Monday, April 18, 2011
REGIME change in hurling?
All sorts of reasons made yesterday’s hurling game between Cork and Dublin interesting.
On the face of it, Dublin had a hopeful eye on a place in the league final, and Cork were keen for a last competitive outing before the championship next month.
Being honest, however, if you were from Cork, then Eddie Keher’s words last week, when he had rated the Dubs above the Rebels as potential All-Ireland champions, were probably on your mind.
If you were from Dublin, well, such an imprimatur mightn’t have been too distant from your thoughts either, we suspect.
This pronouncement ruffled feathers on Leeside, though that may have more to do with Keher’s apparent willingness to talk about issues in Cork than the actual substance of his argument.
Drawing a form line between the two based on performances against Kilkenny, for instance, would have suggested Dublin were slightly ahead of Cork this year, but yesterday’s laboratory conditions, of course, was the best test of Keher’s theory.
Certainly in the first half there was an unsurprising symmetry to the proceedings: Dublin had hit almost 40 wides in two of their preceding games, while Cork had lost three matches by a single point. It was nine-eight at the break in Páirc Uí Chaoimh and one team had hit eight wides.
Trouble is, Dublin had only hit three of those misses, while Cork were ahead by the minimum.
Role reversal, if you like.
At the final whistle, the agreed parts had been assigned and duly played.
The second half saw Dublin rattle off a round dozen wides, while the narrow margin — a one-point defeat — meant Cork lost four games in this year’s league by one point.
Denis Walsh said afterwards that Cork might have "coasted" to a league final if they’d reversed a couple of those, but it wasn’t to be.
Based on yesterday’s evidence, there are some notable weapons in Dublin’s locker.
Down on the field after the game, as the men from the capital filed past their happy manager, their physical strength was obvious, and the players due to come back will augment that physical power rather than lessen it.
"Liam Rushe would be a huge man for us and he was out," Anthony Daly said in the tunnels of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, as happy a hunting-ground for him now as it was when he had a Clare jersey.
"Ronan Walsh had a great game against Kilkenny, he was out, and Joe Boland will hopefully come back into play too."
Dublin also have spirit: when Cork engineered a goal after quick hands from Patrick Horgan and Kieran Murphy set Luke O’Farrell up, the Dubs’ response was emphatic — four points on the trot.
Cork supporters, meanwhile, must have shaken their heads at the man who got one of those scores, to go with his other five points from play.
Anthony Daly clearly sets his side up to exploit Dotsy O’Callaghan’s physical strength and accuracy, and withdrawing Daire Plunkett out the field gives O’Callaghan room to operate.
O’Callaghan looks like he was born in a number 14 jersey, while at the other end yesterday Cork’s full-forward line looked like it was composed entirely of natural corner-forwards.
In an ideal world, a combination of O’Callaghan, with his fine Leeside surname, and Horgan and O’Farrell of Cork would be an ideal inside line, but such a place exists only in the mind of Voltaire.
(Speaking of utopias, President of the GAA Christy Cooney’s suggestion that Dublin might be broken up as a GAA entity wouldn’t have found much favour in Páirc Uí Chaoimh yesterday, though the possibility did provoke memories of the old Welsh joke when they lost a Rugby World Cup game to Western Samoa: "Good thing we weren’t playing all of Samoa"). Dublin can look forward with a good deal of confidence to the summer. While a win over Kilkenny in the league final would be a tremendous fillip, even yesterday Anthony Daly had half an eye on Offaly in the Leinster championship, citing their demotion as possible motivation for Joe Dooley and co.
Still, he knows his team are contenders.
Cork have different challenges, and notwithstanding Denis Walsh’s positive outlook, a record of four one-point defeats is not ideal preparation for facing Tipperary next month, to put it mildly.
It may not be palatable on Leeside, but as of April 17, Eddie Keher was correct.
* Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie; twitter: mikemoynihanex.
© Examiner Publications (Cork) Limited, City Quarter, Lapps Quay, Cork. Registered in Ireland: 73385.
