Leading Question: How well are Sunday’s finalists set for Championship 2015?
Fans of the losers will waste no time in identifying what weaknesses will have to be corrected for 2015; fans of the winners will be almost as quick in specifying which positions need upgrading if the MacCarthy Cup is to be retained. In the words of that noted hurling pundit Voltaire, the sweets of life do not remain sweet for very long.
It goes without saying that Kilkenny face the bigger construction project irrespective of the outcome on the day. With Brian Hogan 33 and JJ Delaney 32 a spinal transplant in defence will be the first item on the agenda; Jackie Tyrrell, also 32, is the likeliest of the trio to stick around. Nor is it beyond the bounds of possibility that the Leinster champions will finish the game with a further four thirtysomethings — Henry Shefflin, Eoin Larkin, Aidan Fogarty and Tommy Walsh — in the other half of the field.
Brian Kennedy, Joey Holden, Pádraig Walsh and John Power were introduced to the team this year and had varying degrees of impact.
All will receive another chance next season to continue their progress, while Conor Fogarty’s reinvention as a midfielder has been a success to date. The big lacuna, however, is not so much Kilkenny’s lack of promising U21s as their complete absence of same: there’s not a single U21 on the current panel.
This won’t necessarily prolong the rebuilding process — what else has Brian Cody’s tenure been but a permanent rebuilding process? — but it will circumscribe the county’s options in the short to medium term.
Eamon O’Shea has handed championship debuts this season to Cathal Barrett, James Barry, Denis Maher, the injury-hampered Niall O’Meara and Ronan Maher, the latter of whom won’t be 19 till next month. All five will be expected to kick on in 2015, and another newcomer to keep an eye out come springtime is Colin O’Riordan. A member of the JK Brackens club and also only 18, he was a recent call-up from the Tipperary footballers and is highly regarded.
Yet Sunday will be a big day for nobody more so than the survivors of Tipperary’s 2010 All-Ireland triumph. They didn’t train on as hoped and/or expected, at least not in terms of winning trophies. For that reason this match represents a fork in the road for them. Win and their inter-county careers will get a new lease of life; lose to Kilkenny for the fourth championship in a row and O’Shea will be obliged to look elsewhere in 2015.
