Shane Walsh confident he's found his flow after injury issues
Shane Walsh believes that Galway played their best football of the year in the second half of their comeback win over Armagh and is hopeful they are hitting the high notes as the season enters its crescendo.
Trailing by eight points at half-time in Kingspan Breffni, while Dublin and Derry were deadlocked in Newry, the prognosis looked grim for last year's All-Ireland finalists, who were in danger of exiting the All-Ireland championship in abject fashion.
However, they rallied superbly in the third quarter, essentially wiping out the deficit by the 50th minute.
"We went in at half-time knowing that they'd probably been a bit hot (on shooting) but we probably weren't executing our chances," Walsh said at the All-Ireland SFC knockout launch.
"I think we were shot-for-shot (with them) in the first half. They might have had one extra shot.
"We were saying we had the chances but Pádraic (Joyce) obviously wanted us to up the level and just bring a bit more intensity in the second half. It never felt like we were gone."
The 2022 All-Star found his flow against Armagh after two relatively subdued and uneven performances against Dublin and Derry.
While he slipped home a terrific individual goal in Celtic Park, Walsh was on the bench for the closing stages as Galway desperately scrambled to rescue their season.
In Cavan, he racked up 0-07 from play - and 0-10 in total - in a bravura performance, putting the improved display down to re-discovering his confidence in front of goal after his injury issues.
"When you come back from an injury in the middle of the year, it can be hard because you're chasing. The lads are moving at a certain level and there's a certain synchronisation that they have.
"It's tough going and you're probably taking shots that you normally would score, you'd feel. But they're not coming off for you maybe because you haven't had that repetition or you haven't had that time that the rest of them have.
"Then it can knock you. You can go into your shell a bit I suppose. I definitely felt that probably in the Dublin and Derry games a bit.
"It was just great to have that backing of the lads in the dressing room to say to me like 'we back you no matter what'
"And basically, that it's not a good thing for us if you're on the field and you're not taking the shots."
One-to-one conversations with his manager - who was himself previously relied upon to get scores - were also a help in him recovering his form.
"Having one-to-one meetings with Pádraic helped. People probably don't see that side of him too often in the media. He's quite black and white I suppose
"But then when you get underneath it, you get, I suppose, the reminder that he was a player himself and he obviously had... well he probably didn't have too many confidence issues...
"But at the same time he kind of passed on a couple of things to me. It stood to me going into the weekend."
Joyce, characteristically blunt in his post-match interview, said Walsh's performance had been "outstanding" but that it was also "a long time coming, to be honest."
The Galway manager has acquired a reputation for being unusually forthright about his players' performance in the media, famously passing up the opportunity to explain away the early substitutions of Walsh and Rob Finnerty in the league loss to Dublin as being due to slight injury niggles.
"They missed about 2-10 between them," has since gone down as one of the more memorable quotes of Joyce's long period at the helm.
"You'd probably be humoured by it as opposed to actually anything else," Walsh says. "Because you don't really see the Pádraic that we see all the time. You just see what he says to ye (the media).
"We'd nearly be laughing and joking about it. He could be saying things about us to the media. And sure, we know where he's coming from. It's not as if we'd be saying that's a personal attack or anything like that."
Are they nearly immune to it, at this stage?
"I wouldn't say we're immune to it. We have to listen to him at the end of the day. He is the gaffer. But you know where he's coming from."
Walsh indicates that Joyce's demeanour at half-time in the Armagh game showed how he had evolved over his time in charge. Whereas in his first two years, he might have been in teacup-throwing mood, on Saturday, the Galway boss was relatively composed in the dressing room.
"His first minute or two was just to get a few things across and then the rest was just about bringing belief and confidence into the group. He's been doing that, in particular, since the Derry game.
"We probably felt the two games that we played (in the group), we weren't getting to a level and confidence wasn't high. Whereas he was constantly reminding us how good we can be."
The draw has thrown up a first championship meeting between Galway and Down since the 1971 All-Ireland semi-final.
Walsh returns to a venue which was enveloped in a thick layer of fog the last time he played there - the 2024 All-Ireland club semi-final - and faces off against a manager in Conor Laverty who he last encountered when he was a selector for Cavan.
"I remember he was eating the head off me against Cavan when we were playing them back in the league a couple of years ago.
"Then, he came out smiling, giving me a hug after the game. I was like, I didn't know what to make of you about half an hour ago. You would have met him from time to time as well at different things. Nice fella."
Either way, it's all knockout stages from here. No need to consider the permutations which Galway supporters were keeping a constant track of last weekend.
When Galway were well behind against Armagh, it looked like their best bet was a Dublin victory and a score difference foot race with Derry. Were the players aware of the lie of the land in the second half?
"I think management were. We weren't though. I remember asking along the sideline at one stage what the score was (in Newry).
"They said, 'never mind, just win the game.'"
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