At some point in Galway’s frantic endgame against Armagh last Saturday, Shane Walsh shouted over at the sideline, asking what the score was up the road in Newry. There, the result of the Dublin-Derry game might help salvage Galway’s summer.
“Never mind,” Walsh was promptly told, “just win the game”.
It was good advice. Despite trailing Armagh by eight points at the break, Galway’s rousing second-half performance, inspired by Walsh’s best championship display this summer, saw them win by a point – enough to set up an away preliminary quarter-final.
When they drew Down on Monday morning, that refocused Galway minds again. It’s their first championship meeting since 1971, which Galway won. But Down were the form team in the round-robin stages, top scorers of all 16 teams with their 4-78. Galway had the highest goal tally of eight, including two against Armagh.
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“It’s game by game at this stage,” Walsh says in advance of Sunday’s showdown in Newry. “Obviously we just want to bring our best every day we go out. Have we brought our best so far? I don’t believe so.
“But it’s been hard, I suppose. We’ve had a bit of a broken spell with players missing, and that obviously affects the rhythm of the group too. I think we are getting there.”
Walsh is talking about himself in terms of broken spells. He missed most of the Connacht championship with injury, and appeared well off his best against Dublin and Derry. Regaining full confidence against Armagh, where he finished with 0-9, including the match-winning free just after the hooter, was in part about his team-mates expressing their belief in him.
“I think that mattered a lot, and obviously having Pádraic [Joyce] there as well. Definitely as a forward, especially when you come back from an injury in the middle of the year. The lads are moving at a certain level and there’s a certain synchronisation that they have out on the pitch,” Walsh says.
“You’re trying to get to that pitch then as well. It’s tough going and you’re probably taking shots that you normally would score. But they’re not coming off for you, maybe because you haven’t had that repetition or you haven’t had that time that the rest of them have.
“Then it can knock you, you can go into your shell a bit. I definitely felt that probably in the Dublin game, the Derry game a bit. But at the same time, Pádraic kind of passed on a couple of things to me. It stood to me going into the weekend, trained well for the two weeks, and it kind of followed into last Saturday.”
Under manager Conor Laverty, Down’s confidence has been soaring. Despite losing to Donegal in the Ulster semi-final, they certainly won’t fear Galway.
“We all know about going up to Newry, you never get it easy up there,” says Walsh. “Conor Laverty always has his team well drilled. I know him, he’s a lovely fellah off the field, but when it comes to his football, he’s very serious about winning as well, and he’ll do whatever it takes.
“Like Michael Murphy’s a nice fellah, gentle off the field, and then when he goes on the field, he’s just a possessed animal, really. It’s great to be able to have that mindset, that you’re able to switch between two. It can be hard at times to take yourself out of it and put yourself into it, but they seem to do it pretty well.
“It’s another great challenge, if you get through it to build your confidence, build the belief in the team and build a bit of momentum.”
Walsh required all his old confidence when standing over the free-kick, just outside the 40-metre line, to win the match last Saturday. He looks back on that process in three different steps.
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“Firstly, when you’re walking over, you’re just saying ‘calm, this is my job now’. The rest of them have done their work to win the free. Then there’s a few words coming your way from opposition and then the heart rate starts to go up a bit.
“Then you’re coming back in saying, ‘you’ve dreamt of this as a young lad’. This is what you grew up dreaming about, saying you want to be in these situations and just commit to the kick, be yourself. That’s all I could do, thankfully it went over.”
While Joyce has sometimes been critical of his team’s performance, admitting he’ll have a hard time picking his best 15 players for Sunday, Walsh believes it’s all part of his plan to get the best out of them.
“We’d nearly be laughing and joking about some things. He could be saying things about us to the media. And sure, we know where he’s coming from. It’s not as if we’d be saying that’s a personal attack or anything like that.
“You build confidence through yourself, but you also build it through your team-mates, your manager and the people around you as well. If people are knocking you, it obviously doesn’t encourage you to do the things you’re doing.”
