He’s not getting carried away, that’s for sure.
Galway forward Conor Whelan had a dream year. Between starring in his county’s first Liam MacCarthy triumph in 29 years, and picking up an All-Star and a Young Hurler of the Year award for his performances along the way, it wasn’t a standard 12 months for a 21-year-old.
The NUIG student is keeping his feet firmly on the ground, though, and modesty is the prevailing trend in his chat with Colm Parkinson on The GAA Hour.
“Yeah it was a satisfactory year from a Galway perspective. The main aim for us starting the year was to win the All-Ireland, and we’re just happy we managed that,” said the Kinvara club man.
“We felt this was going to be the year that was going to make or break us. 29 years is a very long time for a county like Galway to be waiting,” he added.
“The personal awards are the cherry on top at the end of the year. The main ambition was to win the All-Ireland. The All-Star wouldn’t be possible without the help of my teammates.
“The Galway forwards worked very hard this year, and I was just happy to be a part of that, It could have been any one of the six Galway forwards that picked up an All-Star. I was just lucky to be chosen,” he added.
For any keen hurling observers, it is clear that luck had nothing to do with his selection for the 2017 All-Star hurling team. Whelan was a defender’s nightmare from the Tribesmen’s first day out in the Championship against Dublin to their last against Waterford.
The half forward’s savage work-rate, combined with his sharp hurling brain and wide-ranging skill-set were the foundation for many of their scores and victories throughout the year.
For one so young, Whelan has plenty of experience. He is now in his third year as a Galway senior hurler, having made his debut, at 18, in the 2015 All-Ireland quarter final against Cork.
It’s so rare for an 18-year-old to be called into an inter-county senior panel, that you’d nearly forget about the logistical challenges that it can cause.
Like any 18-year-old would, when Whelan was first called into the panel as a first-year student in Mary Immaculate College – and with most of the Tribesmen panellists based in Galway – he worried about how he would get to training. First and foremost, that was the concern.
“I was called in to the panel in January 2015, but I was in college in Limerick and I didn’t have a car so it wasn’t really something that I thought was going to work out, so I left it,” he said.
A few months later, the call came again, and he decided he’d give it a lash.
“I got asked in again after the first Dublin game when Galway drew, and I said that I’d give it a go. I was happy to be a part of the panel, pushing for a place. We played an A vs B game down in Thurles and I just happened to be on the end of a few nice moves and that was kind of the platform for my introduction into senior hurling,” said Whelan.
He hasn’t looked back, and since his debut in that quarter-final in Semple Stadium, he’s been almost a permanent fixture in the Galway team. That’s a credit to him – he hasn’t let himself become overawed or overlooked.
“I suppose it just, kind of, went from there. I felt a sense of unfinished business after that game (2015 All-Ireland final loss against Kilkenny) and was just anxious to push on this year and last year,” he added.
He pushed on alright, and he’s still hungry for more, picking faults in his own game and pin-pointing areas he can improve on. A similar analysis certainly worked out for him after the 2016 season.
“I felt I struggled last year, because I’m no longer the forward no-one knows about,” he said.
“It was a very good learning curve and it was a great experience to get, (On playing for Galway as an 18/19-year-old) but at the same time it brings expectation, and that’s just an area I had to develop my game, and to push on from that, from somebody who had potential to perform to something better,” he added.
For next year, he’s already looking for goals.
“I didn’t score any goal this year, that’s just one particular area I can look at to improve for 2018. I had a few poor enough wides all year,” he added.
“As an inter-county hurler, you can never stop learning and changing your game. I felt I didn’t have the best All-Ireland final. There’s always area for improvement. I’m not the complete package yet.”
He’s certainly going the right way about it.
You can listen to the honest, insightful Whelan interview from 20:00 below:
