By John Harrington

Last weekend’s All-Ireland SFC Quarter-Final victory over Kerry was a real coming of age performance for this Galway football team.

Not just because it was their first championship in Croke Park since 2011 and also their first Championship win over Kerry in 53 years.

But because they displayed the sort of maturity and self-assurance in a high-stakes game that you wouldn’t have associated with this Galway team until this year.

They played poorly for most of the first half as they kicked some bad wides and failed to capitalise on their strategic dominance, but they were never discouraged.

They stuck to the game-plan and eventually wore Kerry down with their relentless work-ethic before finishing them off ruthlessly in the closing minutes.

They still have room for improvement, but this is clearly now a Galway team that knows how exactly how it wants to play and fully believes they’re going to win every time they go out onto the pitch.

Most encouragingly for Galway supporters, this look more and more convincing and hard-nosed with every match they play.

According to the in-form Shane Walsh, that’s because they’re becoming increasingly comfortable with the game-plan they’re being asked to implement.

“The four weeks training (since the Connacht Final) was brilliant for us, we're able to emphasise on everything we've been doing and the team," said Walsh.

“Kevin, the structures he's put in place, we've been able to go into it in a lot more detail because we have that time to.

“The coaching that Kevin has given us and Paddy Tally, Sean Conlon, those guys there and Brian Silke. What they're bringing forward to us, we're able to implement in training then.

“It makes it that bit easier when you're going into the high-pressured games, like that against Kerry things weren't going that well, there was a tight game, it's easy to say look it's not going to be our day.

“But in fairness we just went back to the basics, what we've been doing well and thankfully it got us over the line.”

This Galway team hasn’t just grown up overnight. They learned the hard way from Championship defeats to Tipperary in 2016 and Roscommon in 2017 that talent alone doesn’t guarantee success.

While last year’s All-Ireland SFC Quarter-Final defeat to Kerry was a sobering lesson in the ruthless edge you need to have as a team to really mix it with the big boys.

“Well yeah exactly, I suppose it's a great sign of the group going forward and the ground that we're making because if you're not learning from your defeats, you're probably not going to succeed at all,” said Walsh.

“You always learn more in defeats, than you do in winning games, there was probably some games that we won previously, that we shouldn't have won.

“We've learned from that Roscommon last year, the Tipperary game the year before that we can never take a team from granted, no matter what kind of hype has been built around us, we're only as good as what we can put in on the 70, 75 minutes on the day. If we don't perform to that, we know that we can be turned over by any team.”

That’s why they’ll be taking nothing for granted when they visit St. Conleth’s Park to play Kildare in Phase 2 of the All-Ireland SFC Quarter-Finals on Sunday.

Forewarned is forearmed, and the fact that their great provincial rivals Mayo were knocked out of the Championship by the Lilywhites means Galway are coming into the match with their eyes wide open.

“Kildare brought so much energy, so much fight to that game,” said Walsh. “It just epitomised the way they fought for their home venue as well. It just shows the challenge we're facing at the weekend.

“If we come into it half thinking we're going to progress through the Super 8s, we know that we're going to be turned upside by Kildare because they're bringing a lot of fire to the table at the moment.

“That was probably something they felt was missing from their game but it's definitely reinvigorated them now.

“They'll definitely be a big massive challenge for us going ahead because we're going into this new ground the Super 8s, it's a new group of players to prepare for, the new lads that are in are going to experience this hostile environment going into Newbridge but it's something we're looking forward to.”

They’re not there yet, but this group of Galway players are determined to bridge the gap that has existed between Dublin and everyone else for the last three years.

They gave them a good run for their money in the League Final, and from what we’ve seen so far this summer remain the most credible challengers to Dublin’s drive for four All-Ireland titles in a row.

The season-ending injury that Paul Conroy suffered against Kerry is a big blow, but Galway still have arguably greater strength in depth of any team left in the Championship other than Dublin.

“The bench we have there, the game changers that are there is absolutely massive,” said Walsh.

“Adrian Varley came on the weekend, kicked two points. Peter Cooke came into the game, white heat of battle there when Paul went off with the injury, it shows the panel of strength that's there, we're able to bring in these players.

“They're just fitting in to what we've been doing all the time. They know inside out the roles we need to do in the team and are able to bring that in going forward. You're going to need 25, 26 players, that are togging and able to perform anywhere.

“You see the way Dublin have been doing it the last few years, we're really trying to get closer and closer to that, while we do feel we're getting close to that, we know there's a lot of ground to go between because you can see how Dublin are putting away teams year in year out like and we're not at that level yet.”

Maybe not, but the combination of patience and ruthlessness they showed against Kerry suggests they’re getting there.