Similarities can breed a cracking finale
PLUS ça change, plus c’est la même chose, as they say around Corofin and Lewis Road. Two years on from their All-Ireland semi-final in Limerick Dr Crokes and the Galway champions meet again, this time in Croke Park with silverware for the winner. It’s a measure of the strength of both teams that 24 months on bith managements have merely tweaked their starting teams rather than performed any major reconstructive surgery.
For last month’s All-Ireland semi-final win over Gaoth Dobhair the starting Corofin team showed just two changes from the team that played Dr Crokes in 2017 - Ciaran McGrath and Conor Cunningham dropping out against the Ulster champions, though both made late cameos.
Dr Crokes have shaken things up a little more: five changes to their starting teams between their last two All-Ireland semi-finals. Luke Quinn has been replaced by Shane Doolan in defence, Johnny Buckley and Daithi Casey have come into midfield instead of Ambrose O’Donovan and Alan O’Sullivan, while Micheal Burns, David Shaw and Tony Brosnan have come into the attack in place of Buckley, Casey and the benched Colm Cooper. So, which team is stronger now? It’s difficult to say Corofin haven’t improved as a unit given that they are reigning champions, but an equally strong argument can be made to say Crokes are a better, more destructive team two years on.
If Corofin win on Sunday they will, of course, level the head to head with Crokes, but victory will shoot them into third place on the roll of honour with four titles and cement their place among the really great clubs such as Nemo and Crossmaglen.
Even the fact both clubs are back in Croke Park so soon is testament to how great these two sides are already.
“It’s the hardest competition to get to the final of,” Crokes selector Vince Casey says. “You look around the country and there are fantastic clubs in a lot of counties and that’s what makes it so competitive. You have clubs that dominate different periods. Corofin have been exceptional over the recent time, they’ve won the last six Galway titles, they’ve won an amount of Connacht championships, won two of the last four All-Irelands, and they probably gave the best display of football in any All-Ireland club final last year. To get back there is a very difficult road.
“You never expect to be back in an All-Ireland Club final. You just got to win your county championship first and see where the journey takes you from there. The response from the players after the defeat against Nemo in December 2017 has been phenomenal. It would have been very easy for a few guys to say ‘look, we’ve had our time, we’ve won an All-Ireland, we have lots of county championships, but it’s just the commitment level and dedication that they have. They’ve asked it of one another and pushed on even further, and then obviously the injection of some of the younger lads as well, it’s been fantastic.
“You set out at the start of the year (and) you’re hoping you’re going to get there but a lot of things have to happen along the way. Winning the Kerry county championship is not an easy task. It’s a difficult one and we’ve had a couple of hard ones along the way. “
Having won the Andy Merrigan Cup in 2017 Casey sort of agrees that some of the pressure is off the team and club in terms of winning that second title, which eluded Crokes for so long. However, it’s not he Crokes way not to want to go out and be the very best they can be on the football field.
“There probably is a little less pressure but ultimately the players will demand the standards themselves,” Casey says. “When the ball is thrown in they’re not going to be thinking about 2017, they’re just going to be determined to finish off this year because the big difficulty with it is, it’s a fantastic day for you if you win. It gives you a bit of momentum to the end of the year, (but) if you lose it’s difficult because you’re playing Kerry club championship two weeks after so you’re trying to pick yourself back up and go again.”
Fellow team selector Edmund O’Sullivan anticipates a great game but is confident.
“If our fellas can play well, and that’s the key, getting them to play well, but if our boys can bring their A-game I fancy them against anyone, I really would. It’s easier said than done but if our fellas play to the maximum...
“Their half backs, their best strength almost is going forward. They attack you in drives and really come at you, like ourselves really, with Gavin White coming forward. The two full forwards lines are very good, high quality. Ian Burke, for me, is one of the top five or six forwards in the country at the moment. It should be a cracker...
“You always have to play to your strengths because you’re taking away from yourself if you don’t, but you’re not naive to say to don’t recognise where the threats are from them. The key is to counter their threats but you don’t take away from what you’re good at. That’s really the balance and it’s about getting that right. We know what we’re good at, that’s putting up scores, scoring from play, and having a good spread of scorers throughout the team.”
ALL-IRELAND CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP - FINAL BY FINAL