9 hours ago
Joe Canning makes All-Ireland title prediction and his hope for Patrick Horgan
Joe Canning would love to see Patrick Horgan break his All-Ireland title duck - but he believes Kilkenny are the smart bet to lift the Liam MacCarthy.
Canning can empathise with Cork's ultra-prolific sharpshooter Horgan, who is still searching for his first All-Ireland winner's medal after 17 years with the Rebels.
The former Galway great once had that tag of best hurler not to have won the All-Ireland - it was nine years into Canning's stint with the Tribesmen before he got to experience the joy of the ultimate victory at Croke Park.
"Personally I hope it happens for him because it can't be easy," said Canning, who retired in 2021. "People with that tag, it's not a nice tag. But there's loads of players down through the years that haven't won All-Irelands, and I think it's an unfair kind of (label).
"I've always said it, if he was playing an individual sport, fair enough. But great players like Ken McGrath, Dan Shanahan, John Mullane, loads of lads in Galway that haven't won All-Irelands that just because maybe they weren't lucky enough to be on a team on a certain year good enough to win - or lucky enough to win in some cases - it doesn't make them out to be any less of a hurler.
"It's an easy tag. It sounds like (a failure). But hopefully they (Cork) are looking good this year so far, but obviously Dublin will have something to say about it next week.
"And obviously Kilkenny and Tipp on the other side, it opens it up, especially with Limerick gone, who were people's favourites and stuff like that."
Cork are favourites to win their first All-Ireland crown since 2005, but Canning believes it's the county that has waited 10 long years by their standards that can prevail.
"Honestly, I think if I had 20 quid now I'd put it on Kilkenny," Canning said on RTÉ Radio. "Everybody thinks Cork and fair enough, yes, they are the form team.
"But this Kilkenny team is around for a while and the danger is that they're coming in a little bit under the radar, so that's always a danger with Kilkenny.
"And obviously Dublin, it's brilliant for them, to beat Limerick and have a chance against Cork now in All-reland semi-final. Where else would you want to be?".
Canning, who is involved with the Galway under-20s as a selector, was disappointed to see the county's seniors bow out to Tipp last Saturday. That Canning-inspired 2017 success remains the Tribesmen's last since 1988.
"It's so long ago now, it's a bit crazy," said the Portumna man of the victory over Waterford. "The years just fly by. It was historic either way. And it was one of those finals where the neutral probably didn't mind who won. But luckily enough it was in our favour for once.
"People still kind of bring it up every now and again, but you're almost like, when's the next kind of victory going to go? But unfortunately in Galway, last weekend it wasn't great."
Now living in Limerick, Canning says that locals still bring up that the 2018 All-Ireland final, when the Treatysiders enjoyed their own long-awaited breakthrough by beating Galway by a point.
"Yeah, a lot of people thanked me for missing a free," he said. "That's how they kind of approach me in Limerick now, 'Jeez, thanks for missing that free'. In your own mind you want to say something but at this stage you're kind of just laughing off.
"It's always one of those things that if I had one moment back in my career to just retake something, that's probably it. I'd love to take that free again and try and score it.
"I think that's probably the competitive nature of sports people. You kind of more dwell on things that probably didn't go well and see how you can improve on that and how you look back, 'Jesus, if I'd only done this or only done that, maybe it might have been more successful'.
"But that's the competitive nature of sports people. They always look at maybe some of the bad things and reflect on how can I get better."
