‘There’s no handy teams left’
SEAMUS MURPHY’S first reaction to the fixing of the Christy Ring Cup semi-final against London in Netwatch Cullen Park at 12.30pm on Saturday can only be described as one of puzzlement and disappointment.
The Wicklow hurling boss feels strongly that scheduling the game for such an early time is disrespectful to the competition and puts undue pressure on players who might be working.
“I was surprised to hear that it was in Netwatch Cullen Park. We had been led to believe that it would be somewhere like Parnell Park, but it is what it is. Fixing it for 12.30pm is not doing much service to the competition. It’s very early.
“At least with a later time, anyone working could have taken a half day. Now it’s a whole day off,” he said.
The Rathnure man is not dwelling on the fixture. He understands that it’s on the field, regardless of venue and time, that his hurlers must produce a sterling performance to get over what is a very decent London outfit that shows drastic changes to last year’s Exiles outfit.
His own squad has been hit with some major injury worries with John Henderson and Warren Kavanagh proving to be big losses in the defeat to Kildare last weekend.
Murphy says there’s no definite news on either man but that Henderson is looking like a major doubt having picked up a nasty knock in the late in the Roscommon game. He also admits that the Bray man is such a competitor that you can’t rule him out for Saturday.
The Wicklow manager was very honest when asked for his opinion on the Kildare game.
“The overall performance last weekend wouldn’t win a semi-final, that’s being honest with you. We’d need to lift it a level. I wouldn’t be happy with our forward line our any line on the field for that matter. In the first half the work-rate of our forwards as a unit was very poor. We still got scores but after we got the 1-3 we went out of the game. In saying that, scoring 3-17 is a decent return but conceding 4-18 is a big concern,” he added.
That concern will not be eased when London’s total of 4-27 against Armagh is considered from last weekend.
Murphy reckons only five or six of last year’s starting 15 will line out this Saturday with new names like Killian Burke from Cork, Shane Lawless, colin Nelson and Brian Regan all loikely to pose major problems for Wicklow on Saturday.
“Look,” said Seamus Murphy, “when you get to the semi-final sof a competition like the Christy Ring Cup there are no handy teams”.