What they said ... the weekend in quotes

April 24, 2017

Galway captain David Burke celebrates his side's Allianz HL Division 1 final victory over Tipperary at the Gaelic Grounds with his 7-month-old niece Thea Burke and 3-year-old nephew Freddie Burke.
©INPHO/Morgan Treacy.

"No, I can't explain it. That was the worst performance we've had in the length of time I've been looking after these boys!"

There will a lot of soul searching inside the Tipperary dressing room as Michael Ryan struggles to come to terms with their 16 point drubbing.

"Just planning every day as it comes. Like I came back to training a few weeks ago and I was a long way off the pace, so I knew well the boys were flying it. I know I've to get to that level now, so we'll see later in the year!"

After linking up with the squad, Johnny Glynn - who headed back to New York this morning - sensed there was a big performance in his Galway team-mates.

"The big thing was not to concede a goal and we didn't, so we should be happy with that side of it anyway."

Pádraic Mannion was part of a Galway defensive unit that restricted the All-Ireland champions to six points from play.

"The Tipp forwards have been shooting the lights out all through the league. Our backs really stood up to it today and our forwards worked really hard. The backs laid down the law in the first 10 minutes and set the tone for the rest of the game."

Galway's two goal hero Jason Flynn deflected the praise on to Mannion & Co.

"For the last few weeks, it's been all about having competitive games and everything is still focused on the 28th of May. It's been 14 out of 16 weeks (playing matches) and a long slog for the lads. When you put in that work you deserve to get the rewards and they got their just rewards today."

The Tribe have bigger fish to fry, insists boss Micheal Donoghue.

"The big one for us is the 28th of May. This is just another good competitive match on the way to that."

Joe Canning was singing from the same hymn sheet as his manager.

"Some have been comparing them to Kilkenny, even though they haven't put All-Ireland back-to-back Comparisons have been made with the Dublin footballers, with claims that Tipp's second 15 is as strong a their first team. What utter nonsense. Tipp had five or six players playing yesterday that aren't top class inter-county hurlers. So how can you talk of Tipp being great? This isn't even a good Tipperary team, let alone a great one."

Two time Clare All-Ireland winner manager Ger Loughnane sticks the boot into the Premier County.

"We know plenty about Laois as some of our lads know some of their guys from playing with Carlow IT. I hope we can get the same support we got today for what should be a cracker of a game. As of now we fancy our chances against anybody."

After guiding Meath to a surprise Leinster SFC victory over Kerry, Martin Ennis has switched his focus to next weekend's clash with Laois.

"The only part we could be happy with at half-time was the scoreboard. The performance was shocking. We were very flat, we weren't coming on to breaks. Our forwards weren't working hard enough. We spoke about it at half-time - if this was the end of the game, how would we feel about a performance like that?"

Laois produced a much improved second-half display against Westmeath but manager Eamonn Kelly knows they have work to do.

"Overall, our discipline was probably poorer than theirs. Just three or four frees, that's all that can be in these games. I'd say we definitely gave away more frees than they did... small things like that."

A lack of discipline came back to haunt Westmeath and captain Aonghus Clarke.

"When you're a genius you don't need a warrior mentality"

Paul Galvin rubbished Joe Brolly's criticism of his former Kerry team-mate Colm Cooper.


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