Can Galway find savage hunger again?
Kerry took us down in our first game but that whole league campaign was an ordeal. At one stage, the Clare half-back line of myself, Seanie McMahon, and Liam Doyle looked more like the Munster front row.
It was a different time, a different era, but the days of living it up well until December with pies and pints, before turning into a monk from January on, are long over. Ger Loughnane used to let me off to Clonmel for the coursing festival for one night in February but most other excesses were curtailed once the new year arrived. Now though, fellas are living like monks the whole year around.
Everything is monitored now, from diet and nutrition to sleep patterns. There is no switch off. Everyone is looking for an edge, so much so that often the biggest edge a team and player can get is more psychological than physical.
In modern GAA, Dublin’s footballers are the standard. They have brilliant players but to me, their mentality sets them apart. Everyone wants to take them down. They know they have a constant target on their backs but they repeatedly take the target off their backs. They only worry about themselves. Dublin always make it about themselves.
They are guided by a brilliant but level-headed manager in Jim Gavin, and I see shades of Gavin in Micheál Donoghue. I watched Micheál on the RTÉ Sports Star Awards last Saturday and he was another study in humility and staying true to the principles which took Galway to where they went in 2017. Micheál spoke about that target on their backs but the key for Galway is to remove that target and just focus totally on themselves.
We made that mistake with Clare in 1996. We weren’t pretenders anymore, we were the real deal. We felt everyone was out to hit that target on our backs. We nearly got more caught up with everyone else than ourselves and Limerick beat us in our first match. After we won the All-Ireland in 1997 though, we were much more clear-headed in 1998.
Experience grants you that clarity but Micheál won’t let anyone get carried away. He will continue to do what made Galway so strong in 2017 but it’s still difficult to get inside 30 heads, and keep everyone grounded. The new system will present new challenges but paradoxically for Galway, it should suit them. You can’t not see them being in the top two in Leinster. You’d expect Tipperary too to make the top two, definitely the top three, in Munster but the other places in Munster and Leinster are going to be an almighty scramble. You certainly wouldn’t be putting the house on picking a top three in Munster because any three of the five could make it.
That is the added excitement of the new system where more games present more opportunities, and also more booby traps. I’m sure Brian Cody and Derek McGrath, even John Meyler, with Cork after winning Munster last year, would have preferred if the championship had remained the same. Better the devil you know than the devil who could whip his tail a couple of times and knock you out by early June.
There are challenges everywhere. Waterford had a brilliant year in 2017. They will hope to build on that progress in 2018 but, deep down, you’d wonder if the players will carry that sense of regret and missed opportunity with them into this campaign? No disrespect to Galway but with Cork, Tipperary, and Kilkenny out of the way, Waterford would have fancied their chances in any other season. Chances like that don’t come along that often for counties like Waterford but railing against those kind of historical trends will be even more challenging with more games. To win an All-Ireland now, a county is going to have to beat the world and its mother.
That is one of the most enticing prospects of the new structure but nearly every county is carrying question marks into 2018. I’ve massive regard for Pat Gilroy as a bloke and a manager but if things start to slip off the wagon a little, the natural impulse of the Dublin hurling community will be to look at this management team as too football heavy. Obviously Anthony Cunningham has massive experience and pedigree as a hurling man, especially at this level, but all his – and Gilroy’s – management skills will be tested when the real heat comes on.
Dublin have brought back some of the older heads that were either dropped, or walked, during Ger Cunningham’s time in charge but the squad is still young and developing. Dublin though, are in a unique position. Even though every team will fancy their chances against them, they will similarly relish having a cut at Kilkenny, Wexford and Galway, especially with the couple of fixtures in their fortress of Parnell Park. They will definitely expect to beat Offaly but, on the other hand, Offaly will target the Dublin game as a potential ticket into avoiding a relegation final. That may sound harsh in December but that is the brutal reality for Offaly, who are on a hiding to nothing in such a competitive group.
Davy Fitzgerald is already talking about the potential pitfalls of trying to get back up to the heights of 2017 but Wexford will still fully expect to be in the top three, and possibly in a Leinster final. That may require taking down Kilkenny again, but after last year, Davy and his players will believe that is fully possible.
I’d have great value on Eddie Brennan as a hurling man but we all saw last September what he had to work with as U21 manager. Limerick, at nearly three-quarter throttle, brushed Kilkenny aside in the final. As the saying goes, you can’t paint if you don’t have paint.
Cody won’t believe that for a second. He will always be convinced of having enough hurlers in Kilkenny but the U21s didn’t have that class act which could turn a game for them. St Kieran’s College are still able to produce quality young players but they haven’t been firing out game-changers. Talking about Eddie Brennan, those one-ball merchants, the guy like Eddie who would murder you with one ball, just don’t seem to be there anymore.
There has been a lot of talk about young Adrian Mullen, who is clearly a blue-chip forward, but it’s too much to expect a guy as young as him to come into the set-up and light it up. Richie Hogan and TJ Reid were in that mould when they were in Kieran’s but they were made wait for their chance. It’s not Cody’s style to rush young players but he doesn’t have the same decorated stock of players anymore that can maybe allow him to be as patient.
There is still so much depending on Reid and Hogan but that burden could increase even more during the spring with Paul Murphy and Colin Fennelly gone overseas on army duty. It’s a challenging time for Kilkenny, and it’s certainly not outlandish to say they could be in a dogfight with Wexford and Dublin for that third spot in Leinster.
It’s a big year for Meyler to see if he can take Cork on to that next level and win an All-Ireland. His time as manager of Wexford had some hairy moments but he didn’t deserve the end he got and I’m sure he has learned from that experience. He’ll also appreciate how expectations have gone through the roof in Cork in just eight months. Nobody gave them a prayer at the outset of the 2017 championship but Cork will be many pundits fancy for the 2018 All-Ireland.
There is pressure on everyone in Cork now to justify the hype and hope with all these young players coming but their first game against Clare in Páirc Uí Chaoimh could be season-defining for both counties. There is probably more pressure on Cork given it will be the Cork public’s first opportunity to support the team in the new Páirc. And yet, if Clare lose, they still have to go to Thurles, which would mean they’d have to beat Waterford and Limerick at home to have any chance of qualification.
After the disappointment of 2017, this is a big year for Clare. Defensively, management have huge issues to sort out because the team are conceding too much. Tipperary scored 0-28 and could have had a bag load of more scores in the All-Ireland quarter-final.
The full-back line is a worry but Clare have got to start with the number one position and settle on a goalkeeper early in the season. I know you have to give lads their chance but I never believed with this rotation policy during the 2017 league. We all saw the natural ability of the three lads in Fenway Park – Andy Fahy, Donal Tuohy and Pa Kelly – but goalkeepers need confidence and stability.
Clare-Limerick in Cusack Park in the last round is a deliciously prepared cocktail but the trick for both counties is to ensure they’re still alive by then, and that the spark and fizz is still in the cocktail. Limerick are still developing a young squad but an impatient public wants more now after another U21 success. Full-back is an area that needs addressing but Limerick also need someone like Cian Lynch to step up and become that marquee player that he is more than capable of being.
The new year is just around the corner but every county in the Liam MacCarthy will head into the new season with a spring in their step. With the manic nature of the league and championship though, the key for many counties is to ensure the spring is still in their step at the right time.
The monks no longer reappear in January because they’re in the monasteries now all year around. The pies and pints are out for the inter-county lads anymore in December. God be with the days.
