Expectations greatly reduced
They get to chatting, as she swooningly recounts to Jerry and George in the coffee shop next day. “And he asked me my name. And I think I said Elaine — but I mean, who the hell knows?!”
Who the hell knows. Indeed. As neat a way as any of previewing Clare and Waterford tomorrow.
We’ve a fair idea of what’s in store next weekend. Kilkenny and Dublin in O’Moore Park. Cork and Tipp in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. The earth will shake on successive afternoons.
But what to expect from Clare and — even more so — Waterford? Who the hell knows.
Nothing that’ll register on the Richter Scale, at any rate. And as for predicting the winner with any degree of confidence, heaven help us.
It’s one of those games where if you asked a computer to forecast the outcome it would whirr for a few moments, then respond: “Insufficient data available.”
It wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time we could look forward to meetings of Clare and Waterford in the expectation that between them they’d give us something to remember. They usually did, with knobs on.
The 1998 Munster final and replay. Colin Lynch, Tony Browne and the madness of King Ger. We’re still talking about it and we always will be.
The first-round surprise in 2004, when Dan Shanahan’s hat-trick ruined Anthony Daly’s managerial debut. The qualifier in Ennis the following year, when Clare wreaked a four-goal revenge. And 2008 in Limerick: Dan and Justin and that non-handshake.
Tomorrow finds the two of them at their weakest for years, or close to it. Not Davy Fitz’s fault, not Michael Ryan’s fault. It’s simply the point both counties have reached in their respective cycles.
Wishing it to be otherwise is like blaming Ireland’s number six for being Glenn Whelan instead of Glenn Modric or Glenn Iniesta, and the week gone by has demonstrated the futility of that particular attitude. As with Ireland, so with Clare and Waterford.
When God gives you lemons you make lemonade, not Dom Perignon.
Reaching an All Ireland quarter-final — the prize for tomorrow’s winners — in his first year in the job would mark a more than acceptable start to Davy Fitz’s tenure. Admittedly, this observer for one expected more from them in the league semi-final, particularly in terms of their transition from defence to attack; too often they took the ball into contact when the imperative was to keep it moving and avoid inviting Kilkenny to engorge them.
But fair is fair. Kilkenny ask questions that first-year managers of young teams can’t be faulted for being unable to answer. Clare sat a masters paper in the league semi-final. Here they sit a Leaving Cert one.
To ace it, they’ll need Cian Dillon hurling as well at full-back as he did against the All-Ireland champions. They’ll also need John Conlon out on the half-forward line and far more involved than he was the same afternoon.
If Clare plumbed the depths last season and the only way is up, Waterford may yet have to reach the turn in the road. This is the first year in ages one can’t advance a credible case for them making the All-Ireland semi-finals.
Tomorrow is a bigger day for Michael Ryan than it is for his predecessor in the job. Win or lose, Davy Fitz will be managing Clare for the next three years or more. The same can’t necessarily be said about Ryan on Suirside, all the more so on foot of that fraught winter and spring he endured.
He conspicuously failed in one area where Davy Fitz had succeeded during his stint with the county: keeping everyone inside the tent. Not just players but members of the management team too.
That passed, as these things do. But the episode hasn’t been forgotten and will be disinterred the moment things go pear-shaped, which increases the burden on Ryan to demonstrate he’s an inter-county manager tomorrow. Waterford fans are entitled to expect their team to have a game plan, to stick to it and generally to have an idea of what they’re at. The sight of a team aware of what they’re doing implies the manager is aware of what he’s doing also.
And if the Déise succeed in returning to basics and hurling off the cuff rather more than they did during Davy Fitz’s reign, as Ryan has promised, what a breath of fresh air that will be.
Apologies for sitting on the fence as regards a verdict. But Elaine was right. Who the hell knows?
Fancy Offaly with a four-point start against Galway tomorrow? In other words, fancy Offaly to win, draw or lose by three points or less? From this chair it’s hard not to.
Granted, they’d hardly have beaten Wexford last time out had Gizzy Lyng found the net in the first half and/or Jack Guiney’s penalty been a couple of inches lower.
And one slight difference with two years ago, when Offaly gave Galway plenty of it over the course of a draw and replay at the same stage of the competition, is that back then they didn’t have the distraction of a quarter-final, thus allowing them to zero in on the semi-final for months beforehand.
But Ollie Baker isn’t short of solid, experienced performers. David Kenny, David Franks, Joe Bergin, Shane Dooley and Brian Carroll are all good hurlers and constitute the sort of hard core one can’t be sure Galway possess.
Offaly haven’t appeared in an All-Ireland quarter-final since 2003. They won’t have too many better chances of rectifying this situation in the next few years. Correction: they may not have any. All that can be said about Galway at this stage is that the relegation play-off against Dublin was a very obvious blessing in no disguise at all and that the mild scare they received from Westmeath won’t do them any harm. They ran up cricket scores against Down in the qualifiers a few years back and it was no preparation for what awaited them when the phony war ended.
And yes, yer man from Portumna may have one of his days and bag 2-8 from full-forward. It’s one of the occupational hazards that come with previewing a Galway match, one of the terms and conditions that should be inserted in fine print at the bottom. “In the event of Joe Canning having a blinder, all of the above is null and void.”
Still. The bookies, who contrary to widespread belief are not always right, rate Galway four points the better team. It’ll be disappointing if Offaly don’t prove them wrong. The man from Portumna or not.
