From here on out, there are no second chances for anyone in the championship. You go to training every night now knowing that there’s no margin for error anymore. That makes it as good a time as any to sit down and take stock of where every county is and work out what lies in store for them.
Right now, everybody has two questions to answer and assess. What did we get out of the provincial championship? What do we need to improve on for the road ahead?
Limerick
What they got
Total satisfaction. The fact that they were able to come through a Munster Championship and win it without Cian Lynch for most of it and Peter Casey for all of it has to feel massive for them. The Munster final will rank up there among their greatest wins. That camp has to be buzzing this week.
Limerick are where they want to be. They’ve gotten really good tests and they’ve still prevailed. The last six weeks has shown how strong-minded they are. They’ve had injuries and suspensions and they’ve come through and made it four Munsters in a row. John Kiely and Paul Kinnerk couldn’t have asked for more.
What they need
To be on high alert in four weeks. Semi-finals are tricky. It’s probably no coincidence that the one game they’ve lost during this great run they’re on was the semi-final against Kilkenny in 2019. Whoever gets through to meet them should be coming with a bit of momentum and will be playing with nothing to lose.
In terms of personnel, Limerick have two jobs to do. One, assuming he becomes fit and available, is to bring Cian Lynch back into the team. Two, they need to find a role for Kyle Hayes and give him a chance to show the best of himself. It’s been very tough for him and a bit unfair having to be a stopgap in different positions. The upshot is they’re not getting the best out of one of their best players. It’s an obvious thing they have to fix.
Clare
What they got
Their confidence back. When Clare are buzzing and they’re up there competing at a high level, they tend to feel they can take on the world. They get that bit of arrogance about them and it makes them believe they can beat anybody. It suits them.
The form of David Fitzgerald and David McInerney are two huge boosts as well. Fitzgerald is having one of those summers that kind of come from nowhere. He has been a good solid player for them for a few years but in this campaign, he has gone into overdrive. He has backed up every good performance with a better one, scoring for fun from midfield. McInerney has been one of their best defenders for a decade but he had dropped off a bit, mostly due to injury. He’s thriving at wing-back now.
What they need
Above all else, to recover from a crushing defeat. Mentally, last Sunday will have taken a lot out of them. Two weeks will pass in a flash so they have to be ready. If it’s Wexford they have to play next time, they can’t be sitting tight and waiting for the game to come to them.
So it’s a big mental challenge from here. They’ve had a great Munster campaign but the fact is, they’ve tried twice now to beat Limerick and haven’t managed it either time – even though Limerick were missing players. If they get through their quarter-final, the confidence they get from it will be huge. But that’s the game I fear for them in.
Cork
What they got
Survival, first of all. They kind of scraped through after a terrible start. The key to their turnaround was sheer hard work. That was the biggest feature of the wins over Waterford and Tipperary – they came with a work-rate and an energy that had been missing up to then. That’s especially true in their forwards and they seem to be more of a team now. Fewer individual hurlers doing their own thing.
They have helped their cause by putting their faith in youth. Alan Connolly is the right kind of forward for them in that he just has eyes for goal every time. He’s tall, athletic, direct and fast – that’s a fair combination. And Ciarán Joyce has worked out well for them at centre-back. He has that lovely comfort of being a young fella with no scars and no baggage. He’s playing with freedom. When you’re that age, you don’t worry about anything. It’s just about getting out and hurling and having the best summer of your life. It’s a great way to be and Cork are reaping the benefit of it.
What they need
To settle on a full-back line and establish some stability there. They’ve come around to Robert Downey in the number three jersey after a bit of chopping and changing and he looks to be a good option there. In general, their full-back line is an area they could be found wanting in so they need to tighten it up and find a bit more cohesion together.
Kilkenny
What they got
A third Leinster title in a row. And they got it without ever looking that impressive. They won Leinster even though they lost two matches. To be able to do that tells them that all the old Kilkenny characteristics are intact. They don’t give up. They stay going. They fight for everything.
In terms of players, the emergence of Cian Kenny and Mikey Butler has helped them. They seem to have settled into the side pretty well through the Leinster championship. Plus, Richie Reid has established himself at centre-back after a few years of being in and out of the team and never really getting a foothold for himself. He’s not your typical Brian Cody centre-back but he has settled in there very well.
What they need
Odd as it sounds given they’ve just won a Leinster Championship, they probably need to find some form. It’s hard to know at this stage how good they are. They won Leinster without being consistent. They’re playing in patches. They’re having a good 10 minutes and then half-disappearing for 10 minutes and then coming back into it. I don’t know where their real form is.
In a weird kind of way, they’d probably prefer Clare in the semi-final rather than Wexford. If Clare make it through, Kilkenny will be underdogs. That will suit them because knowing Kilkenny, they’re more likely to find another level the more people doubt them. Whereas they’d be expected to beat Wexford, even though their record against them in the past few years has been very mixed. A chip on the shoulder usually suits them.
Galway
What they got
It depends on their reaction to the Leinster final. They were going very steadily along but got no performance last Saturday. I would say it’s after raising doubts with them as to how that could happen and so the key thing now is what sort of reaction they have in them. Even playing so badly against Kilkenny, they were never really out of it until the last 10 minutes.
So maybe they can park it and focus on the fact that they were unbeaten through the groups stages and try to get back into that groove ahead of the quarter-final. They were on a good trajectory. It’s a matter of getting mentally prepared for Cork or Antrim now. Everybody can have a bad day at the office – a Galway goal in the first half would have turned that game on its head and we’d be having a different conversation now. They’ll be asking serious question of themselves about why it went so wrong.
What they need
To get past the non-performance quickly, to analyse what went wrong and to move on. They need to block out the noise as well. Already you’re hearing a lot of, “Oh, they’re the same Galway as they always were. When push comes to shove, they’re not going to have the answer.” There has to be a reaction to that ahead of the quarter-final.
On the pitch, they key thing they need to fix is the supply line of ball into the full-forward line. Conor Whelan was the one Galway forward who stood out against Kilkenny but if you watch the game back, what really jumps out is the amount of physical work he was having to do to get possession. Everything was a struggle, there was no clean, crisp ball going into him or to the other forwards. Compare it to the sort of ball Aaron Gillane and Seamie Flanagan are working off, it’s chalk and cheese.
Wexford
What they got
They’ve scraped in by the skin of their teeth but they have now above all else is a very workable route through the All-Ireland series. It has kind of opened up for them. If you had told them at the start of the year that they would have to beat Kerry, Clare and Kilkenny to make an All-Ireland final, they’d have ripped your arm off.
Beating Kilkenny in that last round-robin game has saved their season. They have a good recent history against Clare and if there’s any bit of vulnerability there after the Munster final, Wexford will feel they can really go after it. And if they manage to get past Clare, they’ll have no fear of Kilkenny whatsoever.
What they need
A bit like Galway, they need a big improvement on the supply lines to Rory O’Connor, Lee Chin and Conor McDonald. They’ve fallen into their old habits of playing an extra defender at times and getting back into that running game they had under Davy Fitz but if they can use the ball better and get it forward sooner and cleaner, they have the forwards to do damage.
Kerry and Antrim
Realistically, neither of these sides will go all the way but they have both achieved a fair bit this year already. It would have been nice for them each to get an extra week before having to turn their attention to this round of games.
Kerry will be gutted they didn’t come through a mad Joe McDonagh final last week and it will be hard for them to get up for the Wexford game. This is bonus territory really, although it won’t feel like it after posting such a high score last weekend but still not winning.
Even though Antrim only won by the puck of a ball, you’d give them more chance against Cork than you’d give Kerry against Wexford. The Corrigan Park factor means they will always fancy themselves. I see it has sold out already so there’ll be a serious home support for them. If there’s going to be a shock, you’d imagine this is where it will be.
