Anthony Daly: This will be as real as it gets on the league's 'moving weekend'
MY BALL: Galway’s Cianan Fahy rises to claim a puck out. Pic: INPHO/Morgan Treacy
I was coming out of a shop on Wednesday evening when I picked up a newspaper where an article that referred back to an interview Liam Griffin did 23 years ago caught my eye. Four years after Griffin led Wexford to the 1996 All-Ireland title, his inspirational oratory skills in guiding Wexford to the Promised Land were fully evident in that piece, where his passion for the game was dripping off the page like fresh ink.
“If someone can market coloured gripe water, call it Coca-Cola and clean up worldwide,” he said, “we should be able to sell hurling in Longford.”
We should but we’re still struggling to do so despite the GAA being the biggest and strongest national community organisation in the country. The Longford hurlers did have their day in Croke Park last year for the Lory Meagher Cup final – which was part of Griffin’s vision when he was part of the Hurling Development Committee shortly after he made those comments – but we all still catch Liam’s drift.
That is still evident at the top now where, in all honesty, the biggest game of the weekend is also one with probably the lowest profile – the meeting of Antrim and Laois in Belfast, which will go a long way towards deciding who will be relegated from Division 1 at the end of this campaign.
That snapshot provides a neat example of where, despite all the progress made, hurling finds, and has found, itself. Antrim, Laois and Westmeath are doing brilliant work but if those counties outside the top nine are struggling to consistently hang in there anywhere close to the elite, what chance does the rest of the pack have?
The big counties have always dominated but Limerick have completely altered the current landscape, not just through their dominance, but with the manner of how they have maintained that iron grip.
Even when Clare arrived on the scene in the 1990s and shook up the whole hurling world, the projected dominance and control we envisaged after winning the All-Ireland minor and senior on the same day in 1997 never materialised.
We have won one All-Ireland since. Offaly, who also won two titles in the 1990s, went into freefall. Wexford are still waiting for another title since 1996.
When Galway finally ended a 29-year wait in 2017, everybody thought they had the potential to take over the game but it never happened. We wondered if Limerick would go the same way too in 2018 but they have since gone on to smash all convention and tradition by absolutely taking over the game.
When Kilkenny failed to win the five-in-a-row in 2010, we thought no team would come close to that achievement again in our lifetime. Well, we may only have to wait until next summer for that to possibly happen.
Limerick are the top dogs now but the rest of us are desperately trying to chase them down in more ways than just on the pitch. Eight days ago, I was at a brilliant ‘Club Clare’ fundraising event in Croke Park, where Eoin Conroy of ‘Titan Experience’ – a passionate and loyal Doora-Barefield and Clare man - did a masterful job as the auction ringmaster.
Eoin has a real gift for connecting with people, and the goodwill towards Clare was all-encompassing from everyone who was there. Brian Lohan, Tony Kelly, David Fitzgerald and Paul Flanagan were part of the event and all of the significant funds raised on the day will go towards supporting all Clare teams.
Money never guarantees anything but, when you’re trying to take down Limerick, any advantage you can get is worth every cent.
While Antrim-Laois may be the biggest game of the weekend, Clare-Galway is an intriguing contest in the context of how two of Limerick’s closest challengers are still doing everything in their power to try and make up that ground.
Nobody wants to beat Limerick more than Clare because of the history between the counties. Galway aren’t far behind them after losing to the All-Ireland champions in three of their last four All-Ireland winning seasons. Why else would Galway have gone down to Kilkenny and enticed the most successful player in the history of the game into their camp to try and lead them back to the summit?
I think we could be in for a cracker in Ennis because Galway need to start making shapes after two big defeats to Cork and Limerick while Clare need the two points if they are to be in with any chance of reaching a league semi-final.
The Players Championship is on all weekend but, while it’s not a golf Major, this game carries hints of that competition in that this might be as close as we get to the real stuff before teams start deciding whether they do or don’t want to be involved in the latter stages of the league. This should be ‘Moving Day’ ahead of the last round next weekend.
These teams won’t be meeting again until possibly an All-Ireland quarter- or semi-final but the fixture is even more important for Galway considering their only competitive game after this clash before the opening round of Leinster against Wexford on April 22 is Westmeath next weekend.
Unless someone pulls out late with an injury, I don’t expect to see any dummy teams here. Clare do have a big game against Cork next Sunday but, with all due respect to Westmeath, this is Clare’s first big home game since Waterford last May. They’ll want to put on a performance and I fancy them to do so.
I have been critical of the league so far but I really do think this is ‘Moving Weekend’, even if nobody is still really sure where all of this will lead to. Tipperary-Waterford on Saturday evening in Thurles kicks it all off and I expect another saucy contest here.
The Liam Cahill factor adds to the intrigue but it’s not in Liam’s or Davy Fitzgerald’s make-up to hold back, which was on show when the sides met in the Munster league in early January. I don’t think this will be as intense as Clare-Galway but Tipp can cement their semi-final place while Waterford will want to make the most of a run-out in Semple Stadium in what is now their home venue for the Munster championship. I fancy Tipp here.
In Cork on Sunday, the game is really going to be defined by a Wexford performance. You expect Cork to put on a display but Wexford just need to deliver something to show that the Clare debacle was an aberration and that the ship is still on course, and not headed for the rocks as many feared it was two weeks ago.
I’m not sure how close many of Wexford’s main men in the group are to returning to the field of play from injury but you’d imagine that those guys will have taken the bull by the horns in the last couple of weeks to try and stir something now – irrespective of who is or isn’t on the field. If there is to be a shock this weekend, Wexford might provide it.
If we are to see anything close to championship intensity over the couple of days, you’ll surely get that in Corrigan Park. Laois won this game last year in O’Moore Park by the skin of their teeth and, while they are really going into the lion’s den here, Laois have been making more progress under Willie Maher than a lot of people have been giving them credit for. On the other hand, so have Antrim, who have produced some impressive performances to date without getting results. I wouldn’t rule out a draw.
In Parnell Park on Sunday, Dublin will always draw a crowd when they play Kilkenny and this is an ideal chance for Micheál Donoghue to see how his side perform in a venue that they’ll have to turn into a fortress if they are to get into the top three in Leinster later in the summer.
It’s a game to relish for Dublin but this is also a must-win for Kilkenny. They were expected to beat Antrim and Laois but Kilkenny were found wanting for most of their biggest test to date against Tipp. A defeat here and whatever goodwill Derek Lyng still has in his bag during the honeymoon period after Brian Cody’s departure will quickly start evaporating. Derek will silently acknowledge as much too and that a win here is absolutely paramount.
While everyone else here has been freezing over the last few days, Limerick were on a warm-weather training camp. We got serious snow back here in west Clare towards the end of the week and, while it was nothing like the ‘Beast from the East’ in 2018, we got a cold reminder of how lethal it can be – a bus ended up in a ditch not far from here in Lissycasey on Thursday.
Well now, the ‘Beast from the Mid-West’ is back in the country. Primed and pumped. And they’re still the beast that every other team is still desperately trying to take down.
