Galway’s Tierney connection turns full circle

The sight of Matthew Tierney wheeling away in delight after scoring the winning penalty in that gripping shoot-out against Armagh has become emblematic of Galway’s summer.

The tension had reached an unbearable level by the time the Oughterard man made the slow walk to prepare for his kick. But penalty practice had long been part of Galway’s training routine under Joyce so Tierney was very clear about what he was going to do before he received the ball.

“I’d the spot picked a long time before that. Just five steps back, tell the umpire to raise the green flag,” he joked when asked about the moment at the squad’s pre All-Ireland media day.

“Ah yeah, we’d be practising them away so I had to put the hand up. I remember I was playing soccer a long time ago; it was U-14 Kennedy Cup, semi-final. We lost, and it was a penalty shoot-out and I refused to take one. I was one of the better kickers on the team. Never again – you have to step up.”

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Still. It is one thing taking place-kicks in the dusky light of Loughgeorge when everyone is tired and fulfilled after a training session. This was the starkest pressure.

Tierney is just 21-years-old and the moment was the continuation of a fabulous run of success, with an U-20 All-Ireland title with Galway in 2020, an All-Ireland intermediate championship with his club in the same year and captaining the NUIG Sigerson Cup team to a narrow victory against the David-Clifford-led UL team last February.

But the elation after he delivered his kick in Croke Park and propelled Galway into the semi-final was unique.

“Ah, an absolutely incredible feeling. Everyone from Oughterard knew where I was going anyway; if you watched the county final, I put it bottom left as well. So, they were calling it. It was an incredible moment, and the stand went crazy. It was class to have the stand there as well – with Covid last year, it wasn’t half as enjoyable. But a full packed-out Croker, it was class.”

Tierney belongs to the generation of young players whose senior careers have been defined by the pandemic. It was obvious from his debut league season that he was the real thing: an athletic midfielder who can travel all day and with the technique and mentality to take scores.

Then came the stop-start, restricted seasons which badly disrupted Galway’s momentum. His surname his celebrated in Galway football circles. His older brother Enda has played for Galway at all levels and was a leading player on the NUIG team that competed in a Sigerson Cup final four years ago which UCD edged by a point.

And his father, Matt Snr, distinguished himself by hitting 0-3 in the 1988 final, against Maurice Fitzgerald’s UCC.

In a terrible blow, the car in which he was travelling home from that colleges’ tournament was involved in a crash on the fringes of Galway city and to the shock of his team-mates and the general GAA community, Matt Tierney Snr was badly injured and left unable to walk.

So the sight of Mattie Tierney lifting the famous trophy some 34 years later was particularly emotional for several generations of Galway football people. Tierney Snr is a familiar face at Galway football games both local and national. And to illustrate the intensely local aspect of Gaelic games, it turns out that his mother was in school with David Clifford’s mother.

“They were, yeah. Castleisland,” he laughed. “I have the phone taken off her for the week, don’t worry!”

Tierney is easygoing and quietly confident and has assumed a big role in Pádraic Joyce’s team but he remains content to learn as he goes. He is one of those big men who was fortunate to experience a growth spurt in his late teens, meaning he relied on his skill rather than size in his early years. Now he has fallen under the tuition of senior figures like Paul Conroy, Damien Comer and Shane Walsh

“Sure they’re top, top players. You see them scoring from everywhere, and their directness – it’s a pleasure to work with them and hopefully continue to learn from them.”

Now that Galway are preparing for a final, it is easy to dismiss the pressure the squad was under in advance of this year.

Brushed aside in last year’s Connacht final in Croke Park by their neighbours, their season pivoted on that championship opener against Mayo when they turned the tables.

“Yeah, was great to get over the line against Mayo. They were prepping for it the whole year. It’s great to get all the games in the league and the FBD, playing with these lads. There was a big turnaround, I suppose, with players and it’s good to play with them – you get to know the ins and outs of what they like to do. It was a good turning point in the season.”

He reckons he has watched the video cassette recordings of 1998 and 2001 perhaps “a hundred times”. Now, he gets to participate in one of those days, against the most famous football county.

Tierney came up against a host of Kerry stars in NUIG’s semi-final win over MTU Kerry this winter. And he was top scorer against Kerry in the U-20 semi-final of 2020. The famous hooped jersey holds no fear for his generation.

“It was a very good game but it is a different competition. Just stick to the game plan and you come out the right side of it,” is his summary of those experiences.

“I suppose you get confidence every time you win but it is a different competition and I don’t know, this Kerry team is much different. They are brilliant.”