Where to now for Clare and Dublin?
As I cycled my bike home from Semple Stadium on Sunday I had lots of time to think about what had just happened in between the showers and the odd bit of friendly banter from Clare and Limerick people, especially the Limerick crowd reminding me I'd be the only Tipp fella at a Munster final for a while.
All in good spirits. But what I did ponder was what was I thinking ever tipping against the greatest hurling team ever because that is what they are now. They just refuse to buy into any rhetoric that they might be tiring or this player is missing or they’re not as hungry.
Time and time again they perform and now that they are back to the place where they have given their greatest performances as a group, Croke Park, it’s just so hard to see anyone but Declan Hannon making that familiar walk up the Hogan Stand steps once again for even more history.
This six in a row in Munster will never be seen again. The five in a row great teams from Cork were awesome but the manner in which Limerick did it in the round-robin era, week on week the opposition are gearing up for their 'All-Ireland' is just awesome, to put it mildly.
I will not be backing against them again, lesson learned.
I won’t even start on how I actually thought Dublin might get the job done in the Leinster final. Jesus, how wrong that was. My Father has diabetes and the sugar levels will go up and down leading to frequent naps regardless if Bruce Springsteen was live in the sitting room with him.
He called over Saturday to watch the Leinster decider and after 15 minutes the whole lot of my house were in the same boat as him and we were all fast asleep due to the demolishing Kilkenny were giving the Dubs. It was a tough watch and another lesson learned to not back against Kilkenny, especially in Leinster. Five in a row and not much about it. Just what Kilkenny do.
So where to now for the provinicial runners up?
Barring a major upset, Dublin will play Cork and Wexford will play Clare. Can they recover mentally more so than physically during these two weeks? I don’t know.
They will be facing two teams who will be coming in with momentum and a pep in their step, especially Cork. Clare have tried and failed three times in a row to get over the line against a Limerick team when a cup was on the line.
Whether it was the occasion or the opposition, they just did not perform on Sunday. Their best defender was the guy who wasn’t even supposed to start in Conor Leen, Peter Duggan gave it his all and Shane O’Donnell caused problems when he got the ball - but in the second half he only got on it three times.
In the first half he had seven possessions, which resulted in a sideline, winning two frees, two direct assists and a point from play for himself.
In the second half, his three possessions resulted in two direct assists and the winning of a free. This is a no brainer for Clare, get the ball into this guy. End of. It was the 54th minute before O’Donnell had his first touch of the second half and at that stage Limerick were up by six points. That’s something they should look to improve on for the next day.
Their year could be over before they know it. Can they beat Wexford in two weeks time? If they don’t, we could be seeing a few Clare legends for the last time in the Saffron and blue jersey, as has been mentioned earlier this year.
Time waits for no man. Not succeeding doesn’t help that battle against time. It’s a big few training sessions now for Clare over the next two weeks. Do they have the talent? Yes. Do they have the belief that they can really do it? I am not sure after last Sunday.
For the Dubs I genuinely thought there was a massive performance coming on Saturday after what I saw in Salthill and even in Parnell earlier in the year against the same opposition.
But for whatever reason they decided to change tack and just hand Kilkenny the freedom of Croke Park, none of the pressing or pressure we seen in earlier games and as a result Richie Reid could look up, take a touch, look again, put his leg in, leg out shake it all about and still no sign of a blue jersey closing him down.
What did they actually expect would happen? That he might mishit it or just play it straight to their covering player. This was done after 15 minutes and after that it was like that episode of the Simpsons with the Ham Burglar and Homer and that famous scene of the child crying " Stop it, stop it, he’s already dead".
Dublin were done and now they most likely will lie in the way of a Cork team that will feel we’ve been given a lifeline and we are ready to die now to get this job done.
I think the year is done for Dublin to be honest and I’d love to see them just give a much better performance for themselves and their manager, a truer reflection of where this group is at and the progress they have made because last Saturday was the anti of all these things and another hard dose of reality as to why so many in Dublin know so little about this Dublin hurling team.
So the players of Laois and Offaly will be back in action just days after playing their All-Ireland Final and giving their all in this titanic battle.
Offaly will be shattered after the last two weeks they have had, so asking them to even tog out on Saturday will be very difficult. So we could see a similar result as these prelims served up last year with nobody learning anything and only leading to an injury to these players who have given so much over the past few weeks.
The solution? The Joe McDonagh winners gain promotion, that’s solid but asking these two teams to play again in a matter of days against a much fresher and stronger team is a punishment rather than a promotion of the game in my view. So why have these games at all really?
Free up an extra week, have the quarter-finals with your provincial runners up and the third-placed teams as normal and I don’t think anyone would mind, especially the Joe McDonagh finalists who would rather be on holidays before heading into their club campaigns.
The focus shifts to Liam MacCarthy and the dreams of many that this could be their year but one team doesn’t deal in sentiments. They love shattering others' dreams whilst realising their own - sure isn’t that the name of the song by the Cranberries they play after they win.
Who will stop Dolores singing that song again this year in Croke Park? The journey begins this weekend. How does the Cork song go again?
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