![Joe Canning: "I think you'd be living under a stone if you weren't [doing] tactics in some way or form"](https://www.rte.ie/images/0012783d-800.jpg)
Joe Canning is candid about admitting he doesn't particularly enjoy watching All-Ireland finals and semi-finals once Galway have departed the championship.
He only watched 'bits and pieces' of the weekend's hurling feast but did pick up on the key themes to emerge.
As usual when Davy Fitzgerald teams are involved, the weekend sparked another round of debate between the avatars of modern 'tactics' (whatever they happen to be on a given day) and the traditionalists who prefer to stress attitude and workrate when analysing outcomes.
Brian Cody, the God of the traditionalists, has laboured hard to play down the importance of any tactical jiggery-pokery in Kilkenny's success.
No, no, he tells the TV men and women, it's all down to our old friends - honesty, genuineness, spirit and savage workrate.
But for Canning, 'tactics' are primarily a matter of playing to one's strengths, of playing the game on your terms.
In his estimation, any team that goes out to play an off-the-cuff game without thinking through the tactical dimension won't get very far.
Unsurprisingly, he gives short shrift to the cliché that Kilkenny don't do tactics.
"I think every team uses tactics. I don't think it’s come in in the last few years either. I think, to say Kilkenny don’t use tactics is a bit disrespectful to them. Every team does.
"If you just think you can go out and hurl, and not care about what the other team does, you’ll be beaten more often than not."
"I think you'd be living under a stone if you weren’t [doing] tactics in some way or form.
"It’s all about trying to implement your own tactics on the other team, trying to win that battle area because you don’t want to play it on their terms either because they’re used to doing that and it suits their style. In Galway anyway, we’d be trying to impose our style on the other team and hopefully get ahead of them early on."
Warming to his theme, he insists that even when a team plays in a more 'orthodox' fashion these days, they're doing so for a reason, not because they haven't thought about tactics.
"You have to play to your own strengths. It's not one size fits all. If you've a team that are very good on breaking ball and wouldn't be the best in the air, you're not going to lamp ball down on top of them in the air. You're going to play it low and play through the lines.
"I remember when Kilkenny were going for five in a row, they had a team where anyway the ball would come to them, they'd win it.
"Every team wanted to be like them but if you don't have the players that can do that, why would you play like that? It's not possible. You're only going to lose.
"That's the beauty of it, every county is different. Every team can't play the same way. If you have a seventh defender, you're doing that for a reason. You're not just doing it for the sake of it. If you play 15 on 15 in normal positions then you're doing that for a reason."
I think every team uses tactics. I don't think it's come in in the last few years either. I think, to say Kilkenny don’t use tactics is a bit disrespectful to them.
Watching a repeat of a Cork-Galway championship encounter from the late noughties brought home to Canning how much the game had changed.
"I saw a game on Eir Sport there during the summer. I think it was when we played Cork, one of my first, I think it was my third or fourth game with Galway.
"You had half-backs that are legends of the game and they got the ball and just drove it down the field. They didn't care where the ball went.
"Whereas now if you did that, you'd be whipped off after two minutes. Teams back then couldn’t live with what’s happening now."
This year marked the first time since 2014 that Canning was not in action come All-Ireland semi-final stage.
Galway appeared in four successive semi-finals between 2015 and 2018, winning three and losing one, narrowly, to Tipperary in 2016.
Fishing for positives following their hard-to-stomach championship exit in mid-June, one wonders whether the rest might do them some good after a hectic few summers.
Canning isn't inclined to trumpet the idea - at least until we see some evidence in 2020.
"We won't know until next year. There’s no point in me saying 'yes’ or ‘no’.
"Will the rest do us good? Honestly, you won’t find out until we play next year. You could say now for Tipperary this year, they were knocked out early enough last year and now they’re in the All Ireland and people say ‘Jesus, last year must have helped them to get back’.
"But I’d rather be playing than resting."
2019 was a fairly chaotic and frustrating year for the westerners. Their league form was inconsistent, with several regulars absent through club commitments. A host of younger players were trialled during the spring but management turned once more to the older, more experienced crew when the championship rolled around.
With Canning's groin injury casting a pall over their summer, Galway remained under the weather for the opening two rounds of the Leinster championship, beating Carlow by an unexpectedly - and ruinously - narrow margin and then struggling to a home draw with Wexford in a tetchy, low-scoring game.
The landmark win in Nowlan Park indicated Galway might have peaked at the right time but the loss in Parnell Park fortress six days later saw them depart the championship in almost uniquely sickening circumstances.
How long was it before they realised a draw in Wexford - the only result that could have ejected Galway - was in the offing? Had word filtered onto the field in the closing stages that Wexford-Kilkenny was headed that way?
One of the guys got it on his phone. It was on Twitter updates. That's how we found out
"We didn't know til after. In the dressing room. We didn't have a clue. I think their's (game in Wexford Park) finished like five minutes after ours.
"We got word that Kilkenny had won, and then that it was a draw, and that Wexford were up, and then it was a draw. One of the guys got it on his phone. It was on Twitter updates. That's how we found out."
Manager Micheál Donoghue expressed confidence that the adjusted club calendar - the finals have been moved from St Patrick's Day to January from 2020 - will offer more breathing room for Galway to prepare for championship.
Canning, who has four All-Ireland club medals with Portumna, takes a relatively benign view of phenomenon of established players from successful clubs missing entire league campaigns. In the longer run, it may help to provide opportunities for younger players, even if it makes preparation awkward in the short term.
"We had a lot of lads involved in club finals between St Thomas's, Daithi with Corofin, and the Oranmore lads. We had close to seven or eight guys missing (for the league) who would be starting, or close to starting.
"You could look back on it and say it interrupted our preparations but on the other hand it gave opportunities to other guys to step up.
"You can look at things either way. I’d be of the opinion that it’s a chance for a lot of guys to step up and grab a jersey and get an opportunity whereas if the other guys were there the whole time, they mightn’t have got many opportunities.
"For most of the league and Walsh Cup, on any given day, I think we had max six guys for last year’s All Ireland final team so there was obviously opportunities for another nine guys there which I believe would be a good thing in the longer run."
He may not relish watching All-Ireland semi-finals when Galway aren't involved but, unlike many pundits, Canning says he's not the least bit surprised that the wizened old powers, Tipperary and Kilkenny have found themselves back in the All-Ireland final.
The hurling championship is so well balanced now, Canning says, that there are six or seven teams with legitimate aspirations to winning an All-Ireland title.
"No, it doesn't surprise me really. Kilkenny have guys coming back at the right time. They've Cillian Buckley, James Maher, Richie Hogan back now in the last couple of games. Eoin Murphy was already back obviously.
It's interesting that the two losers of the provincial finals are in the final
"They had a lot of injuries at the start of the season. They're getting all their big names back at the right time. So, it's no surprise. Tipperary, over the last number of years, have been very good as well. It's no surprise.
"It's obviously interesting that the two losers of the provincial finals are in the final. That looks to me that any team could beat any other team on a given day.
"There's six or seven teams now that could possibly win an All-Ireland. So, there's very little between any team really. If there was two other teams, you wouldn't be surprised if they were there either."
But is it a problem that provincial champions are having such difficulty navigating the four-week gap and reaching an All-Ireland final?
"I heard it the other day on the radio, (they were) saying that because there's no provincial winner in it (the All-Ireland final), is it a problem?
"But we won the last two Leinsters and we were in the All-Ireland for two years. Very short memories, some people. I wouldn't read much into that at all."
2020 is expected to be Canning's 13th season of championship hurling, and this year was the only time he was absent for a substantial part of the summer. Remarkably, prior to 2019, the only top tier championship game he'd missed since his debut was last year's Leinster championship encounter with Dublin, when Micheál Donoghue opted to rest him for a dead rubber match.
The five-time All-Star turned 31 in October and notes that most of the players currently in the running for Hurler of the Year - TJ Reid, Noel McGrath, Brendan Maher, Seamus Callanan - are hovering in and around that age.
"I hope it's not a young man's game! I'm around the same age as those lads.
"Every team needs that bit of experience as well. I suppose it's ironic that probably the best players this season and the lads that are going for Hurler of the Year are in the 30/31 age-bracket.
"I've heard for the last two or three years that you should be thinking about retiring at that age."
