Christy O'Connor Talking Points: Clare need to improve scoring average against Limerick
Ian Galvin celebrates a late goal against Waterford. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Sometimes you just can’t win.
Two weeks ago, Clare set the record for scoring the most points (white flags) in the history of the Munster round robin when clocking 2-33. And yet, much of the discussion afterwards focussed on the 4-21 they conceded to Waterford.
The Munster championship is so unforgiving that questions come from every angle. Clare have outstanding forwards, but racking up big scoring tallies (never mind exorbitant numbers) against Limerick has always been a totally different kind of challenge.
In their nine championship meetings in the round robin system, including Munster finals, Clare have averaged 1-21. (When the sides met in 2020, under the old system, Clare hit 1-23).
That average is seriously reduced by the 0-13 that Clare hit against Limerick in their 2019 meeting. But the biggest issue Clare have had in these fixtures is around not scoring enough goals.
Outside of the three green flags Clare raised last year, Clare only scored four goals in those other eight matches. And Clare lost three of those four games.
The only time Clare hit more than 25 points (white flags) against Limerick (in normal time) was in their 2018 meeting when Clare registered 0-26. Clare did score 0-29 in the 2022 Munster final but that was after extra-time, having clocked 0-24 in normal time, albeit in desperately wet conditions.
The highest scoring total Clare have clocked against Limerick in the round robin was the 3-20 they registered last year. Limerick though, could argue that they were already in the Munster final and they didn’t play their full team.
Shipping four goals against Waterford was an even bigger concern because that figure could have been higher. It’s also a pattern Clare need to break in Ennis; in their last seven round robin games in Cusack Park, Clare have coughed up a staggering 23 goals.
Clare have to break that pattern. But they also need to start scoring more against Limerick. Brian Lohan’s side will definitely be targeting a higher scoring average than 1-21 against their neighbours and great rivals.
Because they will have to.
As Aaron Kernan was naming his man-of-the-match from his co-commentary on GAA+ after last Sunday’s Down-Donegal game, a producer who’d been given the heads-up on the decision was following Odhran Murdock. As soon as Kernan officially named Murdock, and the producer then informed him, the Down midfielder just kept walking down the tunnel.
The producer instantly radioed back to the director that the Down player wouldn’t be receiving the award or doing any post-match interview. Murdock did come back out on the pitch shortly afterwards to join his team-mates and the Down supporters to bask in the warm afterglow of the most sensational result and performance of the championship. But he had no interest in speaking to anyone else outside of the Down camp.
Despite the magnitude of the victory, and the seismic shockwaves it created, it was clear from Murdock’s body language that there was no point getting carried away from a result that, ultimately, may not yet mean anything for Down in terms of their ambitions to play in the Sam Maguire.
Lose to Armagh on Sunday and they could be playing the rest of their summer football in the Tailteann Cup. Down will be if Westmeath beat Kildare in Sunday’s Leinster semi-final.
Down have been here before. Two years ago they arrived into Clones against Armagh with a gameplan to ensure the match would be a tactical arm-wrestle and low scoring dogfight. It was. Their strategy almost worked. Armagh just held their nerve, with Jason Duffy landing the winner with almost the last play.
It was exactly the type of match Down needed to make it, but Down also played with a manic savagery and intensity of a group that knew it was their only lifeline to remain in the championship. Because it effectively was.
Down had already beaten Antrim in the Ulster quarter-final but their biggest game of the season arrived four weeks earlier – the Division Three final against Westmeath. Defeat that evening meant that Down’s participation in the 2024 Sam Maguire hinged on them reaching an Ulster final.
The satisfaction would have doubled if they had; Down would have bumped Westmeath back into the Tailteann Cup.
Two years on and Down and Westmeath are again battling for a place in the Sam Maguire, albeit with both sides now having the same chance to do so. If Down beat Armagh, and Westmeath defeat Kildare, both will progress at the expense of Cavan, who will drop into the Tailteann Cup.
Cavan finished ahead of Kildare in Division Two, who were relegated, but Kildare’s place in the Sam Maguire is guaranteed as last year’s Tailteann Cup champions.
For a number of teams now, mid to late April has become as much a game of Snakes and Ladders as a raft of football matches. On this weekend two years ago, six teams were faced with the possibility of participating in either the Sam Maguire or Tailteann Cup.
Louth won a memorable Leinster title in 2025 but they had to beat Kildare this weekend last year to stamp their ticket to board the Sam Maguire train. The chase was even more intense with Kildare also seeking to jump into one of those carriages.
Kildare were promoted from Division Three last year but the league standings at the top of Division Three no longer guarantees the protection it was initially expected to provide. In the last four years, Westmeath were the only promoted side from Division Three that has played in the Sam Maguire. Down still have that opportunity but they can only guarantee it if they beat Armagh now.
Down are Division Three champions but in each of the previous three seasons, a team from either Division Three (that wasn’t promoted) or Division Four has been guaranteed to make a provincial final through the draws, which has taken the spot of the 16th ranked team at the end of the league. That hasn’t been the case this year but Wexford - the 16th ranked team – still knew as soon as they lost the Division Three final to Down that they’d be playing in the Tailteann Cup.
Is that fair? Before the 2024 Division Three final, Down selector Mickey Donnelly said there was “something ethically wrong” about not being guaranteed a spot after technically reaching the last 16. There is but the issue remains when the GAA are so wedded to the provincial championships.
It is time for a review when three of the last four Tailteann Cup winners have failed to finish in the top 16 in the league, where their guaranteed presence in the Sam Maguire has also nicked the position of the 15th ranked team, the Division Three champions.
To date, Down could not have done any more than they have; securing promotion, winning the Division Three final, and dismantling one of the hot favourites for the All-Ireland. And yet, it still all might not be enough to play in the Sam Maguire.
A game against Armagh, especially an Ulster semi-final, is always huge for Down but how big is this game now in the wider context of Down’s ambitions? Much bigger than just an Ulster semi-final.
When Dublin GAA made the dramatic announcement in April 2021 that they were suspending manager Dessie Farrell for 12 weeks, the move was largely designed around defusing the controversy caused by the county's breach of Covid regulations.
It did because none of the nine players involved in that training session, or pictured at it, were suspended.
It was the right thing to do but it was also the easiest thing to do when the championship was still over three months away.
A few days later, Monaghan took similar action straight from the Dublin playbook by suspending manager Seamus McEnaney for 12 weeks after it emerged that the county had contravened Covid-19 regulations by holding a training session.
Earlier in that season Cork manager Ronan McCarthy was also suspended for 12 weeks while Down manager Paddy Tally was handed an 8-week ban for being in contravention of GAA rules which forbade collective training.
They were heavy managerial suspensions but none were that impactful for those teams because the league didn’t begin until mid-May that year, with the championship not kicking off until late June.
The cost of Ger Brennan’s recent 12-week suspension though, has been severe as he is certain to miss a minimum of five matches (two provincial, one All-Ireland, and two National League games in 2027) and a maximum of seven.
It is one of the most severe punishments for any manager considering the timing of the suspension. When Kieran McGeeney was handed a three-month ban in April 2017, he was absent for just two championship matches.
Brennan has paid an extremely high price for getting involved in a physical altercation with a Galway backroom team member in a league game in March. Dublin have also felt that cost but that pain is extremely acute for Brennan this weekend with Dublin squaring up to the Louth side he managed to last year’s historic Leinster title.
