The last thing Joe Canning expected was any sort of negativity from anyone. After 29 years of waiting, in his 10th season as a senior hurler, Galway winning the All-Ireland for only the fifth time went beyond all realms of normality.
Still, it wasn’t long before some gentle poking: Galway were enjoying it too much, swanning around Boston, New York, Cancun. Canning also taking in a trip to Aleppo in war-torn Syria. This sort of carry-on might come back to haunt them come the 2018 championship.
“Well, I didn’t bring the Liam MacCarthy to Syria,” says Canning, looking fit and primed for Galway’s opening defence of that All-Ireland against Offaly on Saturday. “We had the Boston trip for the Fenway Classic alright, and then we just went on holiday. Every other county does it, so what’s the difference?
“There’s always looking for the negativity, I find, when you win something. Why can’t you look at the positivity, and celebrate the achievement of actually winning the All-Ireland when it’s only Galway’s fifth All-Ireland? You can’t really win.
“We needed to celebrate that as much as we could, include as many people as we could, and especially kids and schools and stuff like that to get the next generation to have somebody to look up to and inspire to wear the Galway jersey some day.
Trip to Syria
“It’s not every year you win an All-Ireland, obviously, in Galway. If you can’t celebrate in an amateur organisation, when can you?”
Canning’s trip to Syria in November as a Unicef Ireland goodwill ambassador was no celebration, an area of conflict for the last 6½ years, displacing 12 million people. He did skip an invite to travel to Australia.
Galway’s form so far has not exactly matched last year (when they won the league), but Canning has no fear whatsoever of an All-Ireland hangover. If anything this is the year to ultimately prove themselves a great team.
“It’s a blank slate to be straight up about it,” he says, speaking in Dublin as an ambassador for Bord Gáis Energy’s sponsorship of the championship. “Maybe if I had won two or three, but I’ve only won one, so there’s that expectation and you get that kind of feeling that you’ve only won one. You need to win a couple to be considered a better team.
“Like, obviously you have that extra pressure, that target on your back that you’re All-Ireland champions, and people will want to bring you back down to earth in a way.
Catch-up
“For sure, people say we were playing catch-up in the league, but realistically the league wasn’t a priority last year either but we ended up winning it. It wasn’t a priority this year, but we would have taken it if we progressed.
“At the end of the day championship is your number one, and when we heard the draw Offaly was our main target, simple as that. Offaly was our biggest target from the start of the year and that’s what the group have prepared for.”
Galway beat Offaly, 0-33 to 1-11 in last year’s Leinster quarter-final, setting a trend for the summer in that Galway went on to win the All-Ireland without scoring a single goal.
“I suppose it was the way we had to set out against teams more so than anything. We didn’t intend to play sweepers in most of our games but we ended up having to do it because of the set up of other guys.
“We always spoke of just find a way of winning a game no matter if it was points or goals. I remember playing Offaly last year, they had 10 defenders, two sweepers. I think our half-backs scored a load of points that day.”
At age 29 and the 2017 Hurler of the Year, Canning feels the extra games in Leinster, including two at home, will suit him and the team, not yet content that the team or himself have reached their peak.
“You are always trying to improve. To be straight up about it, I thought I had better years in years gone by than I did last year. I remember 2015, I was the top scorer and second top scorer from play in the championship. And it was perceived that it was a bad year for me even though I was second top scorer from play. I found that kind of funny.
Pressure
“But you always put pressure on yourself to deliver and be the best that you can be every year and try and improve. There is no point in looking back on 2017 and just being content with it. I don’t think you can ever say I am just going to enjoy this now.
“The championship is what it’s all about – when the draw came out Offaly was a big one for us, and I suppose the way they’re playing this year with the league – they’d a good win over Dublin and ran Kilkenny very close. They have big guys in around the middle and stuff like that. It’s going to be a bit of bruiser, I’d say.
“We’re fairly happy with how training has gone, used maybe 32, 33 players during the league to get a look at guys, which is always good. I think everything has gone as well as possible, and very little injuries as well. So we’re really looking forward to it.”
