Indo GAA podcast<\/a> this week.<\/p>\nI thought they were really ticking all the boxes. Of all the losers last weekend, they were, in my opinion, the biggest losers. I didn’t expect that.<\/p>\n
There’s no doubt about it…it was no different from last year. If you can remember last year’s quarter-final, they were behind against Meath, they came back, they were leading by three points, and then they were blown out in the closing stages.<\/p>\n
After John Maher scored the goal last week, they were outscored 1-08 to 0-01. That’s damning.<\/p>\n
You look at things like what went wrong? There’s no doubt about it – are they a county that have underperformed? Yes. Are they a county, under Joyce, that should have won an All-Ireland? Absolutely. Could have and should have beaten Kerry [in 2022], could have and should have beaten Armagh [in 2024]. Didn’t perform, certainly against Armagh, and didn’t really perform as well as they should have against Kerry.<\/p>\n
They’ve left two All-Irelands behind them that they could have won.<\/p>\n
This is one of the finest generations of players Galway GAA has produced, but this panel increasingly risks ending their careers without an All-Ireland crown.<\/p>\n
Spillane namedropped three of their biggest stars as three he was especially concerned could be over the hump.<\/p>\n
I’m looking at some of the players and some of them are on the wrong side of 30, there’s no doubt about that.<\/p>\n
The big players…Shane Walsh, who I was raving about the previous week, was anonymous, seems to have lost that yard of pace, seems to have lost confidence. He wasn’t taking players on.<\/p>\n
Cillian McDaid was taken off and he’s normally…it was [strange].<\/p>\n
Paul Conroy came back this year and he’s 34 or 35. Paul showed signs of age.<\/p>\n
Their old guys, their experienced players, a lot of them didn’t deliver. They were flat on the day.<\/p>\n
Let’s be honest, there were also things that they could have managed, and there’s no doubt about it.<\/p>\n
Spillane picking out Shane Walsh as a point of concern for Galway is the most eyebrow-raising, given his stature in the game.<\/p>\n
During the early rounds of the Connacht SFC, Walsh looked in imperious form, but there’s no denying he was marked out of Sunday’s game in a comprehensive fashion.<\/p>\n
There could be some big calls coming down the line for Galway, and Spillane believes another stagnant year could see the Tribesmen shake things up and look for an outside man.<\/p>\n
One of the things that we forget completely lads is that this is a new game. Gaelic football is in its second year, it’s a brand new game.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, the managers and the coaches that have been there for four, or five, or six years are not sharp in adapting to the new rules and evolving.<\/p>\n
I said last year and I’ll say again…Joyce has two years to go, that’s fine. But, if ever there’s a county that needs an outside, innovative coach, au fait with the new rules, then it’s Galway, because there is potential.<\/p>\n
The hurlers could yet deliver Liam MacCarthy, but Galway GAA’s wait for Sam Maguire is set to extend to at least 26 years.<\/p>\n
Whether change is needed to ensure it does not extend to 27 or beyond is the big question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pat Spillane admits he has concerns about two stalwarts of Galway GAA after yet another year of championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[30883,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-528369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-galway-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}