We probably should have noted the time, but it was about 3.20pm on the first Sunday in June when Shane Walsh played a simple pass to Damien Comer, prowling outside the arc. As Galway’s season slipped in and out of consciousness, it was the first minute they had played together since last year’s All-Ireland final. The reunion lasted just 10 minutes. One pass and fleeting glances.
Galway still trailed Derry by six points when Walsh was replaced after an hour. Eoin McEvoy brushed past him and Walsh looked dead on his feet. Paul Conroy and Cillian McDaid had already been whipped off and Dylan McHugh would soon follow; four All-Stars, stood down.
Among the obvious solutions, the last one standing was Comer. In 20 minutes, he touched the ball seven times; every possession led to a shot for him or someone else. With time running out he fielded a 50-yard punt that landed inside the D, dominating air and ground. Forewarned was no defence.
For the goal that ultimately rescued Galway, two Derry players ended up on the deck fighting him for the dropping ball. He caused the wave and Derry were dunked in the backwash.
“Even with the other lads gone,” says Barry Cullinane, the former Galway player and Galway Bay FM analyst, “the 20 minutes that Damien was on we looked like a completely different team. He just creates havoc. That’s what he brings to the party.”
For large swathes of the last three years, Galway have missed not just Comer, but the dynamic between him and Walsh. In this year’s National League, they didn’t play a minute together; in the Connacht championship, neither of them played a minute.
After Galway lost the All-Ireland final in 2022, Walsh was shortlisted for Footballer of the Year and Comer was the All-Star full forward. As Malachy Clerkin pointed out, Galway played 450 minutes in that year’s championship, and Walsh and Comer were on the field together for 417 of those minutes. Their good health and spectacular form propelled Galway to the brink of glory.
Since that All-Ireland, though, Galway have played 40 games in league and championship and Comer and Walsh have completed 70 minutes together just twice. In the last two seasons, they have started a mere four games together. Galway have carried that limp in their step.
“I don’t think there’s another county that has had two quality footballers like that who have had such an unfortunate run of injuries, particularly together,” says Gary O’Donnell, the former Galway player. “If you look at the other big teams, I don’t think any of them have had any misfortune like that.”
Comer has been tortured by his hamstrings. Last year, both of them went: first the left, then the right, then the left again. He recovered in time for the Connacht final and was terrific against Mayo, but then one of his hamstrings flared up again.
“I was probably a bit sore after the Mayo game and maybe didn’t manage it as well as I could have,” said Comer on the Maroon and White podcast last October. “But then you break down against Derry [in the 2024 group match] and you’re back to square one and your confidence goes again.”
He made no appearance in Galway’s next two championship games and only came on as a sub against Monaghan in the preliminary quarter final. When Galway reached Croke Park Comer was well enough to start but not fit enough to do himself justice. In Galway’s last three championship games he failed to score; in the final against Armagh he was on the ball just eight times, for the output of one assist.
“I just missed way too much training,” said Comer. “Mentally it’s a challenge because you’re trying to come back, you’re trying to get your body right, you’re doing all the work and then you break down. You’re in bad form because you put so much on hold to play.
“[The final] was disappointing from a personal point of view because I didn’t offer a whole pile. That would probably be the biggest disappointment for me, but that’s probably where I was at. I was probably expecting more out of myself than my body was able to give. When you haven’t the work done, you’re relying on an empty tank.”
Walsh’s injuries have been more spread out and he has enjoyed longer periods of remission than Comer. Last year, though, started badly. In the opening game of the league, he tore his right quad. “The first kick against Mayo last year I felt something,” he told Maurice Brosnan in March. “I’d never torn anything before in my life, so I hadn’t a clue what was going on. The second kick, I definitely knew.”
For the rest of the year, he stopped taking kicks off the ground, essentially on medical advice. When they beat Dublin in the All-Ireland quarter-final Walsh hobbled off the field with a few minutes to go, and though he played in Galway’s last two games, his fitness was compromised.
In the All-Ireland final, Walsh managed to get on the ball 18 times, but he was double-teamed a lot, and his impact was minimal. From seven shots he scored just two points; in the second half he missed three placed balls, as well as a shot from a mark. In the 2022 final he had kicked nine points, one more than David Clifford. The contrast couldn’t have been starker.
This year, Walsh came back fresh, energised by the new rules. In the opening five rounds of this year’s league, he kicked a staggering 15 two-pointers. “It’s back to the skills of the game,” he said after the Donegal game in February. “You are seeing a lot more lads go one-on-one, seeing lads sidestepping and taking shots on. For me, that is what I believe football is all about. That is why I love it.”
Before the championship, though, he broke down. He was replaced at half-time in the second last league game against Dublin and didn’t play again until they faced Dublin in the championship nine weeks later.
After the first Dublin game, Pádraic Joyce said that Walsh had “a routine procedure” on a back injury, but didn’t respond to the injection. Before they played Roscommon in the Connacht semi-final, a month later, Walsh damaged a hamstring in a training session for players not in the match day 26. All of it amounted to a hole punched in his season.
Before the Connacht final, Comer played in a challenge match against Cork and was injured again. So, for the guts of the last three years, Galway have nursed Walsh and Comer and waited on them and took whatever they could give. It was clear, Galway could no longer depend on them, even though they yearned for that dependence. In their relationship, the co-ordinates shifted.
“If you go back three years, to the 2022 season, that was a bit of an outlier,” says Cullinane. “Before that there was a similar enough trend where it was very difficult for us to get both lads on the pitch.”
“You have to remember, the two boys are in their early 30s [Comer is 31, Walsh is 32],” says O’Donnell, who played with both. “We’ve been harping on about it for a few years. It’s just the nature of the beast [picking up injuries]. They’ve a lot of football played. Knowing the set-up that’s in there, they’re probably more focused now on who they have available. Lads have come in in their absence and done well.”
There is an argument that Matthew Tierney plays better when Walsh and Comer are missing, but any perceived bounce in his performance still leaves Galway with a deficit. Strip away the X-factor stuff, and Galway have a free taking problem when Walsh is not on the field. When Comer is absent, their attack misses the steel fist in the silk glove.
“It’s the Plan B or Plan C that Damien brings,” says O’Donnell. “He’s different to other players who play in there. Other lads feed off the attention he gets off defenders. He creates a bit of chaos inside. You can throng balls in, you can go short, you can bring him on the loop. I don’t think any other team has the kind of firepower he would bring.”
The form that Walsh showed in the opening rounds of the league has been absent since he returned against Dublin and Derry. Taking him off after an hour in Celtic Park, when Galway needed scores to save their summer, would have been lunacy at any other time in Walsh’s career. But going down the stretch Galway got clutch scores without him. Walsh was no longer a sure bet.
“He’s still showing individual moments of brilliance,” says Cullinane, “but I don’t know is he showing enough consistency that he’s going to be a real threat over 70 minutes. Are they going to have to make a decision? Is he a 50-minute player?”
And yet, if Galway save their skin against Armagh this weekend, it is impossible to imagine them as credible contenders for the All-Ireland unless they can squeeze something more from Walsh and Comer.
So far, there have only been glimpses of what Comer might achieve with the new rules. O’Donnell has a vision of it. “If you had Damien playing full forward there’s a lot of shooters on the outside who can take two-pointers. If you have defences pushing up on them, you’ve no other option but to leave green grass inside for Damien. He’s such a serious complement to both sides of things.”
They still need them.
