'Everyone has been really energised with the young fellas since they've come in'

HINDSIGHT IS 20/20, and all that.

In four days’ time, Galway will go into an All-Ireland final against Limerick. The Tribesmen will be the clear underdogs yet the energy and fearlessness of youth, not to mention their innovative tactical approach, means no one will dismiss their chances as readily as they did in advance of the semi-final against Cork.

There were those who drew a line through the Leinster championship and all who sail in her, and now they wonder aloud if Limerick can crack the Galway code, and succeed where Dublin and Cork both spectacularly failed in the last two big matches for Micheál Donoghue’s men at Croke Park.

Yet 12 months ago Galway exited the championship on foot of tame defeats to Kilkenny and Tipperary, and while they started this year’s provincial campaign with a bang, there were plenty of times – not least when they fell into double-digit holes away to Kildare and Wexford – when this new approach didn’t meet with universal approval from the county’s supporters.  

“The Kildare game and the Wexford games, some of the commentary from the stand was lovely, do you know what I mean?” Donoghue can say with a smile – now.

Packing the defence, creating huge tracts of open country for Jason Rabbitte to exploit, or for middle third runners like Tom Monaghan and Tiernan Killeen to exploit, it looks great when it’s working – but when the scores aren’t flowing it’s a different story.

Still, Donoghue knew that more of the same just wouldn’t cut it.

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“We recognised that we had to have a definite gameplan and change maybe from where we were, and as a management we put in a lot of work in the off-season – probably the biggest amount of work we’ve ever done on it,” he said, speaking at Galway’s All-Ireland final media event.

“Franny [Francis Forde], like he’s an absolute top coach and as time goes on he’s just getting better and better. He kept coming back saying, ‘Look, we can do this and do that.’ And I think where we got the bounce was we were ready to go when we came back to pre-season.

“The lads recognised that we were doing something different, their enthusiasm came from that.”

Like all tactics, it was only as good as the players that could implement it, and here too, Donoghue, Forde and the Galway management backed themselves. Jason Rabbitte and Aaron Niland, still U20s, were deployed in key roles up front.

Cathal Mannion, second highest scorer in the 2025 championship and All-Star winner as a result, was cast into a sweeping role where he was often the last man back. It’s easy to say now, with Mannion a contender for Hurler of the Year and Jason Rabbitte the clear favourite for the Young Hurler accolade, that it was always going to work.

Thankfully for the Galway management, that was the mindset that took over the playing group.  

These boys took to it really, really well and once they’re buying into it, they start driving it themselves.

“We were never going to abandon ship but (when it’s not going well), that’s when you need the group really tight, that everyone trusts it.”

And no concern that it might be too much, too soon for some of the younger players?

“The messaging is that they’re not going to be judged on their first few years, so to just go out and hurl with that freedom and abandonment, and I think that’s evident.

“I was asked if I was shocked with it, but we’ve seen them coming through with underage ranks with Galway and seen a lot of them with their clubs, and they would have been earmarked – most of them – of having the possibility of pushing on. That’s why we brought them in last year to bring them up to speed physically, and they tore into it in the off-season, whilst they were doing it with the club, and that gave us a good foothold then when we came back.”

As an All-Ireland winning manager with his native county nine years ago, Donoghue was always likely to be afforded that bit more patience than some others. He emphatically confirmed that it was always his intention to come back for a second stint, to see if he could bring back the heady days of 2017 and 2018, when they played in back-to-back finals.

“Definitely,” was his answer. “When we left in ’19, we had the opportunity to come back but at that point in time, it wasn’t right. The Dublin opportunity came and we just felt at that time it was just a really good opportunity for us, but once you’re back in it, of course you would welcome the opportunity to get back to Galway.

“All of us, management and the more experienced fellas, everyone has been really energised with the young fellas since they’ve come in. They’ve forged a great chemistry with these boys and, right from pre-season, it just sort of clicked straight away.”