to play football but what's going to happen on the day you just don't know."

It is, interestingly, Galway's first trip to Croke Park since that late visit in 1998, while Kildare have more or less made it their home ground this summer. "We've been lucky just to get to walk around in it this summer," added O'Mahony, "let alone a training session there. It's probably another disadvantage for us but I'm happy to make it an away game on this occasion."

Neither manager seem bothered by the prospect that this may be the last year they get to play in the championship under the current format. "I haven't actually examined the new proposals in detail yet," said O'Dwyer, "but I honestly don't think there are any easy games in the championship anymore. Take the case of Sligo, who looked so good in the league but just didn't perform on the day. And this was definitely the most open All-Ireland that I can remember in a long time. For many years there it was either Dublin or Kerry but now you have at least 10 teams with a genuine chance of winning the thing outright."

As for the talk of Sunday being an All-Ireland rematch, each man diplomatically reckoned that their opposition were as good and if not better than two years back. Should make for an interesting afternoon, then.