Henry Shefflin walked the line between satisfaction and sheer relief at getting back to where he knew Galway had to be. Having seen the welcome prospect of a Leinster title evaporate a fortnight previously, he knew that to break new ground, his team had to get back to the All-Ireland semi-finals if they were to show any manifest improvement on last year.
So he set about addressing the problems of the Leinster final – most starkly a disposition to concede goals, four against Kilkenny, each one a snake to send them sliding back in a match they looked to have climbed enough ladders to win.
He set out his stall after Saturday’s All-Ireland quarter-final defeat of Tipperary, asking almost distractedly how far his team had been ahead before the snakes threatened a reappearance.
“Were we eight? I wasn’t aware of that actually. I knew we went the minutes without scoring. Yeah, it was probably different to what we normally do but we probably wanted the game to be a bit tight and tense.
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“We were in Tullamore last weekend and Tipp just blitzed Offaly. And we knew they’d be coming out and they’d probably saying, ‘They’re probably hurting a little bit from the Leinster final, they’re wondering, let’s go at them’.
“And that’s why we wanted it to turn into a bit of a grit and a battle and to be fair the lads used the ball very well and obviously the lads inside looked very threatening.”
He also reflected on progress over the year since they wandered, a little dazed after a non-performance of a Leinster final, into a quarter-final against Cork, which didn’t entirely dispel the negativity.
“I think the group with ourselves – we’re more comfortable, the relationship between us is definitely stronger than it was 12 months ago. That’s a good thing; that’s what you want.”
His Tipperary counterpart Liam Cahill was dejected at the end of a season that slipped away since the defeat by Waterford in Munster denied them a place in the provincial final. He felt that they hadn’t performed in a match that lacked the intensity of their best displays this season.
“I know pressure does that and intensity in a game does that but those boys have come through three or four massively intense games. No disrespect to the game today, but there were encounters a lot more intense than today and we just failed to execute what we went through, so it’s bitterly disappointing.”
He said that he now needed to take stock of the situation after a season of improvement had ended without reaching the heights that at one stage had looked within their reach.
“We’ll dust ourselves down and take the criticism that will come ... We’ll go back to the grindstone, myself and the lads in the management team and we’ll make changes. We will have to go about putting our own stamp on this.
“I suppose we’ve done reasonably okay to date getting to the quarter-final of the championship but I’ll be rigorously going through the club championship this year to definitely freshen up the panel for next year.”
