Shane Walsh played a bit of hurling with Annaghdown as Damien Comer still does.
Anything for a laugh!!
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Club Gaa in Galway City is basically non existent and soulless. Big part of it.
checks date
Not sure if there are any more up there than any other county. Walsh was just very high profile.
âIt is so unprecedentedâ â Inside Galwayâs injury nightmare
Galway selector John Concannon has never had to deal with a level of disruption like this.
25 February 2024; Galway manager PĂĄdraic Joyce, centre, with Galway coach Cian OâNeill and selector John Concannon before the start of the Allianz Football League Division 1 match between Galway and Derry at Pearse Stadium in Galway. Photo by Ray Ryan/Sportsfile
TUE, 02 APR, 2024 - 06:52
MAURICE BROSNAN
As Galwayâs injuries started to rack up during their league campaign, the management team grew increasingly frustrated. Eventually they had to call up players from the development panel to make up a matchday 26. Just training became a challenge.
âAt one stage we had 21 injuries when we had a training session one evening,â explains selector John Concannon, speaking at the Connacht championship launch in Bekan. âWe could only play small six, seven a-side games. It is so unprecedented.
âYou can look at it one way, it is great that the younger lads (got league games). It mightnât have been the best baptism for them in relation to Cillian (Ă Curraoin), Liam Ă Conghaile, Jack McCabe, Patrick Egan, a few of these lads coming on. Youâd have preferred to integrate them in with Damien Comer, Shane Walsh and Cillian McDaid so theyâd get a better experience. They were thrown in at the deep end. In fairness, they were phenomenal, because of those lads we are still in Division 1.â
This is year five for Padraic Joyce. Concannon has been by his side consistently. Theyâve never had to deal with a level of disruption like this. Injuries combined with the usual panel churn.
Look at it this way. Almost 12 months ago, Galway announced a 40-man championship panel for the 2023 campaign. Since then, 12 players were either released or opted out: James Keane, Owen Gallagher, Cian Hernon, James McLaughlin, Nathan Grainger, Dessie Connelly, Eoin Finnerty, Peter Cooke, Bernard Power, Neil Mulcahy, Ian Burke and Matthew Barrett. Hernon and McLaughlin are on Erasmus and may still return.
At least 14 players have missed league action due to injury: Liam Silke, Jack Glynn, Sean Kelly, Paul Kelly, Tomo Culhane, Billy Mannion, Shane Walsh, Damien Comer, Cillian McDaid, Patrick Kelly, Paul Conroy, Matthew Tierney, Robert Finnerty and Sam OâNeill.
Four of their five 2022 All-Stars have been significantly sidelined. Comer and McDaid did not play a minute. Shane Walsh has not featured since the opening fixture against Mayo. Liam Silke also only played in one game, the final round away to Kerry.
For Concannon, it is a case of rotten luck and some other contributing issues.
âThere are a number of factors. Some of the players came back from their clubs with injuries, some of the players came back from Sigerson with injuries, a few happened on our own watch.
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Unmute
âIn Loughgeorge the amount of traffic that goes through that place, the pitch, and it is nothing to do with the groundstaff or anything, it is just the traffic going through those pitches. They are so heavy at training, whether that has an effect?â
Tuam Stadium and Pearse Stadium do not have floodlights, so Galway have spent much of the season so far training in Loughgeorge. Last winter, the county formed a development panel with Diarmuid Blake, Finian Hanley, Johnny Ryan, Joe Bergin and Donal Ă FĂĄtharta involved as coaches.
They trained with the senior outfit at times and played A vs B games during the pre-season. It means between injuries, additional players and the likes, the panel is big right now. It has to be. That will eventually be cut down.
âWe have a lot of squad injuries, Paul Kelly, SeĂĄn and Eoghanâs brother, he is a massive loss for us all through the league. He is such a versatile and consistent player. The likes of him, Billy Mannion, and Patrick Kelly, who nobody ever mentions. All of these players - an integral part of the squad - are missing. At the moment we just canât cut it down, but in the next few weeks we will have to.â
The continued absence of Mountbellew club man Patrick Kelly is a sorrowful one. The wing-forward started in the All-Ireland final of 2022. That was his last championship outing. Kelly was involved for two league encounters last year and played for his club twice in the Galway SFC knockout rounds. He has not played this year.
âIt is all from his back, it is still at him. He is in the middle of a rehab programme; he has seen all the specialists. He isnât improving at the moment. Hopefully as the weeks go on, something might turn in that regard, but at the moment he isnât available to us.
âHe is doing a bit of off-field conditioning, things like that. But anything that affects his back he canât do.â
Ahead of their trip to London this weekend, Kelly and Silke are expected to be in contention. The rest, Concannon and Galway hope, will gradually follow. In his mind if they can get the bulk of them on the field, their season can still ignite.
âWe have more or less the nucleus of that team that got so close to winning in 2022. We feel we have progressed. The biggest thing everybody said after the '22 final, was that we didnât have the strength in depth on the bench.
âWe sort of thought we worked on that last year until against Armagh. SeĂĄn got injured, Damien was injured. Then the Mayo thing, SeĂĄn was injured, Damien was injured again, Cillian was injured. If we get our top 26 players back, we definitely feel we have the potential to win the All-Ireland.â
My deep suspicion is that there is a complete lack of finesse across the board, but starting at the top, in Galway IC football management, and a lot of injuries result from that. Kelly, for instance, has been flogged by all and sundry in recent times, and Galway management should have managed this better through dialogue with him, his family, his club, and his college.
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There had to be a link there somewhere
Iâve no doubt Joyce and Co have good intentions. Scan in particular youâd feel is desperate to succeed as a selector but theyâve stuck around a year too long. Blaming Loughgeorge for the injuries and not the stone-age training and fitness plans for the amount of injuries is a sign of bad internal stock-taking.
Surely with Cian OâNeill involved the whole thing shouldnât be happening.
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Snacks of a management destroying the players, not unlike that Eddie Hagg no clue at united
Is GAA non existent in Galway City? Would it be a soccer or rugby city? Or is it too hipster to be sporty .(said in jest) Salthill Knocknacarra are the only real prominent club in my mind - although Mellows did win the hurling relatively recently but that was a relative surprise was it not?
Liam Mellows, Castlegar & Rahoon/Newcastle all senior or intermediate hurling clubs in the city. Sathill-Knocknacarra are junior. In football you have Salthill-Knocknacarra, St Jamesâ, St Michaelâs are all usually senior clubs but Michaelâs did go down to intermediate last year. Bearna are senior and are pretty much a city club these days. Fr Griffinâs/Eire Og are junior.
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Thanks - are any of those clubs close to winning a County Senior Hurling or Football title?
Have Bearna improved in recent years? Lovely area and good spurt in population there.
Yeah, Bearna have improved alright. Would be a fairly solid senior club these days. Growing population and a nice area.
Iâd say only Sathill-Knocknacarra have been close to a county title really since Mellows won the hurling in 17. They would all be competitive at their level though.
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Stick to the tag hurling down Leeside. As usual, you clearly havenât a clue what youâre talking about.
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The city produces a talented hurler with talent (Farragher, Aeongus Callanan,) but lacking the requisite scteel so no different than the rest of the county really. Flattyâs mate had the requisite schteel and has an all ireland medal to show for it.
Callanan will be next door to my pal.
I wonder where his kids will hurl given you can see the pitches of RHN from the window (well my pal can, but his monstrosity would likely block aenghusâs view.
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I just want to take the opportunity to throw a dig at those thieving Salthill cunts while the thread is lively. 3 county titles for all their riches and illegal catchment area is a disgrace and makes the little guyâs (CLG Bearna) victories over them in recent years a win for the greater good. Fuck Moycullen too.
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Townies are windy shur, everybody knows that.
My Galway city geography wouldnât be great and I know Castlegar would be considered a city club but would they not have farmers playing for them too?