Kevin McStay: A resurgent Galway are never to be treated lightly

Is it possible to pinpoint the moment when Galway made the metamorphosis from uncertain, promising team to All-Ireland finalists?

Yes, they are the surprise packet of this year’s championship. But while 20 years have been lived since we last had Galway in a final, this is not any run-of-the-mill crowd coming up on Sunday. This is the third most successful county on the island. Nine titles and a rich tradition that provides the inner confidence and knowledge of how to win these big games. Galway have an assured heritage.

When they tog, they tog. Look at the quality of their previous winners; the celebrated three-in-a-row champions of the mid-1960s and the double All-Ireland team from the late 90s: fabulous players such as Tomás Mannion, Sean Óg de Paor, Kevin Walsh, Michael Donnellan, Ja Fallon and, of course, the magician himself, Padraic Joyce.

Now Galway have Joyce at the helm and he has tapped into that sense of heritage to make sure that this team will not be thinking of a big day, the colour, the noise and the craic. They’ll be reflecting on all of that after the game is over, when they are headed west with the cup. That will be their mindset. And it’s an enviably swift leap they have made over the course of this lightning-fast championship.

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How did they do it?

Think back to the provincial quarter-final against Mayo, in MacHale Park. I wrote then that it was a massive game for Joyce, his backroom team and the veterans on this Galway team. A defeat at that stage would not have facilitated the progressive building of a championship-winning side. It was no coincidence that all four provincial winners contested the semi-finals.

Galway beat Mayo – not convincingly, but they did what you must do in championship football: ‘survive & advance’. A very decent lead was wiped out down the stretch and Mayo nearly snatched the draw. So they went on but with major questions hanging over them.

But even then we got to see the growth and maturing of the team and the management group. With Cian O’Neill providing more detail than might normally be expected [he previously coached Mayo], Galway doubled down on a narrative that suggested Mayo do not like playing against packed defences.

I’ve often argued that if you have clever footballers in your panel (sporting intelligence) they will pick up tactical resets pretty easily. A few weeks of practice on a defensive formation and the different alignments therein is all players of that nature need. And so Galway, post league and defensive leakages, adapted with double sweepers (Dylan McHugh and Kieran Molloy).

Except it is much more nuanced than that. In a tweak on ‘weak-side defence’, the wing back on the ball side defends physically if required but sags back to cut off longer foot and hand passes and till the passing lane. The other wing back (on the weak side) fills the area in front of the goal to help out the defence.

It worked a treat against Mayo and has served Galway well since. Earlier contact on the ball is always a help and it keeps the distance shooters honest. Leaving aside their calamitous closing minutes against Armagh, they have become mean and gnarled defensively.

But now they face Gaelic football’s aristocrats and, as it happens, the best foot passers in the game. David Moran, Paudie Clifford and Seán O’Shea are top class with the foot and if Paul Geaney or David Clifford find themselves rotating to the half line, they are no slouches either when it comes to threading the needle.

This skill can remove a sweeper from the equation very quickly and the goal chances are likely to present themselves once that happens. So Galway will need total vigilance and an opening-quarter commitment to keeping their net intact.

Now, Galway have displayed a lot of flexibility with their approach to different games.

An interesting aspect of this final is the crossover knowledge the coaches have of the opposition. It can be argued that it’s been a while since Paddy Tally was with Galway (he left in 2018) and Cian O’Neill with Kerry (he left 2015) but the culture, the challenges and how various matters are handled generally remain constant. And both sets of management will be aware of that. They will share an in-depth knowledge of the opposition players involved.

It just emphasises once more how and why this great game of ours continues to evolve. Our best coaches move constantly across county boundaries to new appointments, sharing their philosophy with more and more squads. The truth is there is little that modern squads don’t know about each other due to the constant analysis of tape and statistics.

Character remains the calling card when it comes to the rarefied business of winning the Sam Maguire. Talent, skill and athleticism are the boxes that need to be ticked after that.

These are the standards both managers will have set way back in the off-season and the months since were used to reach those. Night after night, week after week … squad meetings, field sessions, gym work, video analysis, face-to-face chats in the hope that each and every player is moving towards that standard, improving incrementally, so that they arrive on All-Ireland final day ready to give a peak performance and win the day.

The game still remains straightforward enough if you have enough footballers that are sound in the fundamentals and comfortable with the skills needed on big days. Two footed, two-handed, perfect first touch, solid in the air, accurate with the ball. Both Kerry and Galway have these players.

But All-Ireland finals generally take on a life of their own. The favourites’ tag is not a critical indication of how the result will go. There will be twists and turns, bounces and breaks.

[ Kevin McStay: Kerry’s monumental win over Dublin showed us Gaelic football in all its glory ]

Last year’s final featured the favourites Mayo, heavily fancied after ending the supremacy of Dublin, and an emerging Tyrone team. And we know how that one turned out.

What a team needs is a substantive contribution from all players and then the hope that one or two of the leading lights – the Cliffords and Sean O’Shea for Kerry or Walsh and Comer and McDaid for Galway – catch fire and produce a never-to-be-forgotten moment.

There is expectation on Kerry. I thought about that while watching Ireland against the All-Blacks on Saturday morning last. The pressure turned inwards on New Zealand. In a country that prides itself on having the best team in the world, untouchable in many ways, anything other than victory can not be countenanced. But that expectation can be overbearing if not handled correctly and can lead to underperformance and worse, no shows.

Kerry are the All Blacks of Gaelic football. And they have endured six years of frustration and watching their great rivals prosper. But like all great franchises they figured out the issues, regrouped, and went the way of youth.

Five All-Ireland minor titles in a row has provided an array of talent to them and though their introduction to senior football has been brutally painful (defeat to Dublin, after a replay in 2019; defeat to Cork in 2020 and last year to Tyrone) they have learned slowly but surely how to navigate their way back to the top.

A key factor was convincing Jack O’Connor to depart Kildare and lead this squad of players to ultimate victory. A serial winner, Jack is doing exactly what it says on the tin. He has the touch. A league title in a canter, Munster in a stroll and then last day out a championship gut check from the Dubs that has them primed to win back the cup they see as theirs to keep safely though the winter.

Will a win on Sunday pave the way for the latest Kerry dynasty? Does the idea that Dublin have gone six in a row enter the Kerry mindset? Unlikely. The opening three finals of the decade have featured five different teams . . . Mayo being the only team to get there twice. There is a general leveling off in standards and my sense is no that team is that far ahead right now.

So this is a final we can really look forward to. When Galway and Kerry come to visit, then you bring out the best china. These are two of the great counties in Gaelic football history. Both are, at their core, footballing counties, but don’t think for a second they won’t sacrifice their hard-won reputations and adapt to whatever the day requires.

Because that’s exactly what the winning teams do: compete madly and aggressively, figure out what way the game is evolving, adapt, make good decisions and believe that their skills will get them there.

Sunday is the climax to a football year with which we have never quite caught up. Yet another new date in the calendar and a season that has sprinted from start to finish. The players are ready now to show us that the weeks and months of training and practice have not been wasted and they are ready to produce peak performance.

Spare a thought for us much-maligned Mayo men as the appalling vista presents itself. Our neighbours about to raid the cupboard and nonchalantly arrive home with the grand prize? Just like that? The thought is enough to drive us into oblivion. Until we realise what a massive Connacht championship 2023 will be! And the chance to ground them.

No, we in Mayo must wish Galway well. They are deserving champions of our province and have earned this berth courageously. A Connacht All-Ireland winner can only be good for us. Tough. But good.

I’ve no sense that Galway will be overrun or out of their depth then, in this, their first final in over two decades. Kerry are very good. But Galway are improving at a rate of knots.

Kerry under Jack O’Connor never underestimate the opposition. In fact, caution is their byword. Only a handful of games spring to mind of a real upset in my lifetime of watching and admiring the Kingdom: Clare in 1992, Meath back in 2001 and Cork a few years ago. No, to beat Kerry, you must be better than them. Not just in a few areas either – in the majority of contests and challenges.

And the team that competes from the off and executes best will carry the day. I feel that Kerry will shade it but Galway will force the All-Ireland final to a significant, critical moment late in the second half.