Laboratory conditions right for Clare to win league
When we won the All-Ireland with Clare in 1995, the following year’s league kicked off that October. The celebrations obviously took their toll early in the campaign. We lost our first match to Kerry but the bank of fitness we’d built up stood to us as October segued into November. We went up to Birr and put on an exhibition against Offaly in our last match before the winter-break.
Once our foot was off the gas and we could almost smell the Christmas turkey, some of us overdid the table and the high stool. When we returned from the team holiday in Thailand, I had an arse on me the size of a bag of cement and the belly wasn’t hectic either. I wasn’t the only one. A certain midfielder who I won’t mention – it wasn’t Colin Lynch, put it that way – piled on a good few inches that winter.
Times were different back then. We didn’t know what a gym was. The only gym I knew was Jim McInerney. Mike Mac crucified us when we went back training in Crusheen in mid-January but by the time the league resumed in February, a good few of us were still in some state.
After the first league match, a reporter described the Clare half-back as having a physique comparable to the Munster front-row. That line was factually incorrect. Seanie McMahon, Liam Doyle and myself were more like the Young Munster front-row. We’d nearly have passed for the Clohessy brothers.
Times are certainly very different now. I saw an interview with Seamie Flanagan recently where he said lads were sharing notes on their Whatsapp group about going to the gym for a session during the team holiday in Cancun. (No one would want to have been ringing that unnamed midfielder and my good self in Thailand about a gym session all those years ago ). It’s a whole different mentality now but the Limerick lads know full well that you can’t let yourself go like teams used to in the past.
Limerick will be still surfing the wave of good vibes from last year’s success but heading back into Division 1A for the first time in almost a decade will provide an added sense of motivation for the 2019 league.
Having to go to Wexford Park for Sunday’s opening day will narrow their focus even more; because they know that Davy Fitz would like nothing better than to scalp the All-Ireland champions in their first marquee match since last August.
The league will be different this year because, with the format being redrawn for 2020, there will be no promotion or relegation in 2019. That will take the edge off some teams but enough counties will still have something significant to play for.
This time last year, I’d have said that Kilkenny couldn’t contemplate winning an All-Ireland for at least another four years. Winning last year’s league title forced a revision of that evaluation. Kilkenny still don’t have the depth they would probably like to have but they’ll look back with regret at last year’s defeat to Limerick. Kilkenny certainly won’t be spooked by any of the other nine teams in the race for Liam MacCarthy and I’m sure Brian Cody will be using the league in the same way he always has – to go out to win every game.
The early rounds may be difficult for Kilkenny being without the Ballyhale contingent, combined with injuries to Cillian Buckley and Pádraig Walsh. Yet that will present Cody with the opportunity to see if he can unearth some more of the unheralded talent he discovered last spring.
I think Clare look a good bet for a league title. Already, you can see a big sea-change from recent seasons. Over the last two years, most of the rhetoric coming from Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor seemed to focus on getting a settled side and knowing their best 15 for the championship.
The league was always framed around that target but the Munster League highlighted how much the net has been broadened.
I know that Donal said after the Munster League final that the starting 15 were the best 15 currently available but there are still plenty of big names on the bench and squad players are getting more of a chance.
The big advantage Clare have too is they know that their club championship won’t kick off until after the county season ends.
That gives the two lads a luxury that other inter-county managers just don’t have. Given Clare’s impressive record in Cusack Park, having three home games — against Kilkenny, Wexford and Limerick — could see them build a solid early momentum.
Wexford are another team that could go well. I felt they could have rattled the league title last year but they took their foot off the gas for the semi-final against Kilkenny. With those top three positions in Leinster so difficult to secure now, especially with an expected surge from Dublin this year, Davy might like to have a league title in the bag early in case the championship doesn’t work out the way he intends.
Context frames everything. Tipperary, unlike last year, will surely be looking to establish a more settled team during the spring. The priority for John Meyler and his management will be to deepen the Cork squad. Meyler had the same attitude last spring but Cork were still short on the bench when they desperately needed more bodies for the All-Ireland semi-final.
There will be plenty going on in 1B too. Dublin will be anxious to take a scalp against Galway or Waterford, as much to make a statement than to top Division 1B. Waterford, who are also under a new manager in Paraic Fanning, will want to start winning big games again, especially against Dublin and Galway. After their difficulties with energy levels in 2018, Galway will surely be trying to deposit more fuel in the tank.
Not every team will see the league as a must-win goal in 2019 but a campaign can gather momentum as a team begins to grow and evolve throughout the competition. And I just think the laboratory conditions are right for Clare this spring to combine hot-housing enough new talent with winning a league.
Daly’s diary dates
It was only a Munster League final in mid-January but I’d still be pretty sure there was some form of a backlash in Tipperary after the way Clare took them apart in that decider. There has naturally been a lot of excitement with the return of Liam Sheedy (right) but a good deal of that early optimism was knocked out of many people with the way Clare dismantled their defence. After losing a championship match to Clare in Semple Stadium for the first time in 90 years last June, Tipp won’t want to lose to Clare again at home on Saturday night.
Limerick will have already played Wexford and Tipperary by that stage but Kilkenny in Nowlan Park will be a different acid test. Kilkenny never like losing at home but they’ll be even more fired up after last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final defeat. The locals will want their team to lay down a marker but they’ll also be keen to see where their men are at against the All-Ireland champions.
Dublin/Galway will have taken place the previous week but this will be Dublin’s first attempt at turning Parnell Park into the fortress they’ll need it to be during the summer with Wexford and Galway coming to town for the Leinster championship. It’s also a huge acid test for Paraic Fanning’s Waterford, who will be facing Galway the following weekend.
Despite Kilkenny winning three of their four meetings last year, Davy Fitz and his Wexford charges still have a lot of wins secured against Brian Cody and Kilkenny over the last three seasons. The recent Walsh Cup semi-final was another victory but Wexford will be really keen to put last year’s league semi-final hammering in Wexford Park to bed in this fixture. And to keep their foot on Kilkenny’s throat in the process.
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