LEINSTER hurling showing its value and putting it up to Munster. Leinster football throwing up one shock – and threatening the biggest shock in its history.
Liam Cahill being pinged for sideline dissent and the ball being walked up to Tipperary’s 20-metre line. The Down hurlers turning over Antrim and stealing the headlines from the Joe McDonagh Cup.
It’s still only April but the hurling summer started with a bang at the weekend. Along with the football championship, there was no end of talking points.
Is it possible to win a provincial title with no manager?
Dublin had a nervy, unconvincing Leinster quarter-final win over Wicklow
Dublin supporters are already starting to ask themselves the same question after a nervy, unconvincing Leinster quarter-final win over Wicklow.
From ‘startled earwigs’ to a startling earpiece pull…
Former manager Pat Gilroy coined that famous phrase in the wake of Dublin’s hammering by Kerry back in the 2009 quarter-final and reconstructed the team to win an All-Ireland with current manager Ger Brennan a key part of the defensive puzzle.
But Brennan’s first season in charge couldn’t be going any worse. That pull of the earpiece of Galway S&C coach Cian Breathnach McGinn led to a 12-week ban for physical interference and has stuck despite a hearing, an appeal and Brennan going all the way to the Disputes Resolution Authority in his bid to challenge it.
Dean Rock is in charge of Dublin
It all means that Dean Rock – someone with no previous inter-county management experience – is now in charge of the ship for the rest of the Leinster campaign and until the second round of the All-Ireland series.
Is there precedent for a stand-in manager in terms of winning a provincial title? Well, Ciaran Meenagh was that man for Derry back in 2023, after Rory Gallagher departed following abuse allegations from his estranged wife, which he denies. That was all very last minute, on the eve of an Ulster final. The hard work had been well done at that stage. But this is uncharted territory.
Brennan took on a team in obvious transition, one which could clearly do without any more disruption.
On Sunday at Aughrim, they were a kick of a ball away from losing and the biggest shock in the history of Leinster football.
It’s been a surreal last seven days all round for Dublin football with five-in-a-row manager Jim Gavin parachuting back into public life with an appearance on Off The Ball AM and being unveiled as a championship analyst. This, after being parachuted into a presidential race – and all the baggage that went with that ill-fated campaign.
Watching star forward Con O’Callaghan hobble off just after half-time was the latest unsettling factor.
Now a Leinster semi-final against Louth awaits. It’s over 50 years – 1973 in fact – since the reigning provincial champions last beat Dublin in Leinster. That one involved a second-round replay in Navan, Louth winning 1-8 to 0-9. After winning a first provincial last year since 1957 – ironically, under the charge of Brennan – the opportunity for another milestone success awaits.
League is league, championship is championship?
We’ve all heard that refrain which is intended to downplay the value of the spring competition. But how true is it?
In hurling, the league formlines very much held firm for the first round of championship. Cork showed the value of putting their best foot forward and reaching a National League final while Tipperary looked very much like the starting 15 had been cobbled together with too many players who hadn’t seen enough league time or hadn’t shown recent form.
Liam Cahill even admitted as much after: ‘You can see definitely the way Cork… I suppose, the league final hasn’t done them any harm in relation to their preparation for today. They finished strong.’
Galway’s better league form carried through in their repeat hammering of Kilkenny
The capitulation at home to Limerick in round four fed into the theory that it perhaps suited the All-Ireland champions to avoid any all-Munster league final and put all their eggs into the Championship basket. Tom Ryan, of this parish, pointed out the folly of that, just as the 2024 defending league and All-Ireland champions Clare put up a tame defence of their league title, were relegated from the top flight, and failed to get out of the group come summer.
Galway’s better league form carried through in their repeat hammering of Kilkenny, Clare’s 1B title triumph fed into their high-scoring affair against Waterford while Offaly showed the value of competing in a higher division than Dublin by coming so close to winning their encounter. That game was a cracking advertisement for the quality of Leinster hurling.
In football, it was less clear-cut. Westmeath showed that championship certainly can involve a reset by taking out Division 2 league winners Meath. And yet Mark McHugh’s side were one score away from a league result against Wexford that would have seen them promoted instead and jump up to Division 2.
The rest of the results went the way of the higher ranked league team: Kildare beating Laois, Louth beating Wexford, Monaghan beating Cavan and Derry beating Antrim.
What really would have flipped the script would have been Wicklow (Division 4), beating Dublin (relegated from Division 1).
Tipperary’s hopes of back-to-back All-Ireland hurling titles… 51 years and counting
Going into last Sunday, it was almost exactly nine months since Ronan Maher had lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup on the steps of the Hogan Stand.
During that time, it’s been impossible to escape the weight of history and how not since 1964-65 have Tipperary put senior All-Irelands back-to-back.
Now that elusive dream is in danger of being over in the space of seven days.
Lose to Waterford at Walsh Park on Sunday and while it’s still technically possible to progress, it will be hard to see a way back with Clare next up in Thurles before rounding off the Munster campaign away to Limerick.
If the history of the Munster group has taught us anything, it’s that qualifying in those top three spots can come down to such fine margins.
Could score difference be that fine margin this year? If so, that late rally to come from nine down against Cork and only lose by four is one silver lining perhaps. Right now, it’s the difference between being bottom or ahead of Waterford on score difference.
Shane Meehan blazed to the net for Clare’s late goal
Perhaps it explains too why Ian Galvin had goal on his mind when he raced through for Clare at the end of the Waterford game – the clock had already ticked past the four allotted minutes of added time. Former Clare captain Anthony Daly admitted he was urging him to pop the ball over the bar and seal the game by stretching the gap out to four. Instead, Galvin risked Waterford getting one last play and equalising by slipping a pass to Shane Meehan who blazed to the net.
That bit of gutsy, ruthless thinking is the reason why Clare currently lie top of the Munster group and two points ahead of Cork – on score difference.
It only comes into play if more than two teams end up on the same points – but that’s exactly what happened last year in sorting out the order of the top three. And it also happened in 2019 when Limerick, Cork and Clare all finished on four points – and Clare were knocked out.
Fine margins.
League final lessons…
It must be a bit unsettling for Ben O’Connor or any of the Cork players to turn on The Sunday Game and see Cork and hurling’s all-time scorer Patrick Horgan breaking down their play. Dissecting how they’ve tried to learn the lessons of the league final defeat by Limerick with tactical adjustments as John Kiely’s side come to town on Sunday.
Horgan pointed out how Cork’s half-back line offered better protection to their full-back line compared to the damage wrought by Aaron Gillane in the league final.
But the key question is who takes on the hardest task in hurling and man-marks Limerick’s main danger man? Ciaran Joyce did a superb job in nullifying another big Limerick threat in Shane O’Brien the last day but looks the frontrunner for the job. He was so effective once more in curbing the influence of John McGrath who was substituted, with just a point to his name, early in the second half.
William Buckley was Cork’s fourth different freetaker
Ben O’Connor – and Horgan – both glossed over Cork’s failure to find a high percentage free-taker, particularly from outside the 65. Horgan’s championship career total of 32-683 (779) speaks for itself.
But given the fine margins mentioned already, Cork simply can’t afford to keep missing frees. By the time William Buckley stood over the last free against Tipperary, he was Cork’s fourth different freetaker. Now, he was a direct replacement for Alan Connolly who did convert five from six. But the one Connolly missed was a simple one: from only around 30 metres in the 46th minute when his team held the slenderest one-point advantage.
Wing-back Mark Coleman missed another from long range soon after – and a second in added time.
Tim O’Mahony missed three in a row from long range in the first half – though he did nail a big one in the second.
But six missed scores from 13 deadball attempts amounts to a conversion rate of just 53 per cent.
That simply won’t be good enough as the summer goes on.
The strange thing is, captain Darragh Fitzgibbon has a proven track record. Actually scored the clutch 65 at the end of extra time to force penalties in last year’s Munster final. Time to give him a chance.
Dissent management rule
Liam Cahill didn’t intend going down as a pub quiz question. One involving the identity of the first management team member to be punished in championship – and on live television too – under the new dissent rules.
Liam Cahill was punished under new dissent rules
His reaction to Tim O’Mahony being awarded a legitimate free by referee Sean Stack directly in front of his technical area was a bit over-the-top and overly dramatic. But as he explained himself: ‘I didn’t say anything to Seán Stack, only waved my arms.’
Being issued a yellow card is one thing but the new added punishment of a 20-metre free being awarded to Cork – a potential goalscoring opportunity – seems wildly out of proportion.
‘I suppose they have to be seen to implement it. Again, it is a little bit of a grey area. It’s dependent on the referee, what way he sees dissent.’
Which was signposted in these pages as soon as it passed at Congress in February.
Surely a yellow card warning was enough – meaning Cahill was a second warning away from watching it from the stand. In Gaelic football, a black card for dissent was introduced. Why not simply apply that to management where they would have to be gone from the sideline for a 10-minute period?
And this one is a case of following the lead of football without thinking through the consequences of how the same punishment represents a goal chance in hurling when it doesn’t in football.
Sideline behaviour deciding the outcome on the field always felt like a step too far.
Second tier or second class?
Down manager Ronan Sheehan
The Joe McDonagh Cup has consistently shown itself to be an ultra-competitive championship competition and Down turning over Davy Fitzgerald’s Antrim was arguably the result of the weekend.
Such a shame then that it didn’t get the required airplay with Down manager Ronan Sheehan having a pop at RTÉ: ‘Disappointing but not surprising that no coverage of the McDonagh game between Down v Antrim today… same as the league game in Newry.’ He suggested partitionism was ‘alive and well at @RTESport… a narrow view of being National broadcaster.’
As one of the results of the weekend, it certainly merited coverage.
