Only April but it’ s make-or-break for Wexford and Dublin hurlers

To many folk, championship hurling in April simply doesn’ t feel right, the scorched-grass stereotype buried by the new reality of rucks in the muck. Here is another counter-intuitive headwreck to ponder on the first weekend of the 2024 championship: Wexford and Dublin will each play five round-robin matches in Leinster, yet many observers are convinced their entire campaigns will be shaped by Sunday’s head-to-head.

In other words, whoever emerges triumphant from Chadwicks Wexford Park will ultimately advance to the All-Ireland series . . . and whoever loses will be left playing an impossible game of catch-up. Fact or fiction?

“I said it when the draw was done, no matter what happened in the league, Dublin’s season is going to be dictated by this Sunday. Bar something drastic happens along the way,” says Ryan O’Dwyer, the retired Dublin lionheart.

Tom Dempsey, Wexford All-Ireland hero in 1996, readily agrees. “If either Dublin or Wexford lose on Sunday, their chances of progressing in the championship go down to a very low percentage,” he surmises. “You’re almost back to a knock-out situation – and I’m not saying that either team will not have a chance again.

“But the likelihood, unless something strange happens, is that Wexford and Dublin will pick up points against Antrim and Carlow, and they won’t pick up points against Galway and Kilkenny.

“It really is almost a sudden-death situation,” Dempsey reiterates. “Wexford had a reasonable league; Dublin hadn’t. Wexford had a poor end to the league; Dublin look a little bit more structured in their team. But we’re actually going into Wexford Park on Sunday not really sure where we are, and it is the most important game of the year.”

Whatever about the merits of makeor-break matches in April, Sunday’s significance cannot be underplayed. It’s all predicated on the suspicion that Kilkenny and Galway are several steps ahead of the posse, leaving Wexford and Dublin squabbling over third place.

But is qualification really such a sure thing for the presumed top two? Well, it depends on which metric you apply.

Kilkenny have won four Leinster SHC titles on the bounce, beating Galway in three finals and Dublin in the other. The latter came in the midst of structural disruption caused by Covid, with Dublin ousting Galway in a 2021 semi-final.

But in the four years of the Leinster round-robin, Galway topped the group three times while, in 2019, they were famously ejected on scoring difference when all four contenders finished deadlocked on five points.

Since then, however, Dublin and Wexford have stalled if not actually regressed. When O’Dwyer was in his playing heyday under Anthony Daly, winning a league in 2011 and Leinster in 2013, they were viewed as dark horse All-Ireland contenders. “Those days are gone,” the Tipp native concedes. “Something drastic would have to happen.”

Wexford had their own Leinster-winningrevivalunderDavyFitzgerald(2019) but it was mostly downhill for the next four seasons – and now Keith Rossiter is in the early throes of a rebuild.

Rossiter’s maiden league contained the promise of two draws with eventual finalists Kilkenny and Clare, plus a win over Waterford to ensure a place in next year’s new-look Division 1. But it ended with a 12-point defeat to Cork, fuelling concern about the games to come – none more critical than Sunday’s.

Still, Dublin’s failure to secure topflight status came after a distinctly underwhelming league campaign.

A more hopeful augury is their recent SHC record against Wexford. In year one of the round-robin – 2018 – they were overtaken in injury-time at Wexford Park and subsequently failed to qualify. In 2019, however, Seán Moran’s goal from a free with the last puck in Parnell Park secured a dramatic draw that left the door ajar for them to eliminate Galway four weeks later.

With the reintroduction of the group stages post-Covid, Dublin have narrowly edged both contests with Wexford.

And yet Wexford qualified at their expense in 2022, thanks to a winning raid on Nowlan Park. Even last year, Dublin’s Croke Park victory over Wexford in round three might have hastened their route to the All-Ireland series but it was, in truth, a lot more complicated.

Micheál Donoghue’s men drew twice (againstAntrimandGalway)whileWestmeath’s historic comeback triumph left a humbled Wexford scrambling to avoid relegation, which they achieved by beating Kilkenny in a high-scoring thriller.

Wexford’s round-robin record against the Cats – one draw and two wins in their last three games – suggests all is not lost, even if they were to lose this Sunday.

But it does beg one final question. If Wexford and Dublin are the two likely contenders for third, why has the schedule never allowed them to meet on the last day, with everything still at stake?