11 hours ago
Fintan Burke: ‘Sometimes people probably dwell on the loss or overreact'
It all fell decidedly flat. For Galway, the Leinster final disappointment was a sore mark that prolongs a dreadful Croke Park record. Step one on the way to salvation starts on Saturday.
They've been here before too. In 2023, a Leinster final loss was followed by that triumph over Tipperary. Back then, selector Kevin Lally hit out at 'a lot of crap written about us and said about us' leading up to the game.
'I suppose the most disappointing thing for us and for the group is that we didn't hurl how we want to hurl and we didn't express the brand of hurling that we're trying to express,' said defender Fintan Burke, speaking at the All-Ireland hurling launch.
'We kind of played on Kilkenny's terms, which is disappointing.'
Burke was taken off with a knee issue, having started with it heavily strapped in Croke Park. It is the same knee that he suffered a cruciate ligament tear in 2019, but the latest blow was a twist in training before the opening Leinster championship match.
The St Thomas man got an injection after the Leinster final and expects to be fine for the quarter-final.
Will Galway? The one sole positive was that they fought back in the final quarter. The rebuild starts there.
'For those 12 minutes, now in fairness to them they had probably taken the foot off the gas, we know that too, but we hurled how we wanted to hurl, we moved the ball faster and worked it through the lines and in fairness it was effective.
'But yeah, look, obviously we know at this level you need to bring that for 65, 70 minutes if you're going to get over the line.
'Sometimes people probably dwell on the loss or probably overreact sometimes to a loss like that and obviously, we know how disappointing it is. But at the end of the day if you were lucky enough to get over the line against Tipp, you're still back in the same place you would have been having won it.'
The makeup of their squad makes this a careful challenge trying to find a balance between a long-term investment and an instant payoff. Padraic Mannion, Daithí Burke and David Burke are all 32 or older.
Cathal Mannion is 30, the rest are in what would be considered prime years or still approaching it. The age profile of the panel is pretty positive. Right now, they just need a lift.
'It's frustration and disappointment at our performance more than anything and like we know it's not going to be an overnight thing Micheál coming in and winning All-Irelands,' said Burke.
'It is going to take a year or two for lads to kind of knit in, the younger lads to get used to the older lads and vice versa. But still at the same time we want to be successful now. There's a few of us pushing on a small bit like and you don't want to be waiting three or four years to be getting successful.'
