Dublin need everything to go right

IF ever a team was set up for a beating it’s Dublin in tomorrow’s All-Ireland senior hurling semi-final. Consider first their injury woes.

Established starters Stephen Hiney, Tomás Brady and Óisín Gough are missing from defence while their biggest attacking gun, Conal Keaney, is also out as is David Treacy.

Even had they been at full strength, Dublin would have been underdogs going into this game, up against the destroyers of Waterford in the Munster final, but what chance now? If ever a team was set up to overcome those odds, however, it’s Dublin, and for the reasoning here one must look to the sideline. In 1987 Tipperary hadn’t won a Munster title for 16 years, but on an unforgettable day in Killarney, they were led from the wilderness by Richard Stakelum, who famously declared in his victory speech: ‘The famine is over!’.