Rebels must have faith in JBM’s plans
Negativity shouldn’t enter the equation when talking about the Munster senior hurling championship.
It should all be about looking forward to the game, supporting your team no matter who takes the field. Leave the selection to the management, they’re the guys dealing with the two sets of players, they’re the ones who know best who’s going well in training. Just sit back and enjoy it, and that’s what I’m going to do.
In Cork they’re talking about players who are unavailable, and I don’t mean the injured Paudie O’Sullivan, Lorcán McLoughlin and to a lesser extent Pa Cronin, who’s on the bench. I’m talking about the players like Darren Sweetnam, Ciarán Sheehan, Aidan Walsh that they’ve lost to other codes. Jimmy Barry-Murphy can do nothing about those but in my opinion he still has plenty of quality men to choose from.
In all my years following hurling, the strike years apart, I’ve never known such negativity to come out of Cork, a county with the strongest tradition of all in the Munster championship.
In Barry-Murphy, they have the most honest man you could in that position. He has done this before, brought Cork from nothing to an All-Ireland final. The people of Cork should now get behind Jimmy and this team, and stop the moaning.
In Clare what they’re going on about is the style of play and again, those supporters are wrong. As in Cork, the management knows the best game plan to suit the players and that’s the game they’re trying to perfect in training. That call is theirs, and theirs alone, it’s not the call of every Tom, Mick and Paddy. Davy Fitzgerald and his selectors are entitled to decide the way Clare will play; that’s why they were given those jobs, isn’t it? As a supporter, why second guess them now? It’s my job to look critically at these things, the fans should spend more time enjoying it.
The big question this weekend is if Clare beat Cork when it most matters. It mattered in the league, it mattered even more in the league relegation final, but this is the big one. Can Clare do it? Can the Clare backs, Patrick Donnellan and Cathal McInerney down the middle, those on the flanks, stop Cork from getting the chances Waterford created against Clare?
Because the likes of Cian McCarthy, Seamus Harnedy, Conor Lehane; Patrick Horgan, Luke O’Farrell, Stephen Moylan are men that will convert those kind of chances.
I would be afraid for Clare if the defending doesn’t improve. Give Cork the chances Waterford had in the first 45 minutes from play and from placed balls, and it’s game over. Clare need a tighter, more aggressive defence, in the full-back line especially.
To Cork, and they’re stronger defensively now than in the earlier games, especially with Stephen McDonnell and Shane O’Neill back, and of course that old fox at full-back, Brian Murphy. Clare have put up big scores in the previous games, they’ll struggle here. Darach Honan and Conor McGrath are going to have to deliver more, but they can expect close marking. A battle I’m looking forward to is John Conlon on William Egan.
A winner? Clare are favourites, rightly so, but to beat Cork four times competitively is a big ask. Limerick has become a bit of a graveyard for Cork in recent years though; I think Clare, just.
To the Leinster semi-final; the big plus for Dublin is that no-one is giving them a chance. At the same stage last year they were expected by many to topple Kilkenny. Brian Cody’s men weren’t long putting an end to that.
Fair dues to Anthony Daly for not going over the top after the Wexford win. His team won, it was a bit of a war, he kept his counsel and didn’t go Wexford-bashing. He knows Dublin must improve hugely to beat Kilkenny but if they take a leaf out of the Laois book against Galway and set out their stall and tear into it, they have a chance. Bad news though, Michael Fennelly is back for Kilkenny. Let’s be honest, we all expect Kilkenny to win, but Dublin should make this a battle.
Waterford and Offaly this evening, I fancy Waterford, could win well if they get it right; if they get it wrong…
