YESTERDAY WAS A case of job done for Micheál Donoghue and his players. Galway booked their place in the All-Ireland semi-final for a second straight year, and Donoghue resisted the urge to fire back at their critics.
Ger Loughnane led the charge against the Tribesmen following their second-half Leinster final collapse, but Donoghue said after yesterday’s win over Clare that his team didn’t give the backlash much thought.
“Any day you get to a final, a provincial final, there are always people who are going to have comments and analysis of that,” he said. “With respect the only people that matter are people that we have respect for – family and friends.
“When we reviewed the Leinster final of course we recognised that there was lots of work we had to do, the past three weeks we worked really hard and I think they got their just rewards today.
“We haven’t made any big deal out of it – when a team loses there’s always a bit of criticism, and Galway seem to get the lion’s share of it from some of you guys. We know when it’s coming. We’ve worked really hard and I’m proud of the lads, we’re looking forward to the All-Ireland semi-final.”
Donoghue heaped praise on his talisman Joe Canning, who delivered an inspired performance while contributing 1-8 to the scoreboard.
“In fairness to Joe it was a great finish, the angle he took the ball and where he shot from, it was probably hard to conceive of him shooting from there, but a player of his calibre is well capable of scoring from there. We probably needed that to create a platform from then on.
“In any game you want your big players on the ball, he’s a huge player for us, as are all the lads who were out there, and near the end he was just sticking to his man. David McInerney finished the game strong and Joe stuck to him.
“He’s a huge player for us. We stronger as a group rather than the individual and we asked everybody to work no matter where that took them and I think Joe epitomised that in the second half.”
Galway renew acquaintances with Tipperary, opponents they stunned at the same stage last year.
“We haven’t really given any consideration to that, our focus was on just getting over this game and now we can focus on it (All-Ireland semi-final). Tipp are one of the top teams in the country, they had an emphatic win in the Munster final.
“That’s a challenge but it’s a challenge we’ll look forward to meeting in a few weeks.”
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I’m sure the irony of Jim McGuinness revealing all in a book is not lost on Kevin Cassidy.
Really hope he gets a good ghost writer (Keith Duggan or Kieran Shannon would be perfect) and this could be a belter of a book.
No matter what your opinions on the football, he’s a fiercely interesting guy.
fools and their money.
Christ did this lad win a few championships or just one .
He won it twice! Once as a player and once as the manager
A book about how to play puke football
No thanks
3 out of 4 ulster championships too – u know the only one that counts really :-)
Kevin Cassidy must be absolutely raging right now
chapter 1, refuse to play just strangle the life out of the opposition until they surrender the end.
Chapter 2 Uses if verbal abuse.
You are very bitter Paul
not a bit of it Joe .