Cats always perform as if they have nine lives..
IF dictionaries were presented in pictorial form, you’d probably find a fella in a Kilkenny jersey alongside ‘honesty’ and ‘consistency’.
Brian Lohan is in need of a win of note over Kilkenny
Those words tell you all you need to know about how they operate.
Ok, they haven’t won an All-ireland for quite some time by their standards but when they started to come back to the pack around 2011/12, they were being judged to a standard that was never going to be sustainable. But they haven’t fallen off the face of the earth either – and they never will.
That’s because of the culture that they have and culture is an amazing thing.
Trying to cultivate one is extremely difficult but once you have it, it’s a tremendous asset and allows you to fast track in so many other ways.
Same with Kerry football, Dublin football, Munster rugby; players know the culture of the environment they’re going into and benefit from it before taking on the responsibility of maintaining and building on it.
Kilkenny are now into their ninth year without an All-ireland while they haven’t won the League outright since 2018 but they still carry a certain aura about them all the same.
I see tomorrow evening’s League final as a 50-50 game; nobody could call it with supreme confidence. But what you can say with certainty is that if Clare are going to take the title, they’re going to have to dig very deep to beat Kilkenny.
Kilkenny remind me of a game we used to play on the green in my youth called ‘butcher’, which was something like ‘mercy’.
In a hurling context, getting the
Kilkenny lads to give in is virtually impossible.
Clare are in the most in-form team in the country right now and they have the ammunition to pull away and win this game by a few points, but it will still be an almighty task.
And is that the sort of task you want two weeks out before what is a potentially season-defining game against Limerick?
But every player that takes the field tomorrow evening will be fully locked and loaded in their quest to take home the title.
I’ve never got this notion about teams going out half-interested – it just doesn’t work like that.
Granted, players might be rested in certain circumstances depending on what’s coming down the tracks, but that’s different. Once you’re selected, you’re going out to perform and to win.
Clare will worry about Limerick after the League final but until then it’s all about Kilkenny.
Because, while they beat them in Ennis earlier in the League, Brian Lohan will want to lay down a marker against them after losing the last two All-ireland semi-finals.
Adding a League final to that list could be psychologically damaging.
There’s every chance they’ll meet in Croke Park later in the year and Clare need a victory of note against them at this stage.
I reckon they’ll get it, but history tells us they’ll have to earn it.