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Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Live GAA updates: Galway out to loosen Kilkenny's hold on Leinster
Sunday's fixtures Leinster Senior Hurling Final: Kilkenny v Galway, Croke Park, 4pm Joe McDonagh Cup Final: Kildare v Laois, Croke Park, 1.45pm Tailteann Cup: Wexford v Antrim, Wexford Park, 1pm Sligo v Carlow, Tubbercurry, 2pm 7 minutes ago Hello and welcome to live coverage of today's Leinster hurling final between Kilkenny and Galway. The Cats are aiming to make it six provincial titles in a row today, while Micheál Donoghue's team are in search of a first title since 2018. Derek Lyng's side won comprehensively in their first meeting in the Leinster championship this year, but Galway have picked up form since that match. Throw in at Croke Park for the Leinster final will be at 4pm. Key Reads: Leinster SHC final: Unflappable Kilkenny can contain the Galway bounce-back Galway's Conor Whelan: 'Mental health is not as abstract as people sometimes make it sound' 'I'll play anywhere I'm told to': Adrian Mullen keen to shine in Leinster final after beating injury demons
Irish Times
a day ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Galway's Conor Whelan: ‘Mental health is not as abstract as people sometimes make it sound'
He arrived in a stork basket, 10 years ago next week. Conor Whelan had been the best forward on the 2014 Galway minor team but whatever currency that might have held in other years, it looked like pennies on the dollar this time around. Though he'd scored two goals against Limerick in the All-Ireland semi-final, Galway had been torched by 15 points . If there was help for the senior team coming from that group, it surely wasn't coming in a hurry. Anthony Cunningham saw it differently. Whelan was in his first year in college in Limerick when the then Galway manager got in touch. The first contact was early in the season but Whelan declined, not wanting to rush into it. By mid-summer, Cunningham was back asking again. It was in the run-up to the Leinster final and this time Whelan said yes. His first training session was in the second week of June 2015. His first senior intercounty game was the All-Ireland quarter-final in July. Six weeks later, he was starting an All-Ireland final. An All Star nomination came on the back of a career that was three games old, none of them in the league or provincial championship. It must be a record. 'The stars aligned a little bit in terms of getting your chance and going in,' he says now, upon being reminded of the decade anniversary. 'I suppose I stepped up and took it too. It seems like only yesterday really. When I look at the whole 11 seasons, it feels like one big blur. READ MORE 'It just goes so fast. Something that I always say is if you have a season where you get knocked out of the round robin series, you lose a lot those years because you're only playing five championship games and the whole thing is over. You feel like you never really got started at all. 'I've been fortunate with injury, I've only missed one game – against Westmeath in 2022 and I could probably have played if I really needed to push my body. It's been a journey, definitely. Lots of ups and downs.' Conor Whelan of Galway in action during the Allianz Hurling League game between Galway and Clare in February. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho And plenty more to come, most likely. According to the numbers put together by hurling's great annals-keeper Leo McGeough, Whelan has played 57 championship games for Galway. Of the current crop, all the players who have more than him – two Burkes, two Mannions and Conor Cooney – are all over 30. Whelan won't be 29 until October. But if it all ended tomorrow, he'd leave a hefty footprint behind him. He is the fourth-highest scorer in Galway's history, with 16 goals and 129 points to his name. That 177 total means he is behind only Cathal Mannion (8-171, or 195), Cooney (14-199, or 241) and the unreachable Joe Canning (27-486, or 567). The difference with Whelan is that every one of his scores has come from play. He has scored in 50 of his 57 games, has scored twice or more in 42 of them. He's Galway's only All Star forward this decade and one of only three Galway attackers to win multiple All Stars since the turn of the century – Canning and Damien Hayes are the others. By any measure, Whelan is among the greatest-ever Galway hurlers and as electric a player as the game has to offer. [ Opens in new window ] And yet, when you're looking for a lens through which to tell his story, hurling is probably one of the less interesting things to catch the eye. We might start with his PhD, which he is due to hand in this week. Go back to that 18-year-old in his first year in Mary I in 2015, giving a polite thanks but no thanks to the Galway management when they're trying to make an intercounty hurler out of him. Now ask him about his PhD. 'So basically there's 950 Gaelic games student athletes in Ireland,' he says. 'An elite student athlete is someone who's registered as a full-time student education level and they've spent at least one year on a senior intercounty panel. So there's 950 of those registered with the GPA. 'I kind of came up with this concept of administrative intervention where you pair the student athlete with a mentor. My PhD is out of ATU Galway. There were 13 elite student athletes there and I paired them each with an alumnus in the college. So not somebody that was their lecturer and not somebody that was from their sporting environment. Somebody that they didn't know. 'They were to meet every two weeks and just plan out their time for the student athlete. They set goals, both sporting, academic and personally. They were also there for social supports – any issues that come up around assignments, conflict between lectures and training and so on. 'We're all aware of the mental health issues in Ireland and we're all aware of the challenges that student athletes face. But you have to design something that's realistic and something that you think students could utilise. The feedback I got from the 13 student athletes was that, yeah, there's someone there and to be honest, I didn't meet them every week. But if I needed them, he was there.' Whelan's day job is in occupational health and wellbeing with the Castle construction group. His PhD was always going to delve into some aspect of mental health: ever since his cousin, the Galway defender Niall Donohue, died by suicide in 2013, Whelan has continually immersed himself in that world. All going well, his PhD will form a template for the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) and other organisations to use to help student athletes manage their mental health and wellbeing from here on out. Galway captain David Burke, Kilbeacanty chairman Justin Fahy, Shane Donohue, brother of the late Niall Donohue, Galway hurler Conor Whelan, cousin of Niall, and Niall's father, Francis Donohue. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy 'Initially, I kind of just wanted to understand it better. I suppose after my cousin had passed away, I was kind of pushed into that space a little bit and I was like, 'If I'm going to be in this space, I want to really understand it and be able to offer actual tangible advice rather than just regurgitate other stuff you read.' '[Niall's death] is definitely a factor. I've been fortunate enough that I have also done a masters in psychology. I have been very interested in alcohol and addiction and spent some time volunteering in Cuan Mhuire [rehabilitation organisation] for six or seven months. I've always been interested in that concept of mental health and how far out it goes, what it delves into and all the different strands that affect it. 'And yeah, obviously Niall would be a factor in that. Unfortunately, he experienced acute mental illness. I suppose as a direct consequence of that, my view on mental health is that it's not as abstract as people sometimes make it sound. There's always factors in the background that can influence it. 'When you think of mental illness, you always think of acute mental illness, which probably makes up for about 15 per cent of the population. But there's so many other variances within that 85 per cent.' As for his own head, one of the ways he clears it is by travelling. Generally with friends but sometimes on his own, Whelan makes a point of getting away as much as he can in the off-season. Asia, Australia, South and Central America. Purposeful wandering, off the grid where possible. 'I suppose a couple of different things appeal about it,' he says. 'I really enjoy the whole thing of just working hard and doing your turn, your graft, back here and then taking a few months and heading off at the end of it and seeing the place. Just going away and getting a fresh perspective. I find sometimes that you go away too and you have a lot of appreciation for the life that you're coming back to and the things you have in your life. 'And being off the grid – I can remember being on the east coast of America with one of my best friends and you're travelling for five hours on a Greyhound bus and you've no signal or anything. You're not getting emails about work or anything like that. When you're there, you're there. 'That is definitely, in the modern world, one of the things I love the most about it. Just being completely there. Like, I don't buy a Sim card in a new country. If I happen to go to a place that has wifi, great. And if I don't, fine. I'm just here. 'Every day I was over in Japan, I was just literally heading off and my sole objective was, 'I'm going to go here today. I have no idea where I'm going but I'm going to just explore this place and see what's the crack with it.' And you're just going out and you're literally people-watching in a cafe. You're watching people go to their normal work dressed as full anime characters or whatever.' He doesn't train when he goes away. He doesn't bring a hurley. He might get a run in somewhere but it won't bother him if he doesn't. He gets on a flight and leaves his life behind, the better to see what he can see. 'It's really interesting from a mental health point of view to go to these places and see how they approach things. Places like Japan and South Korea have massive challenges around mental health. I couldn't get over how much time they spend on their phones. 'In Japan, they have a suicide forest down around Mount Fuji that's very famous. I was in South Korea and they have a really terrible work-life balance there. Just being in these countries shapes your perspective and changes it.' Conor Whelan of Galway in action in the Leinster SHC game between Galway and Antrim at Pearse Stadium on May 17th. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho And when he comes back, he's a hurler again. He's Conor Whelan, Galway's best and most reliable forward. Micheál Donoghue used 40 players in the 2025 league campaign – only Tom Monaghan and Cianan Fahy played more minutes than Whelan. He's carried his bat through the Leinster championship too – only getting a rest for the last half-hour against Antrim when Galway were well out the gap. 'It's been very enjoyable. Micheál brings such positivity to the group and, in fairness, he's given everyone a chance. He played 40 players in the league and I think he's up around 30 in the championship as well. 'I've been part of groups before that have had that idea starting out but once you lose one or two games, have reverted to type. But he hasn't done that. It's really good to see young lads coming through and getting their chance.' He would know. Not many have made better of it. If you are affected by any of the issues in this piece, please contact The Samaritans at 116 123 or email jo@
Irish Examiner
a day ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
With Whelan motoring out the field, Galway have chance to right previous wrongs
How do you measure progress? Galway began their Leinster campaign with a 12-point hammering at the hands of Kilkenny. They bookended their Leinster round-robin campaign with a comfortable five-point win away to Dublin. It was a game they'd led by 12 with six minutes remaining. That's collective progress, though. What about individual progress within the five-week window, how could that be measured? Conor Whelan's headway, as it turns out, is very easily scored and depicted. Whelan began Leinster as a muted and struggling-for-form inside forward. He left the round-robin behind as a puckout-winning, point-scoring, turnover-hungry half-forward. In the county's aforementioned opening round spin to Nowlan Park, Whelan had two clean possessions in the entire first half. And this a first half where Galway had the elements. The beginning to his second half saw him foul Mikey Butler at one turn before, not long after, letting fall a delivery and then running out over the sliotar. The Galway captain had just five possessions to his name when moved out to half-forward on 64 minutes. And there he has stayed and swollen his influence. Compare the five possessions across 64 minutes at Nowlan Park to the five he had in the first 15 minutes of their de facto Leinster semi-final against Dublin last time out. He won two Galway puckouts, a free, and assisted a point. His five possessions in the 18 minutes after half-time saw him claim another puckout, which led to a point, raise three white flags of his own, and then force a turnover of Ronan Hayes that ended with a Tom Monaghan point. 'In terms of where we were and what we needed, we needed that leadership and that responsibility there. No better man. He's leading the line really, really well at the minute,' said manager Micheál Donoghue of the move to wing-forward. And what of the man himself. What's he made of moving out the field to reprise a role he very briefly held during the premierships of Henry Shefflin and Shane O'Neill. 'After a defeat like [the Kilkenny game], you have to change a few things, and I played there for my club all last year and we got to the county intermediate final. The way the game has gone now, you probably try and turn the middle third into more of a battleground really. That's just where it's at,' said Whelan. 'At this level, you have to have the skillset and adaptability to be able to adjust and move around. It's not that different, I'm still fairly close to goal and just happy to help the team in any way you can and contribute to trying to be successful.' It was at wing-forward that an 18-year-old Whelan was sprung from nowhere for his first championship appearance and start in the 2015 All-Ireland quarter-final against Cork. He marked the debut and marked himself out with a 1-2 contribution. Donoghue assumed the reins for the following season and moved him into the corner. It was at corner-forward he won an All-Ireland and All-Star in 2017. The now 28-year-old, in an unprompted admission, always expected Donoghue to return for a second stint in the maroon bib. 'Probably always knew that he'd come back at some stage, just wasn't sure when. Happy to have him back. I did always feel that he would be back as he would have had a very close connection with the players the first time. I knew that would always draw him back in over time. I thought he'd probably leave it another couple of years until a good few of us were finished. 'Micheál always brings a very high standard of what he expects and he's very, very good at moulding a group and bringing people together, even down to the amount of players he's tried in the league, over 40, and 30 or so in the championship.' Whelan, who is currently finishing up a PhD at ATU Galway in Elite Gaelic Games Student Athletes, is among the minority of current Tribesmen who own a Leinster final. They've lost three - all to Kilkenny - since the 2018 replay triumph. Unsurprisingly, 2023 rankles the most. Galway, if requires reminding, had one hand on the Bob O'Keeffe Cup when Cillian Buckley stole the result, the silverware, and the works with a 76th minute goal. 'Any time you lose a game like that, it's challenging. Ultimately, that's the nature of sport and you never have it won until you're across the line. No two finals are the same thankfully, so we'll be looking forward to the challenge that lies ahead. 'Winning as a group and being successful, that's very important. A Leinster title is a major part of that and I'm fortunate enough to have two, and feel that I should have more. We went up there a good few times expecting and we've had our fair share of disappointment. That just shows you how difficult they are to win.' With an in-form Whelan lifting in his new home, they're odds of faring better with this latest attempt are much healthier than if he'd been left to wither inside.
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Micheál Donoghue: 'The shortest route is the best route. That's the biggest carrot of all for us'
Seven years. Seven years since David Burke looked out at a small sea of maroon from halfway up Thurles' Ryan Stand. Seven years since Galway last ruled their adopted province. Seven years is not a huge gap in the eyes of then and present manager Micheál Donoghue. But such is the length of time he's spent on the Galway sideline, he knows full well that seven years is a significant period and sizable wait for those that populate the stands around him. There are five survivors from the 2018 Leinster final winning team still populating the dressing-room. They are the two Burke's, Daithí and David, the two Mannion's, Cathal and Pádraic, and Conor Whelan. Two more - Conor Cooney and Jason Flynn - came off the bench. Tom Monaghan came off the bench for the Leinster final win of 12 months previous. Galway have used 30 players in the championship to date. That's 22 of them that have never been part of the action during a successful Leinster final outing. That's a lot of lads without a meaningful medal. We and they do not count the shared League title of 2021. 'When we came in everyone was going on about the four-year term. But for us, we wanted to hit the ground running and be as competitive as you can. If you go through the group, there's a lot that haven't got a Leinster medal. The lads are highly motivated to get one,' said the Galway boss. 'It's an opportunity to win silverware but when you're involved in it, the shortest route is the best route. That's the biggest carrot of all for us.' Galway have unsuccessfully contested three provincial deciders since the 2018 triumph. All three were against Kilkenny. Sunday afternoon will be the fourth. The expectation has never been less as that surrounding this latest attempt. That, of course, has everything to do with what happened when the counties clashed on the opening weekend of the championship. A 12-point pumping by the hosts. Whether we can believe him or not, Donoghue says the hammering hasn't been referenced in the Galway dressing-room since. 'In the media, it's constantly being referenced. Obviously, we addressed it and analysed it [at the time] but we then moved on straightaway. It was just buried after that. 'If that was a low base for us, we just had to be better the next day. And as we've progressed through the round-robin, we have gotten better.' Their championship start perfectly mirrored their League conclusion. A 12-point hammering to finish one competition and a 12-point hammering to begin another. The results risked prompting a crisis of process. Donoghue's second coming was traveling in a worrying direction. A mid-campaign rethink or persevere with the plan? The latter won out, even if there was a tweak here and there such as Cianan Fahy from midfield to half-back and Conor Whelan from the inside line to half-forward. 'The disappointing thing was we weren't transferring what we were doing on the training ground into a match situation, and it was just to make sure as we moved forward that that was the case. 'The Dublin performance was definitely up there [as our best of the championship] because obviously we knew what was at stake, number one. Number two, it's a hard place to go. Number three then, the weather. 'Winning is a bit of a habit and out of winning you get a lot of confidence, and you can see the confidence growing within the lads. Training was going really well, so we knew we were in a decent position, and that was really reflective of the performance.' Kilkenny twice achieved a Leinster six-in-a-row during the Brian Cody era. The second of those ended as a seven-in-a-row. Derek Lyng's crop wouldn't be considered a patch on those teams and yet here they stand on the cusp of equaling those dominant streaks. The county has lost only three Leinster finals over the past 28 years. Two of those were against the maroon. Can Galway again be a pebble in the Kilkenny shoe? 'We know that we have to turn up and be the best version of ourselves to make sure we can compete. We're looking forward to it.'
Irish Times
26-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Nicky English: Improving Galway will be serious opposition in Leinster final but nervous Cork continue to struggle
The last weekend of the provincial round robins proved a bit underwhelming in the end. Apart from a dramatic first round and the quality of Limerick's display against Cork a week ago, the matches have been low on top-class excitement and we'll just have to hope for some memorable hurling in the Munster and Leinster finals. It was summed up for me in two matches: Limerick v Clare and Wexford v Kilkenny , which have both been outstanding fixtures in the provincial championships during the round-robin years. On Sunday, both had been reduced to the status of a dead rubber. Clare, their All-Ireland title gone from them, won but Limerick, already into a Munster final, had little to play for and selected accordingly . Kilkenny also experimented and lost but there was no jeopardy for them either going into the final round of fixtures. There was something on the line in both Parnell Park and Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Dublin and Galway was effectively a Leinster semi-final. The match was undermined from the start by the wind but it was the same for both teams and there was an inordinate amount of bad wides. READ MORE I was impressed by how the graph of Galway's performances continues to rise. Experienced hands Conor Whelan and David Burke really showed their class. Brian Concannon scored really well, even against the wind. Conor Whelan signs autographs after Galway's win over Dublin at Parnell Park. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho Of the younger crew, wing backs Cianan Fahy and TJ Brennan were lively and with Gavin Lee, never allowed Dublin to open up runways through the middle and Fintan Burke and Daithi Burke were strong under the high ball, as Dublin tried the route one approach to John Hetherton. The Dubs were undone very quickly, really, to be honest. Their hurling really let them down in the first half. Their touch was poor and Galway were dominant under the high ball. Playing with the wind, Seán Currie got a nice ball and popped it up to Conor Burke, who just really had to take the easy score, something I had thought was an admirable new aspect of their play. This however was an absolutely harmless effort, wide on his own side. They had five or six more wides within the first 15 minutes, and it took seven or eight minutes to register a score. Despite the wind, Galway were 6-1 in front half way through the first half. From there on, it was very hard to see how Dublin were going to be able to win. In the second half, Whelan got to grips with the wind coming off the right when he was shooting. After an early miss, he found his range, judged the wind beautifully. Dublin's Conal Ó Riain shakes hands with Galway's David Burke after the game. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho Dublin did get it back to three or four points but just after they had, Burke popped up with another point from under the stand. Galway just went on a run then, and they stretched the lead to 12 at one stage. The two goals for Dublin finishing up were academic, really – only window dressing. Galway have improved a good bit as the championship has gone on. You wouldn't underestimate Micheál Donoghue's experience in managing big games. Certainly, they will be a much bigger test for Kilkenny the next day in the final than they were on their first day out in Nowlan Park. Cork advanced as overwhelmingly expected but their match with Waterford looked to have jangled their nerves. They survived but did it answer the file of queries raised by the disintegration in Limerick? No, absolutely not. Their anxiety looked to be holding them back. Séamus Harnedy hit some inexplicable wides and even after Waterford got the goal, Shane Barrett was straight through and drove the ball wide. Their couple of goals came during a purple patch in the second half. At the same time, Waterford were really able to hang on in there all the time, even though they were only operating on scraps. Waterford's Stephen Bennett reacts after not being awarded a penalty against Cork. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho As usual, Stephen Bennett really carried the fight, scoring that goal in the second half that brought him back to three. Immediately afterwards, he had another chance put the cat really among the pigeons but struck the post. Cork by then, were all over the shop. Waterford fought hard, but their limitations have been really in terms of scoring power and that didn't change in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Nonetheless, they were able to win a lot of ball off all around the field, including from the much-vaunted Cork full-forward line, even though Brian Hayes got a goal and a point very shortly afterwards, before setting up Patrick Horgan for the other goal. Alan Connolly had a few nice touches in the first half but a lot of the ball that went into the full forwards didn't stick at all and the Waterford full back line, in most parts, really had their measure. Cork are however in the Munster final now and go into it with plenty to work on and a sheaf of wrongs to put right. That's not a bad preparation. Many of the players haven't been in a Munster final before. This was a good stepping stone for them because it was a very dangerous game from after the humiliation of last week. But as regards their pre-tournament favourites tag, that's undergone quite a revision.
