Galway manager Anthony Cunningham has wasted no time in eying All-Ireland success in the wake of his side's historic Leinster Championship triumph.
The Tribesmen produced a stunning display to upset Kilkenny 2-21 to 2-11 at Croke Park yesterday and land the Bob O’Keeffe Cup for the first time in the Connacht county’s history.
But while Cunningham praised his charges’ achievement, he immediately turned his attention to securing even greater honours this season.
We’re delighted to have won Leinster,” Cunningham told RTÉ Sport. “It’s the end of that competition for us today and it’s history. But we’re in a new series now which is the All-Ireland series and it’s knockout from here on out and we’re going to have to be ready for that.”
It took Kilkenny almost 20 minutes to register a point as Galway raced into a 2-12 to 0-04 half-time lead.
The Galway boss praised his side’s workrate, but added that they will need to replicate yesterday’s performance if they are to further extend their campaign.
“It was a great start," admitted Cunningham. "We’ve been going well in training and we’ve put a huge amount of work into this.
“I think the guys have the skill and they have the hunger and they have the will to win and I just hope that from today they’ll learn as much as they can out there and use it to perfection the next day because we’ll need it.”
Galway have been starved of success in recent years, with several managers unable to convert the county’s prodigious underage success into titles at the highest level.
But Cunningham, who has had managerial success in both codes, was keen to attribute the magnificent victory at Headquarters to his squad.
“You really have to congratulate the players. They gave a super performance today and we’re delighted.
“We’ve had many tough days in Galway. We had no success really in the 90s and 2000s and 2005 was the last time we’ve been in a semi-final or played here in August.”
Galway will now probably carry the tag of favourites into their All-Ireland semi-final, and Cunningham accepted that other candidates for the Liam MacCarthy cup will be gunning for the side from the west.
“We haven’t seen the last of Kilkenny, and there’s a lot of big teams out there who will be now looking to go on and take our scalp the next day,” he admitted.
