Talking Points: Cork and Clare need to exceed expectation – not meet it
Clare's Jamie Malone kicks the winning point for Clare. Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Bryan Keane
It was Gary Brennan, their one-time talisman, who corroborated the point made on TV by Oisín McConville that Clare weren’t happy with consolidating their status in Division 2 of the Allianz League. Their manager, Colm Collins, was in fact, aiming to win the division and secure promotion to the top flight.
It all comes down to where a team and its management sees its ceiling. Brian Hurley bristled Sunday at the notion that Cork were now in bonus territory having made the All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals. The same, unquestionably, will be said of Collins and Clare.
The last-eight draw shapes the narrative in each case, but if Kerry and Dublin might be a step too far, would either Cork or Clare be cursing their bad fortune if they met Division 2 rivals Galway or Derry in a fortnight? Both Munster counties have been finding a level of stability since the league and, despite their protestations, in essence have a free shot next time out. Cork can’t get Kerry or fellow qualifiers Armagh, while Collins would take anyone bar the Kingdom – as much for novelty’s sake as anything.
If both set-ups aren’t already using sports psychologists, it might not be the worst time to engage one – or at least consult on the need to better expectations – and not just match them.
After Armagh’s win in Clones, it was made known to the media that the Donegal squad and management would not be addressing the Fourth Estate.
It’s easy to see why, but not really excusable as Donegal have been reluctant several times to answer some very softball questions. You imagine that this time, however, Declan Bonner’s future would have come up as a matter of discussion.
Bonner got a two-year term agreed at the end of last year. This came after the county board opened up an extremely narrow window for applications for the county senior manager.
But such arrangements mean little, really. Bonner had gotten off to a great start with two consecutive Ulster titles in 2018 and 2019, but the defeat to Cavan in 2020 appears to have sent them into a spin.
Right now they look vulnerable and fragile, with veteran players such as Micheal Murphy and Patrick McBrearty cutting increasingly frustrated figures.
If Bonner decides that his time is up, then there are very few obvious candidates. That is, of course, if you rule out Jim McGuinness. Perhaps he is satisfied with his role as a coach with the Derry City Under-19 team. But you’d doubt it.
After 20 seasons of qualifiers, stretched out across 22 years since 2001 and yielding 453 individual games, one theme has remained consistent; the difficulties experienced by beaten provincial finalists.
The die was cast in the very first season of the qualifiers, 2001, when three of the four provincial runners-up - Cork, Cavan and Mayo - lost their subsequent final round qualifier games. Momentum, carried by the team that had come through a previous round of the qualifiers, typically proved much more important than whatever confidence or perceived status had been earned by reaching a provincial final.
In 2003, 2010 and again this season, all four beaten provincial finalists lost their subsequent qualifier game. Across 2017 and 2018, just two of the eight beaten provincial finalists won their final round qualifier. This pattern played out again, firstly on Saturday as qualifier sides Clare and Mayo took care of beaten provincial finalists Roscommon and Kildare at Croke Park and then on Sunday as Armagh and Cork punished Ulster runners-up Donegal and beaten Munster finalists Limerick.
Unfortunately for Roscommon and Kildare in particular, this isn't new ground for either. In the qualifier era, Roscommon lost five Connacht finals - 2004, 2011, 2016, 2018 and 2022 - and only once, in 2018, bounced back with a win in the final round of the qualifiers. Kildare, similarly, have lost six Leinster finals since 2001 and won their next game just once, in 2009.
We had one of the great contradictions in GAA observations earlier this week, when John Keenan’s handling of the Munster hurling final was much discussed.
Not because Keenan was a central figure, but because he wasn’t - his relatively light touch was held up as contributing to a great spectacle for all concerned.
On Saturday in Austin Stack Park, Johnny Murphy took a different approach to the Kerry-Wexford All-Ireland qualifier, whistling for quite a few offences that might have escaped sanction in the cauldron that was Semple Stadium the previous weekend.
It’s probably fair to say that Murphy didn’t get that many calls wrong, but the stop-start nature of the game didn’t make for an appealing spectacle, and the dreaded term ‘inconsistency’ raised its ugly head again.
Not so much inconsistency of interpretation, maybe, as inconsistency of application. Keenan let Clare and Limerick at it - and at each other - in Thurles; Murphy didn’t allow Kerry and Wexford at each other to the same degree in Tralee.
The question is simple - who’s right and who’s wrong? Or is it more nuanced than that simple binary, and a matter of who’s more right and who’s more wrong?
For a county that hasn’t won any of their last 12 All-Ireland final appearances and once scored two own goals in the first half of one of them, it seems extraordinary to be highlighting Mayo’s good fortune. But they have been haunted in the last two games.
Seven days after Monaghan’s Seamus McEnaney gave Barry Cassidy both barrels for not handing Seán Jones a penalty for a clearcut foul by Lee Keegan, Kildare boss Glenn Ryan was bemoaning why Ben McCormack was punished instead of winning a penalty for being held by Oisín Mullin.
At least Kildare were ahead at the time; a penalty goal in Castebar would likely have forced extra-time for Monaghan.
Still, there are shades of grey emerging in the black and white relationship between Mayo and Lady Luck.
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