Anthony Daly: Clare poison to draw Dubs sting, Offaly's day coming but not yet
Tempers flare during the Allianz League Division 1B final between Dublin's Eoghan O'Donnell and David Reidy of Clare Pic: ©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo
I was working in our pub last Saturday afternoon when some of the locals started thinking ahead to this evening and the discussion turned towards everything and anything to do with the Clare-Dublin game.
It began with vexation about the late throw-in time of 7pm, and how people from west Clare wouldn’t be back home until after 11pm, or even close to midnight. I said nothing. It’s not as if Clare play too many big games in a season. The conversation then veered towards team selection and what Brian Lohan and his management may do. And it all ended with a firm stare. From me.
I couldn’t let it pass when this fella said that if Clare couldn’t bate the Dubs a point a man that they had no business taking on Limerick in the semi-final. I didn’t have to say anything. I think he got the hint from the look of disgust smeared across my face.
If you remove their Leinster final performance against Galway, which is always possible when there is silverware on the line for the Dubs, you have to be impressed by what Dublin did beforehand. As well as taking out Wexford and Galway away from home, they sent Kilkenny packing from the championship. That is a serious line of form.
On top of all that – and maybe this exacerbated my annoyance – I know better than anyone that Dublin are at their most dangerous when they are stung. They sting back. With even more venom.
I know their DNA and how they think. I saw it myself first hand in 2011 and 2013, when Dublin won the Division 1 league title, and a first Leinster championship in 52 years. After winning that league, all the talk was that Dublin couldn’t beat Galway in the Leinster semi-final in Tullamore.
We had stumbled over Offaly and I remember driving that in to the players. ‘Everyone is telling ye that ye can’t beat Galway. Ye don’t have the balls. Ye don’t have the hurlers. Well, ye do.’ And they did.
After Dublin drew with Wexford in 2013, Ger Loughnane said we were playing constipated hurling. Wexford were expected to dial up the physicality a week later in Parnell Park but, after we overcame that hurdle and drew with Kilkenny in the semi-final, the chat was that the Dubs had blown a golden opportunity. ‘Ah, you only get one chance to beat Kilkenny’. Well, Dublin took that second chance.
The rhetoric before the 2013 Leinster final was that a fresh Galway team would have too much legs and too much savvy for a team playing its fifth game in four weeks. ‘They won’t back it up,’ was the general narrative. And the Dubs overcame that obstacle too.
One of the main themes of this evening’s match is that Dublin don’t win games in Thurles. They have struggled at the venue. Still, when the Dubs are hearing that they can’t win, that’s invariably when they do.
The other side of this coin is that Clare aren’t exactly in a vein of form that you’d be totally comfortable backing them to win, never mind – as my mate declared – bating the Dubs a score a man.
If anything though, I think that uncertainty is an advantage to Clare now. Questions have been rightly asked about this group since the hammerings by Cork and Limerick. What are Clare really made of? Well, now is the time to show it.
The squad have had a month to prepare. They took a week off. I’m sure they’ve trained well while they hammered Offaly in a challenge game in Birr last Monday week. From my experience, you’d take Offaly’s form in challenge games with a pinch of salt. But it’s still a positive coming when Clare are coming off the back of a no-show against Cork.
Clare might have that bit of poison in them since that embarrassment, when they effectively just downed tools when the match went away from them. Ok, Clare didn’t have to win, but that still didn’t do much to appease the thousands of Clare supporters who travelled south.
Clare have questions to answer, especially around key positions like 3 and 6. It’s impossible to know what Brian will do when information is kept so tightly confined within the squad. John Conlon apparently only came on as a sub in that challenge game, while the word is that Conor Cleary has been primed to mark John Hetherton.
Nobody knows. It’s hard to even know where Conor’s form is at considering he came on at wing-forward (where he played for Kilmaley last year) against Tipperary. Conor is one of the few defenders Clare have to physically match up with Hedgo. But it’s still a risk.
The Dubs have their own doubts too at the back. Will Liam Rushe and Chris Crummey be fit? I don’t think Liam was right in the Leinster final. He wasn’t driving forward. He just wasn’t himself. Galway played a very simple game but they dismantled the Dubs with numbers on their puckout, and punished them by consistently creating one-on-one match ups in the Dublin defence.
After not conceding a goal against Wexford, Galway and Kilkenny, and then shipping 4-29 two weeks ago, it’s possible the Dubs may decide to play Brian Hayes as an out-and-out sweeper. That worked against Kilkenny.
If I was Niall Ó Ceallacháin, I’d start Hedgo and Ronan Hayes in the full-forward line because Clare will struggle for match-ups for both. If you pump ball in there to those twin towers, there is more potential damage to be created with runners like Fergal Whitely and Conal Ó Rian coming off them.
Trying to predict a winner is pure guestimation stuff, primarily because Clare’s form has been so up-and-down, and because nobody is fully sure how much the Leinster final has impacted on Dublin. The Thurles factor also has to be incorporated into any assessment.
I think Clare having a point to prove is a weapon they can unleash. If they can show the tenacity and bouncebackability they displayed against Tipperary – after the hammering from Limerick – I expect them to win. But it’s certainly a tricky game.
It’s very hard to see anything other than a Cork win on Sunday. It's easy to think it could be doomsday stuff after hearing about the trimming Offaly got from Clare 12 days ago. But I honestly wouldn’t pay too much heed to that either. Challenge games are notoriously fickle.
I think Offaly will play well. They have displayed enough throughout this season, especially in Leinster, to show they are capable of operating at this level. Of course there is a big difference between operating - and winning – with a Munster team in the other corner. But Johnny Kelly’s men have enough good players, and enough about them, to be far more competitive than many people expect.
For all the talk after the Munster final about Limerick having 19 more shots, Cork still only lost by one point. And Ben O’Connor’s side had a chance to take the match to extra-time with the last play.
I’m sure Cork will have taken a huge amount from that in their post-match assessment. When these sides met in a preliminary quarter-final two years ago, Cork won by 4-25 to 3-19. Looking back at where the counties were then, that was a highly respectable performance from Offaly. Yet while I expect Cork to post another big score here, I don’t see them conceding as much. Because this team is more solid than expressive. And that solidity almost got Cork over the line against Limerick two weeks ago.
I think Cork will win with a bit to spare but I fancy Offaly to have a real cut, and show their long-term potential.
It might sound outlandish to be talking about next year when this summer is still so much alive for them, but tomorrow is still very much about strengthening that pathway into 2027 for Offaly. They have a real chance of kicking on and reaching a Leinster final. That should be their target. And the next target then should be about trying to win a provincial title again for the first time in over three decades.
Offaly have enough good players to be thinking that way. If this side keeps building, big victories against the top-ranked teams is a realistic prospect down the line.
Just not now. And certainly not tomorrow.
A collection of the latest sports news, reports and analysis from Cork.
