Kingdom will be up against it
Damian Stack takes a look ahead to the inaugural Joe McDonagh Cup campaign and suggests that Kerry will have their work cut out for them
YOU’D have to have a certain amount of sympathy for the denizens of Croke Park. Trying to get that formula just right is far from an easy task. Hurling is a peculiar sport where the difference between one tier and the next is often yawning.
Putting structures in place to help bridge the gap from one to the other – and to do so in such a way as not to cut adrift strugglers at the bottom of one tier – is next to near impossible.
That’s why we keep having these restructures. So for 2018 it’s out with the Leinster round robin – we hardly knew ye – and in with the Joe McDonagh Cup. It’s out with the knock-out provincial championship – we knew ye so well – and in with the group phase.
The peculiarities of hurling mean it’s much more open to change of this sort than football (even as the provincial championship remains sacrosanct for now). Hurling had quarter-finals and a back-door before football did. Hurling innovates because it has to.
Sometimes that can lead to a little bit of whiplash. Having competed in and survived for two years as a Leinster championship side, Kerry found themselves out of the Leinster loop with this latest restructure.
It’s probably fair to say they’re not too disappointed by that. This new competition is essentially an expanded round robin. What they are disappointed by is the reality that they’re likely to be ghettoised in it for the foreseeable future, regardless of how well they do.
To beat the bottom team in Leinster – as everybody else will have to do should they win the McDonagh Cup – is a far less daunting task than beating the bottom ranked team in Munster – as Kerry must.
Hardly fair, and yet, for now it remains largely theoretical. With a young team Kerry’s aim for this year’s McDonagh Cup will be to survive in it and build for next year and the year after that again.
Such is the strength of competition and such is the way the fixtures have fallen that it’s possible – more likely than not if we’re being honest – Kerry will be on the back foot straight away in this championship.
A trip to one of the favourites – if not the favourites – one weekend and the visit of the other likely contenders the following weekend is far from an easy start for the Kingdom.
There is a chance that Kerry can win both those games, they weren’t that far off Carlow in this year’s league and have beaten Laois in the not so distant past, but you couldn’t be certain of it and the odds are against it.
Look never say never, and Kerry are certainly capable of beating any of these teams on any given day, but we probably shouldn’t expect too much from Kerry this year. It’s not defeatist to suggest that survival itself would be a real success for Fintan O’Connor and his team this year.
That’s especially true when you consider that the bottom two teams will be in danger of relegation back down to the Christy Ring Cup this year as the GAA seeks to streamline and realign the hurling competitions.
The bottom placed team in this year’s McDonagh Cup will be automatically relegated, while the second last team will have to play a relegation / promotion play-off with the winners of the Christy Ring Cup (in future years the winners of the Christy Ring Cup will automatically be promoted).
Essentially this means that a third of the competing teams will find themselves in a spot of bother. If we expect the Division 1B sides (Laois and Antrim) and the Division 2A champions (Carlow) to challenge that leaves Kerry, Westmeath and Meath in danger of the drop.
Again all of this is subject to change. If Kerry beat Carlow this weekend in Dr Cullen Park then all bets are off. If Westmeath perform like they did in last year’s championship they could challenge for a place in the final (the top two qualify).
The fixtures computer – as we’ve noted
– hasn’t been particularly kind to Kerry. The opening two weekends will be tough and after that they’ve only got one home game remaining, against Westmeath.
Out of five games
Kerry will be on the road for three of them. That puts them at a real disadvantage. It means that – assuming the next two weekends don’t deliver any points – wins against Westmeath at home and Meath away are absolutely essential.
Those are games Kerry are well capable of winning, even if we must acknowledge that Westmeath have already beaten Kerry once this year and that Meath beat Kerry in Trim in the Leinster Round Robin last year.
The basic point that we’re trying to make is that all these games are marginal. They will be decided by narrow margins. They might fall Kerry’s way one day and go against them the next.
Kerry could be in the final if things go their way, they could just as easily be relegated. We suspect it won’t come to that. Kerry are capable of winning those two games in round 3 and round 4 against Westmeath and Meath and that should be enough to keep them out of the bottom two.
It won’t be easy and it’s by no means a racing certainly and there’s bound to be a few surprises and twists along the way, but isn’t that the glory of sport. As much as we like to pretend we do, we just don’t know.
Let the games commence.
Manager: League Form:
Runners up in Division 2B, losing out to Carlow 2-19 to 2-12 in the final
Playing Kerry:
Sunday, May 20 in Austin Stack Park, Tralee
Overview:
Westmeath are a team who could go either way in this championship. They could be sucked into a relegation battle, but equally they have enough about themselves to push on for a place in the final. We shouldn’t forget how well they did in last year’s championship (after a disappointing enough round robin campaign). They pushed Offaly hard for a place in the Leinster semi-finals and gave Tipperary (the reigning champions at the time) a real game of it in the qualifiers (2-18 to 0-15). Their game with Kerry in Austin Stack Park will likely go a long way towards defining each other’s campaigns. Even after defeat in Mullingar, Kerry won’t fear them and will feel it a game they should be winning.