Padraic Mannion pictured at the Loughrea Hotel & Spa ahead of the All Ireland SHC Final.
By Cian O'Connell
These are exciting times for Galway hurling and Padraic Mannion is relishing the adventure.
In 2017 Galway ended a 29 year wait for an All Ireland title by beating Waterford. Now the Tribesmen return to the Croke Park stage for another fascinating tussle against Limerick.
Did it feel like a weight off Galway's shoulders that the Liam MacCarthy Cup returned to the west? "Maybe for some of the older lads it did," Mannion responds.
"I don’t know, I’m getting old as well now. I’d only been there for ‘15, ‘16, ‘17. So I didn’t feel like I had a massive burden on my shoulders. Obviously you wanted to go out, that was the small little bit, that it was so long. Even this year, after winning one last year. It doesn’t matter, you still really want to win it.
"Even the Kilkenny teams when they were winning everything, winning the previous year didn’t really take away from their want to win it the following year. "They’re so hard to come by that while you’re here playing, you just want to win everything you can."
It is why Mannion's focus is on the present and the importance of having the required mentality is so critical. "Yeah, you just take it game by game and year by year, to try win as much as you can while you’re there," Mannion adds.
"Obviously you can take confidence from success that you had previously, but ultimately that doesn’t guarantee you success in the future.
"As a player, the mindset you need to have is game by game, even training session by training session when you break it down. You just keep going and keep going and hopefully it can be a successful year."
Padraic Mannion is an influential figure for Galway.
The 2017 winter was packed with celebrations and Mannion reckons it was important to enjoy the party. "Yeah, it was good," Mannion admits.
"We were kind of conscious not to start, I know other teams before were straight away thinking ‘we have to win it again next year’.
"But we were conscious that we wanted to enjoy it and embrace everything that was going on. Once January came, it was automatic, it wasn’t a conscious decision that you have to forget everything. But automatically you were thinking it’s a new year, it’s a new Championship.
"I think with the new format as well, and the League was earlier, I think everyone was on edge and didn’t know what to expect. But yeah, it was great. Fantastic."
Having already played in eight Championship matches in 2018 Mannion is satisfied with the new format. "I think one massive part of enjoyment is just the amount of games we’ve played," Mannion says.
"Last year, we’d five games and you’re training in between. You could have, I’m not sure after the Leinster final to the semi-final, you could have five or six weeks there. But now you have week to week, game to game.
"It’s great. As players you just want games. I think that has really, I can’t speak for other teams, but for us we’ve really enjoyed it. Game after game. After one game, you just get ready and go again. You don’t have time to be overthinking anything, or over-analysing anything."
Galway have embraced the challenge with Mannion an increasingly influential figure for Mícheál Donoghue's charges.
