Fintan Burke on Thomas' run to final - 'You'd head snippets of podcasts writing us off'

Fintan Burke's appearance before the media ahead of the club All-Ireland series has become an annual exercise.

Three years running, the Galway half-back has fronted up for press duties in December/January. "It's obviously a good complaint to have!" he laughed.

It's a reminder once again of the extent of St Thomas' dominance of the ferociously - or infamously - competitive Galway senior hurling championship.

Formed only in the late 1960s out of amalgamation of Peterswell and Kilchreest, the area had a deep tradition in the sport, the former winning a glut of county titles around the turn of the 20th century before falling into irrelevance from the 1930s onwards.

It wasn't until 2012 that the club reached, and won, their first Galway SHC title - a match now mainly remembered for Loughrea's Johnny Maher testing the limits of the county's light-touch officiating policy in the closing stages.

A second county title arrived in 2016; then there was a gap year in 2017 before the imperial phase truly took off in 2018. It's still ongoing.

The club has a 100% record in eight Galway final appearances, the majority of which, in contrast to many dynasties elsewhere, were eked out by narrow-ish margins. In October, they collected a sixth in a row, matching the record of the Turloughmore side of the 1960s.

The big caveat of their reign, however, has been their underwhelming performance in the All-Ireland series.

Portumna, whose domination of Galway hurling in the late 2000s was less prolonged but more emphatic while it lasted, mined four All-Ireland titles in the 2006-14 period.

Thomas' won an All-Ireland at their first attempt in 2013, in an era when the Galway champions won the whole shebang more often than not. Since then, however, their