Another missed opportunity for the GAA to help supporters
This was a chance for the GAA to show some goodwill to both sets of supporters and offer some kind of joint package. €30 for the covered stand in the football, €20 for the hurling; that’s €50 for those who want to see both games and it’s too much, going to force many people to make a choice.
If the GAA had offered a package they’d have achieved two things — a PR success and bigger crowds at both games. There’s been a distinct lack of atmosphere so far, good as the games have been; I’m afraid we could see the same again this weekend.
The game that’s attracting most attention in the hurling qualifiers is Clare/Dublin, for so many reasons.
In Clare there are mixed emotions. Anthony Daly achieved something that no-one else in Clare ever did, he captained the team to two All-Ireland successes. And he wasn’t just a captain in name either, he was a captain by his deeds on the field and in his behaviour off it, his inspirational speeches in Munster, in Croke Park, and at various venues throughout Clare following on those successes.
He represented his county in such a dignified and intelligent manner and for that he is held in very high regard. For that reason also a lot of Clare people are a bit torn this weekend; of course they want to see their own team win but they don’t want to see it done at the expense of Anthony Daly. At the very least they’d like to see a great contest here.
That’s going to be a major challenge for Dublin after the beating they got from Kilkenny, however. Getting them back to performing as we know they can is going to be as great a challenge as Anthony Daly ever faced when he was with Clare, as either player or manager.
If his team performs as they did against Kilkenny, not alone will Clare beat them but any decent club team in Clare would beat them, including Anthony’s own Clarecastle. They were that poor.
To be fair here you have to question Anthony’s management going into that game — were Dublin overcooked? Definitely they weren’t right and whether that was physical or mental it still goes back to the manager. Dublin got it wrong for that game, Anthony got it wrong — have they the ability now to get it right?
Does Anthony have it in him as a manager to recover from that, to learn from that, do the Dublin players themselves have it in them to bounce back? That’s the biggest question coming into this game.
At the time of writing I don’t know the Dublin team but I wonder, will there be major changes? I wouldn’t advise it, it would smack of panic.
We know those guys can perform, they had one bad day at the office so to speak; the Dublin selectors must now show some trust in the players, but the players also must reward that trust.
To Clare, and a different kind of manager. If Anthony was the captain of that All-Ireland-winning team, Davy Fitzgerald was one of the iconic figures but whatever friendship there is will be set aside for these 70 minutes.
Clare too have some recovering to do. They performed well against Waterford but still lost a game they could have won, which leaves its own sour taste.
Are they going to make wholesale changes? Do they have the personnel to make those changes, because definitely they were in trouble against Waterford, in the half-back line and half-forward line particularly.
I felt that Pat Donnellan should have been moved to the centre of the defence in that game; it should be done now. Will we see Darach Honan at full-forward? Might we even see Tony Kelly, an outstanding minor of the last couple of years, make his senior championship debut at some stage?
None of those changes would weaken Clare but will it make them strong enough to beat this more experienced Dublin team?
If they can get enough quality ball to the full-forward line I’d say yes, they can, but Dublin have that bit more to prove — I have a feeling this will be Daly’s day in Ennis.
A quick word on Cork and Offaly: Offaly ran Cork close last year in Cork even though they were complete underdogs; same again for them now but I like the look of this Cork team, the new guys brought in by Jimmy Barry-Murphy.
They should have beaten Tipperary, I fancy them to win here, but they will earn it.
