That pile-up seemed unavoidable after 25 minutes of the Leinster club final in November. UCD were running away with the game against James Stephens and looked on course for an All-Ireland semi-final date with Portumna. Smith was in the crowd cheering on his UCD teammates as they apparently headed for a clash with his Portumna teammates.
After winning county medals in Dublin and Galway, Smith declared for Portumna. Babs Keating publicly lamented his loss before the Leinster final because Smith had scored 1-6, 1-2 from play, against James Stephens in the 2004 Leinster final. The potential showdown with Smith and UCD never materialised because James Stephens won the day. Instead, 15 months on from a harrowing one-point defeat by the Kilkenny champions, Smith has an opportunity to avenge that loss.
Many of the UCD players had the chance to win senior championships in their own county in the same season; the fact that Smith almost found himself in the ultimate face-off lends weight to the argument against colleges playing in county championships.
“To be totally honest, I don’t think it’s right,” he says. “I’m over the moon to have two county medals with UCD but you shouldn’t be allowed to win county titles in two different counties. If NUIG were in the Galway championship, they’d give it a right rattle and I don’t think that it would be a great benefit to Galway hurling.”
The regret of losing the Leinster final lingers in UCD but they are busy preparing for a Fitzgibbon Cup quarter-final in 10 days’ time.
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Smith has had different priorities as Portumna get ready for their second All-Ireland club semi-final in three seasons. Two years ago they were caught in a classic Dunloy ambush in Clones. The club who had made their name by taking scalps in All-Ireland semi-finals. They were facing a young side who had just won their first county title. It was a set-up waiting to happen. They walked into Dunloy’s haymaker.
“We weren’t mentally prepared for it,” says Smith. “They came out with guns blazing and we weren’t able for it. They were a big physical team and we’d no game-plan to counteract their style. It was sickening. We took them for granted.”
Two years on, they arrive back with a more hardened edge and greater depth in their squad. Michael Ryan, who came on as a substitute in the 2001 All-Ireland final for Tipperary against Galway, has been a huge addition, while Garret Heagney’s game has improved after a season on the Limerick training squad.
Then there’s Joe Canning, the most talented young forward in the country. Although still only a minor, Canning is leading the attack. That Portumna have the best set of forwards of any club to have emerged from Galway in the past 15 years highlights just how lethal he is. To date, he’s landed 10-69 in eight championship matches.
All season, Portumna have been blowing teams away up front, hitting 19-144 in eight championship games. In the six challenge games they’ve played since Christmas, they’ve averaged 2-18, the same average as their championship haul. That stat is further enhanced given the cut-throat nature of the Galway championship.
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In the county final, Loughrea scored 3-14; the highest score recorded in a county decider since Liam Mellows hit 5-11 in 1970. Still, Joe Canning and Damien Hayes landed 3-17 between them out of a total of 3-21. It was the highest winning scoring total in a Galway final for more than 40 years but too much pressure has been hanging on the shoulders of Canning and Hayes.
“Ger Loughnane was at our dinner dance and he said that the other players will have to step up to the plate,” says Smith. “We can’t be expecting Joe to do everything. Damien and Joe will be marked men but that might leave more room for us to get into it. The rest of us up front are going to have to step up big-time.”
Although Portumna are the first team to break the Athenry-Sarsfields hegemony of the past 19 years in Galway, today will tell if they have arrived on the big stage. They may be regarded as the new hurling power in the county but they aren’t feared as Athenry were in their pomp. Teams continually front up to them, believing they can take them down. Gort tried in the county semi-final and nearly pulled it off.
Some of the brazen attitude shown towards them is grounded in their location. Standing beside the Shannon and right on the border with Tipperary, they’re seen almost as separate from the Galway hurling power-base.
“A lot of teams in Galway would show us no respect when they play us,” says Smith. “We are regarded as the border club and teams would go the extra inch to try and beat us. We’re nearly regarded as a Tipperary team. We don’t like that.”
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They’ve learnt their lessons the hard way. After losing their first county final in 1995, they spent seven years on the outside. Athenry refused to step aside once Portumna won their first title in 2003. They went into the 2004 final as hot favourites but Athenry toughed it out and mugged them in stoppage time.
In the past 15 years, Galway clubs have reached nine All-Ireland finals, winning five titles. In only two of those 15 seasons have the side that beat the Galway champions failed to win the All-Ireland. One of those occasions was when Dunloy beat Athenry in 1995. That was the catalyst for Athenry’s future domination; Portumna hope a similar experience will drive them on to make their own history.
For Smith, the wheel keeps turning. A member of the Galway panel that reached last year’s All-Ireland final, two county medals in different counties in the space of a month and now a shot at immortality with Portumna. It’s also an opportunity to make a statement both inside and outside Galway.
“After we played Offaly, John McIntyre (Offaly manager and sports editor of The Connacht Tribune) said to us that if we lose to James Stephens, the likes of Athenry and Sarsfields will be smutting at us in the Galway championship because we haven’t reached the pinnacle,” says Smith.
“We know that we won’t be fully respected in Galway unless we achieve that goal. We owe ourselves this one.”
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Smith has that extra motivation, too. After the Leinster final in November, he ambled on to the pitch to console his UCD teammates.
They weren’t able to talk. He’s twice seen the effects of losing a big game to James Stephens. He won’t want it to happen a third time. oAIB All-Ireland club hurling semi-final, James Stephens v Portumna, today, throw-in 2.30pm, live on TG4