John Concannon, his fellow selector John Divilly and Galway manager Padraic Joyce have been thick as thieves since they were first years at St Jarlath’s College many moons ago. Divilly and Joyce were All-Ireland winners with the Tribesmen but Concannon, once hailed as “the next big thing” in the county, never made the impact he was expected to at senior level. That is a regret for him but he’s been part of the Galway management since Joyce took the reins. Andy Watters met the passionate Milltown clubman…
Yourself, Padraic Joyce and John Divilly have been close friends for many years. What’s the background to that?
Myself, Padraic and John went to school (St Jarlath’s, Tuam) in first year together and we’ve been best friends ever since. We played football all our underage careers, all the way up. We kept in touch even when the lads went to college.
Football was always our thing. We were picking teams at the back of class. Picking Galway teams, picking Jarlath’s teams, picking Galway minor teams… We’re doing that all our lives.
We have a brilliant relationship. The last five years, there have been strains. There have been tough times. If you lose, you’re always wondering: Should I be here/Should I not be here? Is the friendship a distraction? Is it a hindrance? Thankfully, so far, it’s worked out.
When you picked the teams in the back of the class did you argue much between yourself?
We used to leave Divilly off a lot of the teams, so he wasn’t too happy!
Did Padraic have the final say?
No, he wasn’t the boss that time, but I won’t tell you who was.
What difference do you notice from this year compared to two years ago when you played Kerry in the All-Ireland final?
We have 39 serious players now. I’m not saying we didn’t have 39 two years ago, but it was a very inexperienced, a younger group.
Some of our more experienced players had never played in a semi-final or final before, so now we have that experience. I think in all the tight matches so far, that experience has helped us get over the line in the games, especially against Dublin and even the last day against Donegal as well.
Is that experience of two years ago an advantage?
We hope it is. We know the situation in relation to the whole match day and the night before.
Sometimes that can be draining, so hopefully that will work to our benefit.
After you lost against Mayo in the preliminary quarter-final last year did you believe you could get back to the final 12 months’ later?
Genuinely, we feel we have the team and squad to win the All-Ireland final every year.
Again, that’s not just me saying that. That is a belief in the group. We were so disappointed to lose to Mayo last year. Even after the three weeks of the injuries, we thought we could progress similar to the way we progressed this year and that the injuries would have improved as the weeks went on. We have that belief every year.
In the semi-finals both yourselves and Armagh finished strongly. Is that down to fitness or better preparation?
We have a saying here: If you win you’re the fittest team and you’re the best team, but if you lose they’re not fit enough even though you could be just as fit as any other team.
Every county team trains the same way. To me it’s not a lack of fitness, whatever happens on the day, happens on the day maybe. I know there were some cramps in relation to the Kerry lads.
Maybe they just over-exerted themselves on that day for some reason but to me every county team is as fit as anyone else. Everyone has the same access to S&C coaches. They do the same training, they have the same nutrition.
So I don’t see it as one team being fitter than the other. Momentum is a massive thing and once Armagh got that goal, the roar in Croke Park… I was only watching it on telly but the roar… You could hear it over the screens. Once you get that momentum, you could see it in Markievicz against us when they got the goal. They had that momentum and it’s very hard to stop that. Is that fitness? I don’t know.
How do you rate this Armagh side?
They’ve been very good. No more than ourselves, they’re unbeaten in the Championship.
I think they were unbeaten in a couple of years apart from penalties and that. That shows in itself how good they are.
They’ve been very unlucky on a number of occasions with the penalty shootouts. You can see how good they are all over the pitch. They’re physically very strong, they’re very athletic and they’ve some brilliant forwards. Their bench is even more heralded now than our bench so it’s going to be a very difficult game for us.
How have you managed to improve the likes of Cien Darcy and Dylan McHugh?
I suppose they’re getting more game time. Cien was away for the last two years.
He went to Dublin and joined a club in Dublin (Ballyboden) and he just turned himself into a real athlete. He lost a lot of weight, trained really, really hard and he came back to us in January in brilliant shape. He got loads of game time all through the League.
John Maher the same, he was away maybe a couple of years back but he’s come back in brilliant shape. They’re phenomenal athletes and their will to win and their efforts at training are second to none. They’re real leaders to add to the leaders we had already.
Maher has emerged as an important player in the team but Paul Conroy is like a fine wine getting better with age. His form has been superb all year?
He’s just an unbelievable man. At 35 years of age, after the injury he went through, he’s the first man in training, he’s the last one to leave, he’s the leader in the dressing room.
There’s not enough words to describe what Paul Conroy is. The effort that man puts in, he has a small baby, you probably saw him in Croke Park with him. It would be a lovely way for Paul to get an All-Ireland medal after the career he’s put in. He even played with Padraic in Croke Park, as you well know, when he was 19.
His career with Galway has been brilliant. He’s a phenomenal man.
Where does his hunger come from?
He talks about nothing else, only football. If he’s not talking about the county football, he’ll be all about the club and how are the leagues getting on in the club side of things. He’s just football mad.
Conroy, Maher, Sean Kelly, Matthew Tierney, Damien Comer… You have a lot of big men in the team – did you actively go after big fellas? Obviously the long kick-outs last day were a huge factor against Donegal?
No, I wouldn’t say we actively go after the big men. We’ve scoured the Championship for the last five years looking for the best panel and the best players. At the moment, luckily, we have big men around the middle-eight, which is significant, but it’s not that we actively look for them.
It’s just that they’re the best players in the county at the moment, in our opinion.
You have a huge team though, how much of a benefit is that?
Well, it is a benefit because we rely on our long kick-out strategy. It’s very important to have big men for the long kick-out in the landing zones. We are lucky in that regard because, obviously, if you didn’t have big men, maybe you couldn’t go as long. But they’re the cards we have and we have to play the best hand we can.
Are you going to stick with that against Armagh?
Yeah and I think Conor Gleeson doesn’t get half enough credit for his kick-out stats all year. I know there was one mistake against Armagh, but he’s been phenomenal, in our opinion. He’s an absolutely brilliant shot-stopper as well, but because the defence is so good, he hasn’t had to save that many. But our kick-out strategy won’t change. It will be the same as every other day.
Armagh changed their team for the game against Galway in Sligo. They moved to a bit more physicality with Ciaran Higgins coming into the team. Would you expect that again?
It’s hard to know what they’ll do. Will they keep Soupy Campbell off the bench or is he too important? Will he start? We’ll see on Sunday.
