For a county still prone to bouts of acute inconsistency, there is some justification for Galway’s hesitancy in looking too far beyond their next game. As good as Sunday’s league title victory was it won’t count for much unless they get past their date with Dublin in the Leinster hurling championship quarter-final.
That game, set for Sunday May 28th at O’Connor Park in Tullamore, is already beeping loudly on the radar of Galway captain David Burke: overall, despite the lapse against Wexford early in the league, Burke also believes Galway have found some consistency – at least shown in their 70 minutes against Tipp on Sunday.
“We have turned the corner,” said Burke. “Everyone still says which Galway is going to turn up but we are consistent and we have been for the last two or three years. We weren’t doing much tactically. It was simply working hard up in the forwards and putting them under pressure, because if Tipp are giving time out the field, with the kind of forwards they have, you can’t expect any back to stop that.
“We are not up and down anymore. We were beaten by better teams, we have no complaints. Tipp were the better team last summer, they showed that in the All-Ireland final, but we have bigger fish to fry this summer. We want the big one.
“What we wanted was to bring the physicality, bring the workrate, whether we won by eight points or lost by eight points, we just wanted to know that we could still play against the very best. And that is what we wanted to do.
“But look, a picture paints a thousand words and the fans are delighted. It is important, especially after the setback we had against Wexford, which was awfully disappointing.
“So we had to put pressure on them out the field, real workmanlike and we got a few scores.”
Dublin, however, aren’t just lying in the long grass, but wounded too by relegation to Division 1B: “They will be waiting, and they will have had a good look at us,” added Burke.
“We have put in a lot of work the past couple of weeks. We will go back to the clubs now, and it is very hard to get yourself mentally prepared all the time. Physically there is nothing wrong with lads, but getting up for games all the time, can be hard. So we have to be on our guard against Dublin.”
