Galway minor hurling manager Jeffrey Lynskey.
By Cian O’Connell
Jeffrey Lynskey’s brief is to develop hurlers for Galway in the future. Winning All Ireland minor titles can help with that process, and the Liam Mellows clubman is hoping to steer the Tribesmen to a third crown at the level since 2015 on Sunday.
Lynskey has earned a positive reputation for his work with emerging talent in the west and takes satisfaction from the fact that some of the initial group he assisted are now involved in the senior panel.
“What I try to do is develop hurlers so they’re ready to go to Under 21 and then obviously go onto senior,” Lynskey says.
“So I gave Sean Loftus, Tom Monaghan, Jack Kyne, them type of lads, they’re the lads who I would have started with near enough to seven, eight years ago now. They’re pushing on and making a stamp on senior.
“Did I see three All-Irelands in four years? Probably not, to be perfectly honest with you. But we work hard. We work incredibly hard. As a group we’re back since January 4th. So this will be our 16th game, regarding challenges and championship.
“The lads have done 100+ sessions. In Galway we’re kind of lucky in the way the number of players that we have. We have access to widespread. You see that with the clubs. There’s a lot of clubs there that we wouldn’t regard as hurling areas.”
That is one of the many successful aspects of 2018 for Galway, who have enjoyed the new Championship format according to Lynskey.
“Yeah, definitely,” he admits. “We learned an awful lot from the two games. Subsequently, we made three switches for the Dublin match. We could make changes again for the next day.
“What that does is it creates a vibe within the group that this is on performances, it’s not on past performances. It gives it an edge. Even with kids, or senior players. You need to have an edge in training. When lads are getting complacent or comfortable, standards drop.”
Jeffrey Lynskey has won two All Ireland minor titles as Galway manager.
What has been the most noticeable difference with minor now being Under 17? “Obviously size,” Lynskey replies.
“We focus on concentration. I work in a teaching environment, I’m a school teacher. So you’ll see it. Two or three of the lads are only in second year. So when we’re doing a video analysis session, you need to tear it back completely.
“The concentration levels wouldn’t be there. You can even watch them in games, in challenge matches. You can see they have to reset and stuff, they’re switched off. So you’re trying to do it in the coaching sessions, engage the mind for a long period.
“They’re fine if they’re on the PlayStation, they’ve no problem for two hours concentrating. But within hurling, they can’t afford to switch off, you’ll get caught out.”
Lynskey is aware of the threat that any Kilkenny team carries, especially in an All Ireland decider. “We played them in the round robin but it's like anything else, it's a new game, it's nil-nil,” Lynskey states.
“We had a seven-point margin on them but they've, like ourselves, tweaked and improved since then. It's Kilkenny in an All-Ireland final, it's a one-off game. It's a bit like ourselves last year, we weren't probably favourites.
“Cork were raging hot favourites last year and we turned them over. Richie (Mulrooney) has been there like myself for a good while, he was there in '08, '09 and '10 in three finals, so he brings that experience with him. We have the utmost respect for the lads, he's a good honest lad.”
With the Galway seniors involved in the showpiece event Lynskey maintains that has an impact. “Ah it does yeah, we'd feed off it,” Lynskey admits.
“You get a huge lift from the Galway crowd. I think last year there was 64,000 in at half-time of the minor match which is unheard of. I'll be putting the pressure on local media to get the fans in early. They did last year and they will hopefully do the same again this year.”
