MIDWAY THROUGH THE second half in the Gaelic Grounds last Sunday, Conor Cooney pounced.
The Galway full-forward finished under pressure to the net for the gamebreaking score that ensured Limerick were despatched and a first league final place in 2010 was secured.
He wound up with 1-4 for his afternoon’s efforts and carried off the man-of-the-match award as Galway were propelled into next Sunday’s final meeting with Tipperary.
It was a performance that reflected the leading status he occupies in the Galway attack and a measure of his progress years since he was first pitched in as a teenager five years ago to the senior hurling arena for Galway.
That 2012 season saw Galway claim a landmark Leinster title win and take Kilkenny to a September final replay.
“Looking back then I was fierce young,” says Cooney.
“You don’t think it at the time, but you are very young and naive. You are going up and down to college, you can’t get the preparation you can when you are set in a certain place.
“Then I had the setbacks, it is just sort of now that I feel I’m coming right a small bit. I’m that bit older and that bit more mature. I’m just looking forward to cracking on now.”
The setbacks he references were a wave of injuries that left him reeling.
By 2014 he was out of the U21 ranks and looked poised to kick on at senior level. That summer he shot the lights out for Galway, bagging 2-29 from four championship outings.
He may have hoped that would be a springboard for 2015 but instead the treatment table became his home. He broke his foot, not once but twice.
The first time during a training camp on the astro-turf pitch in the University of Limerick, the second occasion while on the comeback trail in a challenge game in Ballinasloe.
Throw in a nagging hip problem and 2015 saw him on the periphery. He returned to the field for the All-Ireland final but only saw game time as a sub and was powerless to prevent another loss to Kilkenny.
Last year he was back in flying form and his hurling prospered. Cooney hit 3-12 from play in four championship outings, showing his clinical nature in rattling the net against Offaly, Clare and Tipperary.
“When you are injury free, you know your fitness can improve a certain amount so you can focus on hurling. You feel yourself that you are that bit more prepared.
“From a psychological standpoint it definitely stands to you having a clean bill of health, being able to get a good run at things.”
He bounced on into the autumn and winter as St Thomas reached the club summit in Galway again but their dreams of adding to the 2013 All-Ireland win were dashed in February by Clare’s Ballyea.
“It was tough,” admits Cooney.
“Fair dues to Ballyea, they were the better team on the day. We staged a bit of a comeback at the end, but we didn’t perform to the level we would have liked.
“If you play to your max and feel it didn’t work out you can say fair enough, but it took us a long time to get going which was disappointing.”
The tempation may have been to dwell on the pain of that defeat but Michael Donoghue moved swiftly to bring the St Thomas crew back into the Galway fold.
“At the time I was thinking I could do with a week in Spain or something,” laughs Cooney.
“You are thinking you have no interest in even looking at a hurl, but we got a phone call soon enough after trying to get us back into the groove of things, for us not to dwell on it.
“When you get back on the horse you are certainly better off. If you are thinking or dwelling about something too long it will do your head in. I think we were lucky in that regard that the league was on at the time and we could get straight back into competitive hurling and not just the slog of training.”
If Galway suffered the blow of missing out on league promotion, their progress through the knockout stages has provided ample consolation.
Cooney has raised green flags against Waterford and Limerick. He feels he needs to display that level of form when he surveys the forward options available to Galway, the emergence of a youngster like Thomas Monaghan and the potential availability of the New York-based Johnny Glynn.
“It is great to have Johnny back, it is fantastic for us, a more dedicated man you won’t get. Absolutely it is going to be tough.
“I’m not sure myself what way it is going to work, but Johnny is fully committed to doing whatever it takes to being there, to do whatever it takes to be part of it.
“The lads and the club are fully committed to getting him back as much as possible. His employers back in New York are fairly happy to accommodate him. So everybody is happy to give him the opportunity.”
Galway hope that Glynn will be linking up with a 2017 league title winning squad. They face Tipperary next Sunday, their opponents in the last two engrossing All-Ireland semi-finals.
Winning one by a point and losing the other by a point suggests fine margins will come into play again. The lack of medals in the Galway dressing-room provides sufficient motivation.
“I think we have only four that were involved in 2010 with the league win,” says Cooney.
“The Leinster in 2012, I’m not sure how many were there, but a lot of guys have no silverware with Galway at all.
“So absolutely, it is only one of two national titles you can win with your county, we will be going all out to get silverware.
“We pipped them the year before and they pipped us. It is good that we are there and that we are nipping at each other’s heels all of the time.”
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Good signing last year… a few championship clubs sniffing around
Best player in the league I’d say. Huge future ahead of him.
sign Hery