Having already booked their place in the Walsh Cup final thanks to last weekend’s nine-point win over Dublin, the Galway senior hurlers will travel to the Darver Centre of Excellence in County Louth this coming Saturday afternoon to take on Antrim.
Whether inter-county teams would be better off concentrating on in-house training with a couple of challenge games thrown in at this time of year is very much open for debate, but last Saturday’s game did give Henry Shefflin another opportunity to assess the claims of newcomers looking to book their spot on this year’s panel.
In that regard, Eoin Lawless and Martin McManus both got valuable game time, with McManus unable to replicate his scoring exploits against Micheál Donoghue’s men.
A first half that bordered on dour ended with the home side 0-7 to 0-6 in front, but Galway had battled against the Parnell Park elements in that spell, and their scoring power told in the second period.
There were seasonal debuts for some more familiar faces, Jason Flynn, Brian Concannon, Jack Grealish, and Jack Fitzpatrick, while Darren Morrissey, Tom Monaghan, and Gavin Lee were among those to be sprung from the bench.
Monaghan quickly caught the eye on his introduction, injecting pace and precision into the Galway attack, while Donal O’Shea again picked off a couple of points to do his hopes no harm.
Shefflin will no doubt also be pleased with the form of Tommy Larkins’ midfielder Ronan Murphy, who picked off three points from play. Injury severely curtailed Murphy’s 2022 campaign, while his partner in the middle third, Turloughmore’s Seán Linnane, is another who will be looking to avoid further injury woe.
Portumna’s Declan McLoughlin struck for a goal late on as Galway pulled clear, but it must be noted that Donoghue made a raft of changes to the side that had previously beaten Antrim as he tries to look at as many players as possible ahead of the start of the National League campaign on the first weekend in February .
Shefflin will likely do something similar this weekend for a dead rubber against Antrim, who will be without their Dunloy contingent who are in All-Ireland club final action against Kilkenny’s Ballyhale Shamrocks on Sunday.
Kilkenny or Wexford will be confirmed as Galway’s opponents in the Walsh Cup final on January 28 in Croke Park after they meet this Saturday evening. A bumper crowd is expected at Chadwicks Wexford Park as a new set of floodlights are put into action for the very first time.
Galway: D Fahy; J Grealish, J Fitzpatrick, E Lawless; T Killeen, G McInerney, TJ Brennan; R Murphy (0-3 ), S Linnane; J Cooney (0-1 ), J Flynn (0-2 ), D O'Shea (0-4, 2fs ); E Niland (0-7fs ), B Concannon (0-2 ), M McManus. Subs: T Monaghan (0-02 ) for Linnane (51 ), Morrissey for Fitzpatrick (51 ), G Lee for Murphy (57 ), M Kennedy for Niland (60 ), C Mahony for Lawless (65 ), D McLoughlin (1-0 ) for Concannon (67 ), S Ryan for Brennan (69 ), S O’Hanlon for Cooney (69 ).
