Brian Lohan and Davy Fitzgerald have a lot in common this spring despite the ongoing tension between the pair, according to former Limerick All-Ireland winner Shane Dowling.
The former Clare team-mates, who won two All-Irelands together as players in the 1990s, have not seen eye to eye much recently. On Sunday, the now managers' respective counties clashed in the Allianz League with Lohan's Banner side hanging on for a one-point over Fitzgerald's Waterford outfit.
Clare were without Diarmuid Ryan, Adam Hogan, who are involved in the Fitzgibbon Cup with Mary Immaculate College, while Mark Rodgers is playing with UL in the same competition. Added to that were long-term absentees Shane O'Donnell and Tony Kelly.
For Waterford, Fitzgerald mentioned to the media after the game that he's without a dozen players who would be properly challenging for places if they were available to him.
For Dowling, who was speaking on the RTÉ GAA Podcast, it means that Lohan and Fitzgerald are in the same boat two months out from the start of the championship.
"We all know the Munster Championship and how hard it's going to be when the time comes around," he said.
"What we're seeing in more recent times, with the round robin, is management teams know they need to have a huge amount of depth in their squad.
"Even if you'd a full deck to pick from you're still going to pick up injuries along the way, you're still going to have tired bodies.
"That's if you've a full deck. Now if you don't have a full deck you need even more people again. So you do need 24-26 people; it's not 20 anymore. It might be 20 or 21 if you've everyone available to you but it could be 24 or 25.
"I think that's what management teams are trying to look at now, to see who they can bring in to this 24 or 25 people that I can go to war with over that Munster Championship time.
"That's exactly what Brian is doing so he's probably, in one way, delighted that he has 11 lads that he doesn't have to worry about right now because that's giving game time to others.
"So he's in a very strong position and you could say the same with Davy. He has a lot of bodies that are out injured at the minute. The beauty for him is that the bodies who are out injured are there for a number of years and he knows exactly what he has with them.
"That's giving other lads opportunities to play. They will also learn who they can go to war with over the next couple of months."
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