ROOKIE COUNTY manager J.J. Doyle takes his Wexford side to the hallowed green blades of Croke Park on Sunday with a team very much in the ascendancy.

With him on the day will be a whole new backroom team and they are guys that Doyle knows he can trust when the big decisions need to be made.

'I sat down with Tommy (Roche) and Joe (Brennan) at the start of the year and said I don't want any "yes men", if you think that something is not being done right you have to say it. They have been fantastic with the girls, tough on them when they needed to be tough, but we've had that bit of craic with them as well,' said Doyle.

'We interviewed Jerry (McQuaid) at the beginning of the year and there was a couple of other lads in as well, and I'd say within two minutes of talking I knew he was the guy for the job. He had said to us hurling wasn't his background but he just knew what he was talking about. He knew how to get the girls to where we wanted to get the girls to.'

Despite a walloping over Dublin in the opening round of the championship, it's taken a while for his team to settle, but there have been plenty of signs of gradual improvement.

'From the first game onwards we have gotten better,' said Doyle. 'Anyone that's seen the games will see that we have improved each day, we knew that would be the case. We knew that we weren't prepared for the start of the championship.

'Yet, we knew if we played too many matches before it, there was a risk of burn-out by the time we played six championship matches. We thought then that they would have had too much come a semi-final or that we thought that they wouldn't have been sharp or fit.

'Thankfully every game that they needed to win, they won. They progressed and got better; the Kilkenny game is probably the best performance we have had this year. We know having looked at the DVD that there is an awful lot of room for improvement. Maybe that's a good way to be going into an All-Ireland final, we know they can get a lot better than what they had on the semi-final performance.'

The game against Galway in the group stages came early on and, while players were missing from the Wexford line-up, Doyle concedes that it was a game they weren't ready for.

'The championship game in Athenry just wasn't a good day for us. Our preparation for it wasn't right, we knew we were undercooked; they had two tough games against Kilkenny and Tipperary and we had no more than a training session against Dublin, we weren't ready for it. That being said, we didn't play well on the day and they still snuck it in the end.'

Having seen them in Athenry then, Doyle also travelled to the semi-final replay in Thurles and knows exactly what to expect from Galway.

'They are the most physical side we have played all year. Maybe we played into their hands, it's something we are very conscious of. They are a big, strong, physical team but we know we can match them in that and hopefully our hurling can take us a little bit further than their hurling can,' said Doyle

'Their main strength is their team as a unit, they work very well together, they are very driven and really want to win the AllIreland. Therese Maher at centre-forward is the heartbeat of the side; if she has a good day, Galway invariably have a good day. Veronica Curtin in full can be lethal; look at the drawn game against Cork where she got 2-2 from play.

'While we would be aware of the strengths of other teams, you would be foolish not to. We very much go along the lines that we want to impose our gameplan on them. We believe if we can do that then they will have to worry about us and not vice-versa.'

- DEAN GOODISON Sports reporter