Loughnane targets winning start to league campaign

Home

Sections

Sport

Written by John Fallon

Wednesday, 14 February 2007

Galway will hope to get the Ger Loughnane era off to a winning start when they take on Antrim in the opening game of the national hurling league at Pearse Stadium (2.30pm).

And, according to new skipper David Collins, there will not lack incentive having lost their opening game of last year's campaign away to Antrim.

"That loss up in Antrim cost us a lot last year. We never really recovered from it, so we will not lack incentive this time round. We will be hunting in packs on Sunday," said the 22 year old.

Collins can't wait to get back out on the field after a heavy winter training programme.

And Galway defender Tony Og Regan says that the heavy winter training programme already done by them will stand to them as the season progresses.

The 23 year old, now in his fifth season on the Galway squad, says they have done three months of physical training since Loughnane took charge.

Regan, who has manned the full-back or centre-back positions over the past few seasons, says the sessions were tough but that the players had responded to them.

But Regan, speaking at the recent launch of Gaelic Telecom in Galway, said that players knew the heavy training sessions would stand to them in the long run.

"I would never have done as many running sessions back to back. But training was very innovative, there were lots of different drills and lots of variety and that was a help," said the Rahoon/Newcastle full-back.

The squad, which was cut from 53 to 35 recently, has had its first taste of hurling in the past couple of weeks and already the high fitness level is obvious.

"We lost our opening game in the league last year to Antrim and never really recovered.

"We begin this year's campaign against Antrim as well but we will be hoping to hit the ground running and get up to a high level of intensity and take that form into the championship," said Regan, an accountant with DHKN in Galway.

Comments (0) »