Galway hurler Conor Whelan pictured at Gort Community School launching the GAA Super Games Centre in partnership with Sky Sports.
By Cian O'Connell
On the eve of the new Championship Conor Whelan is merely focused on the present. Past glories won’t count for too much at Bord Na Mona O’Connor Park on Saturday evening according to the gifted Kinvara attacker.
Since 2015 Galway have reached an All Ireland semi-final or final every year to illustrate maroon and white consistency. Whelan, though, is concentrating on hurling against Offaly in Tullamore this weekend.
“We are fortunate enough with the current crop of players, they have all experience playing in at least an All Ireland before,” Whelan says.
“We are just fortunate enough to be competing at the highest level at the moment, but 2018 is back to square one. It is all about trying to charter the journey again and that journey starts against Offaly. The past few seasons are put to one side and it is all about honing in on the first day out.”
Whelan acknowledges that the new round robin format carries intrigue. “I suppose everyone is heading into the unknown, it is uncharted territory,” Whelan admits.
“We are just anxious to put up a performance against Offaly, we need to learn from the League. With 2018 being a new year we are just anxious to show up, put on a satisfactory performance on the day, and hopefully get a win with the new system.
“The way it is now you have six or seven teams at the same level, ourselves included. It is back on a level playing field now and we are all trying to reach the standard.
Conor Whelan continues to impress for Galway.
“Obviously Kilkenny have set the standard with the League and we are all trying to get to that level, I suppose.
“We are just trying to learn from our mistakes in the League, areas where we can improve, to take some positives from it too which we can hopefully bring into our performance against Offaly.”
Though Galway afforded game time to several youngsters they still suffered Allianz Hurling Leagues losses in Division 1B to Limerick and in the Quarter-Final against Wexford. “I suppose our primary objective was to achieve promotion,” Whelan reflects.
“It doesn't really matter who was playing or not, we didn't achieve that. It is something that we aren't too happy with, we are just trying to learn from the experience of the League.
“Every match there is positives and negatives in and we just have to take them out of the League to move forward into Leinster and Offaly in the first round.
“We have to hone in on some of those areas to put in a consistent performance. We probably struggled for a bit of consistency in some of our games, we had patches of good hurling mixed with poor hurling.
“It is about trying to reach that level, hopefully in the first round against Offaly we can put on a good, consistent performance.”
- Conor Whelan was at Gort Community School to launch the GAA Super Games Centre in partnership with Sky Sports. The Super Games Centres which are based all over the country, were set up to reduce youth drop out and encourage “play to stay” amongst youth, specifically between the ages of 12 and 17 where youth drop out is most prevalent. Sky Sports is supporting the GAA Super Games Centres by arranging visits with Sky Sports mentors and providing kits and equipment to the estimated 9,000 members countrywide.
