Canning opens up on difficult dealings with county board and his bid to bring Davy Fitzgerald to Galway
Picture: stephen Book: Manager Has On From The In Fallout To Secure Galway Subsequent Exit 2019 Micheál Opened As Fitzgerald Joe Canning Davy New And Attempts Up Mccarthy/sportsfile Donoghue’s His
Joe Canning has opened up on the fall-out from Micheál Donoghue’s Galway exit in 2019 and his subsequent attempts to secure Davy Fitzgerald as manager.
In his new autobiography, My Story, Canning recalled the aftermath of Galway’s defeat to Dublin in the Leinster Championship that proved to be the end of Donoghue’s first reign.
The all-time Tribe great and 2017 All-Ireland winner launched the book in his native Portumna on Thursday night. A huge crowd came from around Galway and beyond. There were representatives from Mayo, Wicklow, Offaly and beyond to queue patiently in Curley’s bar to bask in the glow.
In the book, the 35-year-old listed the circumstances that led to current manager Donoghue’s initial departure.
“But Parnell Park proved our endgame, and soon enough, Micheál announced that he was stepping down. I didn’t see that coming. None of us really did. We all knew that he’d had a pretty fraught relationship with the county board, but it wasn’t something he ever brought to bear in the dressing room. His attitude — rightly — was that we didn’t need to know about it. But we did know.
“Too much had gone on around us for us not to be aware of stupid stuff. Like us turning up for training in Ballinasloe one night only to have to climb in over locked gates. We were aware too that management were having to access their own business contacts to fund various training camps. There was a sense, at times, of the board almost actively putting obstacles in the way of success for the team.”
Several current and former team-mates were in attendance as the 35-year-old signed copies and posed for photographs. Canning wrote that the squad felt they couldn’t take a more militant stance after Donoghue left because of what happened in 2015 with the player heave against Anthony Cunningham. Numerous meetings with Donoghue and his selectors in a bid to change their minds were unsuccessful.
Canning went on to detail several issues with the previous county board including the abandoned Mountain South Centre of Excellence project that was later labelled a “financial disaster”. He endured his own difficult dealings with them too, particularly after he was sent off against Sarsfields in the 2020 County Championship for allegedly pulling the helmet off an opponent.
“Video evidence showed it to have been wrong, and we subsequently got an email from the referee admitting as much with an apology. The email was copied to a prominent member of the Galway County Board,” he wrote.
“The following week, I had to go to a hearing to plead my case, and on my way to Loughgeorge, stopped off for diesel in Oranmore. At the petrol station, I met the board member copied in the referee’s email.
"He seemed to think my predicament hilarious. ‘You’re coming down to the hearing, are ya?’ he said with what I interpreted as a dismissive smirk. ‘See you down there so.’ It was clear as day to me that this fella didn’t give a flying fuck for my sense of injustice. This was all just a game to him.
“Ivan, as club chairman, came to the meeting with me, and naturally, we instantly brought up the referee’s email. What email are you on about? I didn’t get any email,” this fella replied. We could clearly see that he had been copied on the email. ‘Is this your correct email address?’ we asked.
“Confirming that it was, we suggested he check his inbox again. Then the return of that grin. ‘Oh yeah, I have it here.’ To me he was just laughing at us. We simply didn’t matter.”
The five-time All-Star revealed that he went south in search of a solution.
“So to some degree, I decided to take the bull by the horns myself. I pitched up in Sixmilebridge, arriving at Davy Fitzgerald’s door with a pack of Jaffa Cakes and a bottle of MiWadi in a kind of light-hearted nod to the meeting that supposedly had turned Clare from beaten Munster championship dockets to All-Ireland champions in 2013.
“I sensed Davy was interested in being Galway manager, but the Wexford lads were desperate to keep him too.
"Honestly, if he was up for it, I don’t think county board officials could, logically, have rejected the idea. But Davy eventually rang to confirm he’d decided to stay put with Wexford. I was gutted.”
Instead, O’Donoghue’s successor was Shane O’Neill. Canning, meanwhile, retired in 2021 for several reasons including injury.
“But there was another factor too, making the exit option the appealing one. Leaving Thurles that evening, I presumed that the same management team would be in place the following year. And it was clear that the management team didn’t have much trust in me.”