The ex-Galway goalkeeper hoping to take down old comrades with Offaly this weekend
TWO GALWAY MEN will be looking to inflict more pain on their home county this weekend when the Offaly hurlers welcome the men from the west to Tullamore.
One of them — the manager Johnny Kelly — hails from the Portumna club and played in a part in their run to four All-Irelands in 10 years, and was at the helm for their 2009 success.
Another member of the Offaly backroom team, Colm Callanan, was part of the wider Galway squad the last time these two teams met in championship hurling seven years ago. And when he looks across to the opposing dugout later this evening, he’ll spot some familiar faces from his days in the trenches.
Callanan was the goalkeeper when Galway ended a 29-year wait to lift the Liam MacCarthy cup in 2017. But by 2018, James Skehill had been promoted to the first-choice position, and Fergal Flannery was the substitute goalie while injury hampered Callanan’s involvement. Galway began their Leinster and All-Ireland defence against Offaly in what was the inaugural year of the round-robin provincial format.
Seven of the players who started for Galway that day — Daithí Burke, Pádraic Mannion, David Burke, Cathal Mannion, Conor Cooney, and Brian Concannon — were all part of the matchday squad last weekend against Kilkenny. Ronan Burke, who started at full back in Nowlan Park, also came on as a second-half substitute that day in 2018. Micheál Donoghue is another link to the past as he was the Galway manager on that occasion. He returns to O’Connor Park in the same role this weekend.
But it’s Whelan who Callanan has the most connection with. He was an experienced head in the Galway set-up when Whelan was introduced to the senior squad as a teenager in 2015.
“He took him under his wing,” former Kinvara player David Huban says explaining how Callanan helped integrate a young Whelan into the Galway camp. “The younger lads would have always looked up to him.”
Whelan was a late arrival to the squad in May of that season. Manager Anthony Cunningham then made the shock decision to start Whelan in their All-Ireland quarter-final against Cork where he scored a 1-2. He has been an ever-present in the Galway attack since then.
“They built up a great relationship,” Huban continues. “There’s a bit of an age gap but they’re still very close.
“You’d often see them out the odd time. They have little nicknames for each other.”
Callanan retired from hurling in 2019 after a 13-year career which produced a 2015 All-Star as well as that Liam MacCarthy triumph in 2017.
But in the last six years, he has accumulated plenty of high level coaching experience. In his retirement statement, he revealed that he would be joining the backroom team for the Na Piarsaigh club in Limerick with Shane O’Neill who was Callanan’s last Galway manager before departing the scene.
O’Neill had previously won an All-Ireland with Na Piarsaigh in 2016 before taking the Galway job. Callanan was one of his recruitments for his second term at the helm.
He later joined the Offaly engine room during Michael Fennelly’s three-season run as manager, coming on board as a goalkeeping coach. Johnny Kelly was also part of that backroom unit before replacing Fennelly in 2022.
But while Callanan was assembling an impressive inter-county CV, he was also developing his mentoring skills with Kinvara.
“He went in at the deep end with our own club because we weren’t doing too well,” says Huban. “He was just after retiring and he took it over when no-one else wanted the job.”
Back to his playing days for a brief interlude, and an interesting discovery: Callanan wasn’t always a goalkeeper. In his underage days, he was a “nice little forward” according to Huban. But as the years progressed into the mid 2000s, Kinvara were low on goalkeeper options. Callanan made the transition and they contested the 2007 senior county final where they met the might of Portumna under Galway great Gerry McInerney who was their player-manager.
Huban started at centre-forward in that decider, finishing with 0-7 in a brutal 6-12 to 0-11 beating.
In 2019, Kinvara won the intermediate county final after Callanan scored a late goal to snatch the victory from Kilconieron.
“He took the last-minute free from a good 100 yards or maybe more,” says Huban. “No-one knows how it ended up in the back of the net.
“He was as good a goalie as I’ve seen and we had a good few goalies in our club. Michael Smith was his understudy in Kinvara for donkey’s years and he was very good to him.”
Huban has a direct line into Offaly hurling circles having coached some of their emerging stars with the freshers team in University of Galway. All-Ireland U20 winners Dan Bourke and Liam Hoare have all come through his watch along with Charlie Mitchell. Callanan and Hoare have the closest working relationship of that crew, and the verdict so far is that the Kinvara is leaving a big imprint on Offaly hurling.
“Liam finds that it’s amazing to be working with such a goalkeeper like Colm. He listens to everything and he’s improving every day. The fact that he [Callanan] has done it with club and county, and has his medals and All-Stars – if you don’t listen to someone like that, there’s something wrong.
“He’s very good with lads like that. Colm would always be ringing to see how they’re getting on.
“I’ve been over Adrahan and Gort there for a few years and any time you’d ask Colm to come in and talk to lads, or do a session, he’s always obliging. There’s no cockiness or nothing about him.”
Offaly were in the midst of a downfall at the time of their last championship encounter with Galway. A 5-18 to 2-15 rout was the result of that 2018 clash in Tullamore which started Offaly on a losing run that ended in relegation to the Joe McDonagh Cup. They dropped further into hurling’s third tier, the Christy Ring Cup, the following year.
The Leinster championship record between the sides favours Galway as they have won five of their last six meetings. The other tie was a draw in the 2010 Leinster semi-final which Galway won after a replay.
But as Offaly are now in the midst of a revival, the latest instalment of their rivalry with Galway will differ greatly from the events of 2018. Offaly are Division 1B finalists who brought an impressive challenge to Dublin last week, while Galway were stuffed by Kilkenny.
Huban suspects there will be “a bit of banter” between Callanan and Whelan as they prepare to stand on opposite sides of the white line this week.
But the friendly exchanges will give way to big hits when the ball is thrown in at 6.30pm this evening.
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