Henry Shefflin is “demanding more” from his players, says Joe Canning, as Galway look to kick on in the second year of his management.
Galway have just come off a mixed League campaign but Canning isn’t reading too much into results ahead of the Championship, good, bad or indifferent, with his former teammates opening their Leinster Championship campaign at home to Wexford on Saturday.
“When I was involved you'd hear talk about 'Galway are doing this' and 'Galway are doing that' and it's completely not accurate,” said the 34-year-old, who retired from inter-county hurling in 2021.
“Then when you step outside, and I live in Limerick now, so I'm not around Galway too often. I'm involved with the minors so that kind of keeps me occupied.
“The small bits and pieces I hear from chatting with lads, it's very much work rate, honesty, a lot of the fundamentals that he probably would have been brought up with in Kilkenny. Those are the main things. I don't think he's changed a lot.
“Micheal [Donoghue] when he was involved with us was very much the same, Anthony [Cunningham] was the same, just trying to be a hard team to beat.
“I think Galway are a hard team to beat on their day. Limerick obviously found it tough enough, I think we were level at 70 minutes the last two games against them in the last couple of years in semi-finals, and they're the standard bearer obviously.
“I don't think he's changed a whole pile but I think he's demanding more of players, work rate and stuff maybe compared to before.”
Shefflin looked at 33 players during the League but didn’t quite crack his starting 15, Canning felt.
“I don't think we've got probably our first 15 in the League. I don't think he had everybody because Cathal [Mannion] was missing for a good bit, Daithi [Burke] was missing for a good bit. They'll definitely be starters.
“I don't know if he's probably got his first 15 playing together this year yet. But I don't think he was too far away in one or two matches either.
“I'd say there'll be one or two surprises. But it depends on how training is going. I don't know how training is going to be straight up about it.
“If lads are putting up their hand then I presume they'll get game time. I'd say most people in Galway could maybe name 12 guys and there could be three lads that are in or out then.”
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