Warning signs out for Déiseand Dublin
It looked – and sounded – horribly like it at Walsh Park on Sunday. Sparse crowd, minimal atmosphere, the Kilkenny supporters for once making more noise than their opposite numbers. “Back to the bad old days” was a common refrain among the locals afterwards. What’s more, nobody seemed inclined to use Padraig Mahony’s poor striking in the first half as an excuse, and that was sensible of them. Even had Waterford led at the break, as they should have, it would have made no difference in the end. It goes without saying that they can’t do without John Mullane, whatever about Noel Connors, and the sooner Brick Walsh is taken out of centre-forward and moved back a line or two the better. Two defeats with understrength lineups do not alter the reality that Waterford have talented youngsters coming through in sufficient quantities to be a competent if charisma-free team in a few years’ time. But for now and for the medium term, they’re going to be eating stew, not steak. The size of the attendance in Walsh Park was proof that nobody is in much doubt about this new and depressing dispensation.
Not in mid-March. A marathon not a sprint, etc. And Waterford are not, as everyone knows, the team they were. And Tipperary scarcely raised a gallop at Nowlan Park a fortnight previously. And Kilkenny’s second goal last Sunday came after a passing move that, as Yeats might have said, is not natural at a time of year like this. So let’s hold those nags for the moment. All that can be said with any certainty as of yet is that Kilkenny, rather than indulging in wholesale experimentation or examining exactly what they have on that famous but now seriously depleted bench of theirs, have decided to get the points in the bag and qualify for the semi-finals. The old Cody imperative remains the only Cody imperative: not so much “we’re taking each game as it comes” as “we’re trying to win each game as it comes”.
Yes, something potentially interesting. Something potentially really interesting. They’re scoring goals. Five goals in their two outings. Right, so it’s not quite as if Seanie Leary and Charlie McCarthy and Kevin Hennessy and John Fitzgibbon and that Barry-Murphy guy have come among us and are walking the earth once more. But here’s a couple of stats Leeside folk might like to ponder in their hearts. In the six matches Cork have played in the All-Ireland series since 2007 they failed to score a goal in three of them. In their nine matches in the qualifiers in the same period they failed to score a goal in two, managed one goal in three more, two goals once and three goals twice. Take the 10-goal salvo against Laois last summer out of the equation and their return is 17 goals in the 14 games they’ve played outside the Munster championship since 2007. That’s not to say that Cork won’t be seen on the Hogan Stand podium until they start scoring goals again. After all, they won successive titles in 2004-05 despite existing mostly on points – and if ever there was a forward line that consistently punched above its weight it was that one. But life would be so much handier for them if they rediscovered the knack of finding the net. Cork used to score goals by the truckload. It’s long past time they started doing so again.
They’re in danger of being dragged into a relegation fight, no question of that. But no matter what happens them at Nowlan Park tomorrow they’re in a better place than Waterford right now. Besides, they have other fish to fry. Anthony Daly might have been channelling Saint Paul (“Be ambitious for the higher gifts”) when he spoke lately about winning provincial titles and reaching All-Ireland finals. That’s the point to which he’s brought Dublin, for whom one date is red-ringed in the 2012 calendar: a putative Leinster semi-final against Kilkenny on June 23rd. But he and they need to get on with it. Because that tick-tock sound you can hear in the background that sounds like a clock ticking – it is a clock ticking. Will Dublin be any closer to winning an All-Ireland in three years’ time? We can’t be sure whether or which. Will Cork be any closer to winning an All-Ireland in three years’ time? We can be damn sure they will. Dublin’s short-term window of opportunity is inching closed by the month.
