We couldn’t wait for the championship to start, and as soon as it does everyone is thinking, what happens next? Are Cork not as good as we thought they were? Are Limerick as good as they used to be? How good are Tipperary? What’s going on with Galway? That’s the beauty of the championship: loads of questions and very few answers.
The challenge of the round robin format for teams, though, is that everything must be processed quickly. In many cases, all you need are answers that will get you through the week.
Regardless of how they feel about surrendering a 12-point lead in Ennis, Cork are straight into a home game that they must win. Tipperary are back in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, only three weeks after getting a hiding in the league final but looking like a completely different team. Can they bring the same levels of aggression and intensity that they produced against Limerick? What if they can’t?
How Cork and Tipp manage the seven-day turnaround will have a significant impact. At that level, small percentages one way or another can sway the outcome. The Tipperary players were bound to be on a high after the performance they produced against Limerick, and when they were going about their daily lives on Monday and Tuesday, the Tipp supporters they met would still have wanted to talk about the Limerick game.
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For Liam Cahill and his management team, though, they would have been planning for Cork before they even played the league final. The challenge they faced on Sunday night was getting their players’ minds off Limerick and onto the next thing. They were so wound up for last Sunday’s game, though, that coming down and getting back up again in a week is going to be a serious test for everyone.
Cork will have had different issues on their minds. I thought they would win in Ennis and I thought they needed to win to frank their credentials as potential All-Ireland champions. What the game showed is that they’re still missing a ruthless streak.
For Clare, the only way back into the game in the second half was with goals. If you’re ruthless enough, you won’t concede those goals. I don’t mean being cynical left, right and centre, but there are times when you have to pull a player down. All the successful teams do it. That’s the reality.
In 2018, when Galway were the defending All-Ireland champions, we couldn’t stop conceding goals and ultimately it cost us. The year before, we had conceded, on average, just one goal a game. Cork finished the league with three clean sheets and the general feeling was that they had acquired a real edge in their defending. They need to recover that quickly.
This week will also be a test of their panel. I don’t expect Shane Barrett’s red card to be overturned, and I doubt Cork even made an appeal. There were mixed messages about Robert Downey’s knee injury early in the week, even though Cork hadn’t given up hope about his availability.
In any case, they have good options in those positions. Downey and Barrett are Cork’s captain and vice-captain, and are both All-Stars, but, in my opinion, the two players that Cork couldn’t replace at the moment are Brian Hayes and Tim O’Mahony. Twelve months ago, Hayes wasn’t even sure of his place and O’Mahony was doing most of his hurling at wing-back. That’s just a small reflection of how much Cork have evolved in the last year.
To win the All-Ireland, they will need to keep evolving. Last Sunday they had key failures in discipline and game management. They will need to learn fast.
In contrast, Clare have been on a hard road for a long time. For most of the league they were missing many of their All-Ireland winning team and that probably showed in the first half against Cork.
I think that match will bring them on hugely, and whatever they’ve won before, it will give them confidence too. They needed something to get their season off the ground.
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Last Sunday, and in the build-up to the game, it felt like a throwback to Ger Loughnane’s time. In those years Clare loved to generate a siege mentality. They made themselves believe that it was them against the world, whether there was any truth in that or not. They took energy from people doubting them and telling them that they couldn’t do something. It became part of their identity.
Brian Lohan and the players tapped into that. The narrative for the previous few weeks was that they had been “disrespected” as All-Ireland champions. I don’t know who was saying that, but it became part of the propaganda in the build-up.
They won’t have any of that this week, but they won’t need it either. Waterford have a good team when everyone is fit and available, but they spent the spring in Division One B and that’s not going to help them on Sunday. The difference between the top two tiers in the league is huge.
The most interesting game in the Leinster championship is in Tullamore. This is a dangerous game for Galway. Nobody was sure what to expect from them in Nowlan Park last Saturday, but I don’t think anybody expected them to be as poor as they were.
The movement and work rate in the forwards wasn’t good enough, the leadership from the established players wasn’t strong enough – with the exception of Cathal Mannion. It doesn’t look like they’ve settled on a style of play that suits the players at their disposal, and there was far too much space in the Galway half for Kilkenny to exploit. Micheál Donoghue said that Galway were heading into a big re-build. In that process there is always pain along the way.
At home, in front of a big crowd, Offaly won’t be afraid of Galway. This could be the game that ignites the Leinster championship.
