Galway U-21 Hurling team captain, Fintan Burke, is a first cousin of Galway senior hurling team captain, David Burke.
By John Harrington
The seven-mile stretch of the R380 in Galway between Kilchreest and Peterswell has a good claim for being the greatest hurling highway in the country.
It’s home to St. Thomas’ GAA club who have achieved incredible things in recent years despite drawing their players from such a small, narrow geographical corridor.
They followed up their first ever Galway SHC title in 2012 with the All-Ireland SHC club title in 2013, and have since won another county senior title in 2016.
Galway hurling captain David Burke is a St. Thomas’ man, as are fellow Galway senior panellists Eanna Burke (a brother of David’s) and Conor and Shane Cooney (also brothers).
Before the year is out St. Thomas’ might well have the distinction of supplying two All-Ireland winning captains, because Fintan Burke is skippering the Galway U-21 side that will play Tipperary in tomorrow’s Bord Gáis Energy All-Ireland U-21 semi-final.
Fintan is a first cousin of Galway senior captain David, and growing up he never had to look too far for a good example to follow.
“I suppose we would have been close enough,” said Burke. “He has a good few brothers and you'd nearly be too embarrassed to ask for advice, you'd nearly get laughed at.
“So it was up to you to learn from them without asking. If you saw him going to the pitch, well then straight away you were going to be up to the pitch practicing the same things he was practicing.
“Most of the time when you're at the pitch practicing yourself or you're out for a puck and when he was there you'd spend as much time watching what he was doing. And then when he left you'd practice what he was doing. The same would apply to Conor Cooney or Eanna Burke.”
If their U-21s can beat Tipperary, then Galway teams will contest all three All-Ireland Hurling Finals – Minor, U-21 and Senior.
It’s fair to say that Galway hurling is on the crest of the wave right now, with last year’s long-awaited All-Ireland Senior title energising the game at all levels in the county.
Galway captain Fintan Burke lifts the Cup after victory over Wexford in the Bord Gáis Energy Leinster U-21 Hurling Final.
This is the first year that the Galway U-21s have competed in Leinster before entering the All-Ireland series, and Burke believes that greater exposure at this level can help Galway become even stronger in the senior grade in the coming years.
“We played Limerick last year (in the All-Ireland U-21 semi-final) and went in cold and it's very hard to enter a Championship when you're cold,” said Burke.
“At least now it gives you a good run at it. You can see what's your best 15 or best panel.
“Even just for progressing for the future, if you're looking at going into a senior set-up, it gives you a few matches to prove what kind of a hurler you were.
“Whereas before, it was do or die. If you don't perform in one game there was very little chance that you were going to get called in.”
Burke's ambition is to make the step up to the senior inter-county team in the coming years, and he knows winning an All-Ireland U-21 title would do his credentials no harm.
He won an All-Ireland minor medal with many of his current team-mates three years ago, and this group has since been supplemented by a handful of last year’s classy All-Ireland winning minor team.
They’ll go into tomorrow’s match as favourites against a Tipperary team that was heavily defeated by Cork in the Munster Final, but Burke knows that makes them dangerous opponents with a point to prove.
“Yeah, I suppose like any team that you'd be involved with, the last thing you want to do is go out and perform poorly. We know even if you look at Tipp when they played Limerick, they beat a very good Limerick team.
“We know that there will be a massive lash back from Tipp. To be fair to them, they couldn't have hurled any poorer than what they hurled against Cork.
“They'll have a point to prove against us so we're going to be prepared for it.”
The Galway senior hurlers have proven they’re not ready to rest on the laurels of last year’s All-Ireland win.
If Burke is anything to go by, the emerging generation of Tribesmen hurlers are just as determined to put their best foot forward.
“It's alright having it in a good place for a year or two, but there's no point stepping off the gas now and letting it go down,” said Burke.
“I think it's very important for us, especially us because we're coming into it now, to keep it going and try not to get too sucked into all the supporters and everyone getting into the hype.
“You have to keep your feet on the ground a small bit so we'll just focus on ourselves.”
