Some reasons why Galway's young crops fail

Galway’s failure to take the Liam MacCarthy across the Shannon any more recently than 1988 has been a subject of enduring and bitter contemplation

NEXT WEEKEND sees the first Kilkenny-Galway hurling final in nearly 20 years. How is this? By any criteria the two counties have dominated what would be considered the access routes to senior success and yet only one of them has had commensurate success.

For all the enthusiasm in Galway at what has been a transformative year for the county, a reconstruction from the wreckage of last year’s demolition in Thurles, the failure to take the Liam MacCarthy across the Shannon any more recently than 1988 has been a subject of enduring and bitter contemplation.

Since they last met in a final in 1993, the two counties have shared between them all of the premium titles in hurling – apart from senior All-Irelands, to which Kilkenny appear to have sole rights.

Judged over a range of competitions both senior and under-age we see that Kilkenny have racked up 19 titles (six league, four minor, six under-21 and three club All-Irelands). Galway exceed that total with 23 (four, seven, four and eight).

Yet the Westerners haven’t won a single MacCarthy Cup whereas their opponents on Sunday have accumulated nine in that time. Why do Galway’s crops fail?

There are no definitive answers but a couple of influences are detectable. The move of the Galway senior hurlers into Leinster in 2009 was just the latest migration of the county through a series of different All-Ireland senior hurling structures, all of which made championship progress more difficult. By the time the first qualifier model came into being, Galway had become a rite of passage for All-Ireland winners in the semi-finals rather than serious contenders themselves.

There was a theory that whereas being fast-tracked into an All-Ireland semi-final suited Galway when they had a settled and successful team it didn’t work so well when managers were trying to work out their most effective starting 15 and having to send them into battle against battle hardened provincial champions.

The phrase used to run that the county would have reached fewer semi-finals but more finals had they a more demanding championship structure to negotiate. That theory also had its dissenters. An indignant Matt Murphy, who has managed six All-Ireland winning minor teams but in this case speaking 16 years ago during one of his spells as manager of the seniors, denied that the county was using lack of match practice as an excuse.

“We are not whingeing about not having games. We have never used it as an excuse. In each and every interview it has been brought up and my answer to you and all of them is that we are in an All-Ireland semi-final and at least 10 counties would give their eye teeth to be in the same position as us.”

That point of view would appear to have been borne out subsequently. Since Galway stopped getting automatic access to All-Ireland semi-finals and have been required to qualify through a variety of different formats, the county has managed to reach the penultimate stage just four times in 16 years.

Significantly or not the county has won three of those four semi-finals, including this year’s. The minors and under-21s during this period have not had their championship campaigns lengthened to anything like as substantial an extent.

There is a view that for Galway’s inclusion in Leinster to make sense it should incorporate the under-age teams although how enthusiastically the other counties would view that size of a cuckoo landing in the nest is open to conjecture. There is also the consideration that all counties experience difficulty in bringing young players through from successful minor and under-21 teams to senior fulfilment. Yet the scale of Galway’s failed husbandry is unmatched anywhere.

Cork and Tipperary are the only counties to have disturbed Kilkenny’s imperium for the past 13 years and both built their All-Ireland winning teams on the foundations of minor or under-21 success. There may be something overwhelming in the sheer numbers of under-age medallists in Galway, which makes waste inevitable but with a similar flow Kilkenny have established a dynasty.

One vital difference between the counties is that Kilkenny have a stability at senior level that Galway can only envy. In the period of Brian Cody’s management, stretching back to the 1999 championship, Galway have had six different managers.

Too often management teams have been cast out in acrimony leaving nothing behind but, in Cyril Farrell’s arresting phrase, blood on the floor. Everyone starts with the same burden of rewinding to the start and trying to repair fractured morale. Even the league, touchstone of progress during the 1970s and ’80s has become less and less reliable with some disappointing championships – 2004 and 2010 – following spring success.

Kilkenny, meanwhile, are relentless and contest leagues energetically. If they are below par in any given season – coincidentally 2004 and 2010 spring to mind – it gives a slight clue that the summer might be more of a struggle but most years they give the early competition a resounding crack and have knocked off the league/All-Ireland double on four occasions in the past 10 years.

Crucially a successful senior team postpones and reduces the absolute need to draft in younger players. Cody has been able to perform the integration on a gradual basis, allowing young talents to acclimatise to life at the top; too often Galway have had to hot-house or force their best young talents and the fall-off has been abundant.

This even partially explains the rampant success of Galway clubs. The phenomenon of players prioritising club commitments over county is familiar in weaker counties but the county hurlers have had to do without big players during most of the spring while clubs like Athenry and Portumna powered their way to St Patrick’s Day.

Players identify their most likely prospects of success and even subconsciously make that accommodation. It is to Anthony Cunningham’s credit that he has moved so seamlessly from under-21 to senior management but he also knows there is only one way to make that transition truly memorable.