Mattie confident of Clare KO

Despite having some strong words for Galway supporters, Mattie Murphy still has absolute faith in the maroon and white, writes Peter O’Connell
Gort-based Galway minor hurling manager Mattie Murphy has led his county to five All-Ireland minor hurling titles between 1992 and 2009.
So perhaps Galway hurling people might listen when they hear him suggesting that the reaction to their defeat to Dublin in Tullamore was somewhat hysterical.
“People down here would see Dublin as a second or third tier team. They’d never expect that they were able to put it up to Galway. But Dublin have put in hours and hours of work for the last 10 to 15 years and it’s now coming to fruition,” the retired school teacher said.
Mattie Murphy shakes his head at how Galway people appear to overrate their hurling prowess. 
“We’re there and we seem to think that we’ve a God given right to be second or third favourites for the All-Ireland every year. The reality is that we have not done the business and we haven’t done it for the last seven or eight years. Going back to 2005, I think that was a blip. (Reaching the All-Ireland final). In 2001 we got to the All-Ireland final but very few people allude to the fact that in 2000 we lost just one game,” Murphy notes. 2000 was the second year of Mattie Murphy’s second term in charge of the Galway senior hurlers. It was also his last. 
“So Noel Lane got a team that was at the top of its form,” Murphy says of his departure from the job 11 years ago. “They’d been beaten in one game in 2000. Kilkenny beat us in the All-Ireland semi-final after we beating Tipp in the quarter-final. And we had beaten Tipp in the league final that year and we won the Railway Cup and the Oireachtais. So for losing one game you didn’t get a third year…” he recalled.
“They came in then with little or no change from the team the year before and they went to an All-Ireland final. But they failed in the All-Ireland final to a team that Galway had beaten twice the year before. When they changed the team around and started rebuilding the following year, they were blown out of the water. And they didn’t get a third year,” he noted.
Mattie Murphy feels that Galway have under-performed since the early 1990s and that not trusting their young players is one of the reasons for this.
“The current Galway squad is back boned really by the ’99/2000 All-Ireland minor winning teams, who didn’t subsequently go on and win an U-21 All-Ireland. Although we did win a couple of U-21s in the last decade. But only two of those players are currently on the first 15; Joe Canning and James Skehill,” Murphy stated.
He says that recent Galway management teams didn’t invest sufficiently in the county’s youngsters.
“The last two managers had an opportunity and I would say particularly Ger Loughnane’s management committee. They would have got huge support if they’d gone on a youth policy at that stage. But no, they turned around and they brought back people who weren’t performing and were seen not to be able to perform on the big stage,” he observed.
Ironically, even though Murphy expects Galway to win in Salthill on Saturday, he feels that Clare are ahead of most counties in terms of blooding young hurlers.
“Clare are in a much better place than us at the moment. Maybe we’ll beat them on Saturday, and I do think we will, but for two or three years down the line, they have blooded so many 21, 22, 23-year-olds.
“Clare have a fine minor team coming through. You have Tony Kelly, Colm Galvin, Jamie Shanahan and Aaron Cunningham. Throw in the few lads that are over age from last year’s minor team and even though Clare have only won the one U-21, they are still in a better place because they have so many players blooded in the heat of battle in Munster championship”.
Clare goalkeeper Philip Brennan was held responsible for the concession of the first goal against Tipperary in Limerick. However Mattie Murphy feels that Clare must stick with the Tulla man.   
“Ok he was partially responsible for one goal but I’ve seen goalkeepers of the highest quality get caught in similar situations. ‘Do I come, do I stay’? You can’t hang a fella out for that one mistake,” he insists. 
“We probably have done the same thing. This time last year we believed that we had solved three problems in Galway hurling. We believed that we had got a first class keeper (Colm Callinan), the best full back that had come for years (Shane Cavanagh) and the best centre-back (Tony Óg Regan). We went out in our first championship this year without any of the three of them playing in their positions. Now I’d hope that at least the full back-centre back situation will be resolved for the Clare game,” Murphy said. 
The Galway minor manager maintains that most of Clare’s concerns are defensive ones. 
“I think Clare might have been a bit naïve maybe at the back against Tipperary. But if you put out 19 and 20 year olds in your back line, they are going to make a certain amount of mistakes.
“I thought the Clare forwards had been very lively and had done an awful lot of hurling and an awful lot of creative stuff. John Conlon was under a bit of pressure but lets be honest about it, no matter who you’re going to put in on Padraig Maher, he’s going to be under a bit of pressure.”
As for this weekend, Mattie Murphy predicts that Galway will win but that their supporters must show some patience in the long run.
“We have no patience in this county. We want an instant fix and we want instant success. Now I expect these lads on Saturday to turn the thing around and to redeem the situation. We will, in my opinion, beat Clare on Saturday. I think we can turn our year around. I wouldn’t be as negative about the players as some of the lads are,” he said.
“Galway are staring down both barrels of the gun now and I think it will really get them to focus in on what has to be done.  Clare are going into Pearse Stadium and are definitely going into the lions den. And the lion is wounded,” Mattie Murphy cautioned.