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I had hoped that John Mc Intyre might have had the b**ls to make some changes as that team is clearly not good enough to beat Tipp, and I will run around Eyre square naked if that teams goes on to win the All Ireland. There are too many players on the team who are clearly not up to Inter county standard, such as Iarliath Tannion, Donnellan, and Andy Smith, with the jury still out on players such as Donal Barry, David Burke, Eanna Ryan and despite being a regular for many years Tony Og Regan. Believe you me nobody wants to see Galway win an All Ireland more than me, but that team is no better than any of the teams that we have had out in the last 20 years, the only difference is that were getting more matches these days. Clearly the talent is not as good as we all think in Galway if that is our best 15?

I actually think this is nonsense. Well not the media part but Galway hurling fans are usually incredibly negative about the team and are ready to jump on their back at a moment's notice. The media talk up Galway (and one or two other teams) as they are desperate for someone other than Kilkenny to win the All-Ireland thereby avoiding another procession for the cats.

GalwayBayBoy Galway fans are usually incredibly negative after yet another disastrous defeat for the hurlers, however every year we start out with high hopes, only for them to be inevitably dashed. I would be like that at the start of every year, hoping against hope that this is the year that Galway will finally win Liam Mc Carthy, and then jumping all over them when they play poorly like they did against Wexford and Offaly, or Tipp in the league. I'm hoping against hope that Galway learnt a lot of valuable lessons against Offaly last week, we shall see tomorrow in Portlaoise, and can then revaluate Galway's chances again on Monday. However my biggest fear for this Galway team is their alarming inconsistency, Mc Intyre has brought this up several times, yet Galway have probably only played well for 70 mins once this year, and that was in the League Final?

Hmmm.. ok, though I think all (c'ship) games that you win, especially if they're tight, matter because you (should) learn from them and progress; e.g. last year's games v Clare, Cork and W'ford - Galway were favourites in all three but were under new management at the time and were fragile in belief. The Cork victory in particular was big because it was very tight, winner-take-all and because of the manner of Galway's defeat 12 months previously. You're correct about Loughnane, he killed Galway hurling stone-dead for 2 years.

I would not necessarily agree that Ger Loughane killed Galway hurling stone dead for two years, three of the four years that Conor Hayes was in charge were an unmitigated disaster, Hayes got lucky in two games in 05, and apart from that nothing apart from a few bad beatings. The biggest problem with Loughnane was that he was all hype and bluster, plus we all expected huge things from him. From the outside most people including Ger Loughnane see a thriving club scene, Galway regularly winning All Irelands at Minor and U-21, so they naturally think that Galway should be winning All Irelands at Senior level. Loughnane came in with that belief, and proudly declared that he would win an All Ireland within two years, only to discover that things were not as they seemed, and that it takes more than a few good underage players to win a senior All Ireland. I personally don't have the answer, I too have been taken in by all of the underage and club success, but maybe we in Galway need to realise that we are nowhere near as good as we think, or the national media think, and we need to be more realistic in our aims. Somebody pointed out to me after the Offaly match, that Galway reminded him of the England football team, always been talked up by their own supporters and the media, only to inevitably fall flat on their backsides. I personally hope that I am badly wrong, but when you look at a team that contains five of the six defenders from '05, is massively reliant on Joe Canning, and has more than a few very average players, it's very hard to see them even troubling Kilkenny. There is no doubt that there is one big game in this team every year, but going forward this team does not have the players or the consistency to be All Ireland Champions.