The Galway hurlers face Derek McGrath's Waterford this Sunday in the league quarter-finals at 4pm in Pearse Stadium.
Galway and Waterford had to toss a coin to decide which side would enjoy home advantage, and luckily Galway won. It sets up an attractive double header with the footballers who play at 2pm and should see a good crowd rock up to Salthill to support both county sides.
Micheál Donoghue's side showed good resolve last Sunday to record a three-point victory over Limerick (0-24 to 1-18 ) at the Gaelic Grounds. David Burke (0-6 ) and Joe Canning (0-10, 6fs, 1 s/l ) showed good leadership when required.
The home side led by 1-13 to 0-15 at half-time, but the Galway defence, which was without current All-Star Daithí Burke, did very well in the second half, restricting the Treaty men to just five points.
Three Galway substitutes, Thomas Monaghan, Niall Burke and Shane Moloney, were all called into action and all raised white flags to ease Galway into the last eight of the league.
Waterford beat Clare
In Cusack Park, the Munster men enjoyed a solid 2-21 to 1-22 victory over Clare to ensure they were not dragged into a relegation battle at the bottom of division 1A.
They had good scoring performances from wing-forward Pauric Mahony 0-10 (8f ), full-forward Shane Bennett (1-1 ) and Stephen Bennett 0-3.
Substitute Tom Devine also came on and made a big impression in his 30 minute cameo with 1-1 from play. Austin Gleeson and corner forward Brian O’Halloran also chipped in with two points each, and those players will need to be nullified if Galway are going to advance.
Galway know this clash with the Deisé will represent a big step up in standard compared to taking on Offaly, Laois and Kerry in division 1B, but it is the kind of competition the Galway hurlers will want as they prepare for championship over the next two months.
Waterford are quite robust in defence too, and it will interesting to see how the Galway forwards do when faced by Barry Coughlan, Shane Fives, Tadhg de Burca and Conor Gleeson.
Galway are due to face Dublin in the Leinster championship on Sunday May 28, and the management team and squad will be hoping to go as far as possible in the league to test themselves before they head into their pre-championship programme.
The hurlers could, in theory, get three more league games, this Sunday's quarter-final, then a possible semi-final and final.
However, they will be taking it one game at a time, and a big performance and a win in three days' time is all that they will be targeting right now.
