‘It’s too hard to call,’ concludes Cleary

THESE days, Michael Cleary is seeing black-and-amber on the double.

Looking forward to Sunday's Guinness All-Ireland hurling semi-final against Kilkenny in Croke Park, he's reminded of the significant part he played in the last clash of the counties 11 years ago.

Much more pertinently, he is preparing the Tipperary camogie team he has coached so successfully for the last few years for their own All-Ireland semi-final which also happens to be against Kilkenny next Saturday evening in Limerick.

"If you look at it, this will be only Tipp and Kilkenny's third championship meeting in 31 years,'' he points out.

They met in the 1971 final (the day Babs Keating famously discarded his boots and finished up in only his socks near the end) and next in the 1991 decider. Current manager Nicky English played that year, as did co-selector Ken Hogan. Cleary one of the game's most stylish forwards at the time scored a vital goal.

He lined up to take a free early in the second half and while most people were expecting him to take a point, the ball ended up in the net. On reflection, Cleary doesn't regard it as 'the major score' as some people would suggest. But he agrees it had a significant influence on the outcome.

"We won by four points at the end, 1-16 to 0-15, and what the goal did was to give us a cushion for the rest of the game. We both swopped points afterwards, but Kilkenny never came back. It was a poor enough final.''

The late Ollie Walsh, then Kilkenny's manager (with son Michael in goal), found fault with the handling of the game by Cork referee Willie Horgan afterwards. Interestingly, however, in an interview several years later he said he regretted criticising him.

Cleary, who runs a successful family business, JKC's in Nenagh, admits to having been as shocked as anybody else in Tipperary by the outcome of the Munster final.

"I genuinely thought they would win. And while it's easy to be wise in hindsight, there were warning signs there in the game with Limerick.

"Of course, on the day, Waterford played tremendous hurling. Yet I felt that Tipp played a lot better than people gave them credit for.''

The team's quarter-final victory over Antrim impressed him up a point. On the one hand he felt Antrim performed very impressively in the first half and credits former Tipperary team-mate Dinny Cahill with his role in preparing the team.

However, looking at it from a Tipp perspective, it was a bit too close for comfort at times.

"If you look back at the history books, in 1986 Cork beat Antrim by four points but went on to win the All-Ireland. It was much the same after Kilkenny beat them in the 1987 semi-final by two points in Dundalk, if I recall correctly. What it amounts to is that any time you play Antrim it's a potential banana skin.

"Antrim played well on the day, but Tipp were not good. If Antrim had got a goal midway through the second half it could have been a bit dicey.''

Sunday's game is wide open he feels. "Not sitting on the fence, but it's very hard too call. But looking at Tipp, you get the impression they are not firing on all cylinders.

"You don't know what to expect from Kilkenny but they have a very experienced side.

"My feeling is that if Tipp do not play up to form they will be beaten.''

Tipperary have been predominant in senior camogie for the last few years. Their semi-final on Saturday is part of a double-header featuring Cork and Galway on the other side of the draw.