NASH: WE WANT TO HIT IT OUT OF PÁIRC!
CORK hurling goalkeeper Anthony Nash hopes that the playing surface of Páirc Uí Chaoimh will hold up and won’t be the major talking point when the Rebels begin their Munster title defence against Clare this Sunday.
Ed Sheeran recently played three concerts at the re-developed stadium, which has meant that Cork hurlers have yet to train there as part of the venue had to be re-sodded. The pitch was also heavily criticised following Cork’s League game with Waterford in February, the last match played there, when there was a large amount of sand on the surface.
‘Hopefully, the surface will hold up,’ Nash said at the Littlewoods launch of the hurling Championship yesterday. ‘They have given us good feedback and they put a huge effort into it after the concerts, but I don’t know. That’s the long and short of it. I haven’t seen it and none of the lads have seen it yet.
‘Hopefully, we’ll get to go there and have a puckaround and get used to the surface. Clare played a game there last year in the quarterfinal so I don’t think they will fear it. The stadium itself is class, it’s like a mini-Croke Park.’
Despite the position he plays, the Cork custodian insists that it is not imperative to test out the surface before this weekend. ‘I’m hoping to get down there for a puck but I’m not making an issue of it.
‘My first time playing in Croke Park was in 2012 and that was an All-Ireland semi-final. I had to get used to a new pitch then. I just hope it’s not spoken about after the game and it won’t affect it. We trust the groundsmen, they’re flat out so hopefully, it will be ready to rock for Sunday.’
Given that Clare are the opposition for the Championship opener, it brings back memories of last year’s Munster final when an individual linked to the Clare management team stole Nash’s bag of sliotars and flung it into the terrace at Semple Stadium before the game.
Nash, though, insists that the sliotargate saga was much ado about nothing. The individual in question rang him to apologise the following day.
‘The guy that did it rang me to apologise and it was fine. It was nothing, really. I suppose whatever they wanted to do to win, you kinda have to respect that in a way as well,’ Nash pointed out.
‘Pat Keane, the guy who looks after all our stuff, had other sliotars ready to go and it was the same routine, give the bag of sliotars to the umpires and they deal with it. It was the same, they were exact same sliotars. I hadn’t wet them or cut them or changed leather or anything like that,’ he smiled.
Last year’s Munster final followed the same recent pattern of CorkClare Championship matches. They have met three times in the summer since the Banner’s thrilling AllIreland final replay victory in 2013 and the Rebels have won all three matches.
‘We still owe them one still from 2013!’ said Nash. ‘I suppose we have played each other an awful lot in the last few years. The one thing about the teams is there isn’t much between them on any day. We probably play a similar style of hurling to each other, both try and play a fast style.
‘But Clare can put a cricket score on you before you know it. They have the potential to do it, to be so effective up front. They were a freetaking competition away from a League semi-final and they appeared to have a very settled team all through the League.’