Kevin Walsh had a few things he wanted to get off of his chest on Monday’s GAA Hour Show.
Fresh from their second Connacht title in the last three years, the Galway football manager is unsurprisingly happy with the progress of his team. But it’s a team that he feels is still widely misunderstood.
The narrative out there is that Galway’s ‘defensive’ system betrayed them in the first half against Roscommon, and that they abandoned everything to play the second half with ‘rainbows and puppies in their hearts,’ as Carlow footballer Daniel St Ledger sarcastically put it.
In reality, their struggles in that opening half were down to handling and working errors rather than a systems fault. After the break, with the shackles off, the men in maroon kicked off the shackles and carved their way out of trouble. There was no massive system overhaul at the break.
“People that know their football and analyse it properly will come up with the answers,” said Walsh in an interview with Colm Parkinson.
“I think you’ll have some people who’ll read it the way they want to read it and who’ll throw it out there for whatever reason. Unfortunately lot of people listen to it.
“It depends who you listen to. There are younger fellas out there that have been involved on the game that have been on the field, they actually know what they’re talking about.
“Unfortunately, they mightn’t have the airwaves but we can’t get caught down on that.
“If things aren’t working out, it’s not because you’re not trying. It’s a 70/80 minute performance.
“To come out of the Hyde (as we did) is quite pleasing.”
Defying the obituaries
Indeed, a number of analysts have been predicting this Galway team’s demise at various stages over the last while. Walsh outlined exactly how they’ve proven these critics wrong.
1 League progress
“You go back 16 months ago, we were in division two. Number One – we weren’t supposed to go to Division One because we probably wouldn’t stay there.
Galway made it to the Division One League final.
2 Peaking too early
“You win a few early matches there and you’re told you’ll be burnt out. You go up and play the Dubs and you’re told you’ll get hammered,” he said.
Only four points separated themselves and Dublin after a 70 minute tussle.
3 Not a big day team
“The Mayo game then, you’re told you’ve put all your eggs in one basket in the league so you’re not going to win that so it’s ongoing from outside.”
Galway made it three championship wins in a row over their neighbours.
But everyone out west is content with how this young team is playing and how they’re going.
“We just stick to what we have to do inside. It’s not always pretty but what team is? We’re still very young.
“At the end of the day, we just have to stick to what we do, our process. We’ll analyse what opposition is coming up against us – in game we’ll have to do that as well, and you try to play as best as you see it.
“It’s not about revenge, it’s about us, it’s about doing the best we can do and we’ll analyse properly where things have gone.”
And everything is sound in the camp too.
“Regardless what kind of a name is there, we’re very happy where we are today.
You can listen to the Walsh interview as well as Cian and Wooly’s analysis of the weekend’s football on The GAA Hour Show right here.
