Can Dublin and Derry redeem this terrible league season?

LAST week in this slot we carried a plea for Kilkenny and Limerick to let loose, to go for it, to give us the game of hurling that a ho-hum National League has been crying out for. In the end only one of the two counties got the memo.

The Cats showed their claws and the Treaty fell to pieces. So much so that people were left to wonder how much they actually wanted to win the game (sound familiar?).

John Kiely made all the right noises after the game about being disappointed with the display, but people still wonder how much he would have wanted to face Clare in a League final a few weeks before they meet in Ennis in championship.

After that you’d think we’d keep our hopes in check, but it turns out we’re hopeless romantics. So here we are again, pleading, urging, praying, hoping that Derry and Dublin take the National Football League Final sufficiently seriously to give us something to get our teeth into.

In fairness, Dublin have the look of men on a mission of late, while Mickey Harte and Derry have been very clearly gunning for the league title from a long way out.

The only worry we’d have is that Dublin might overwhelm the Oak Leaf County much as they did in the regular season game in Celtic Park the other week.

Derry quite clearly took the foot off the gas for that one, resting a handful of important players, so we’ve still got a certain amount of hope this game will live up to its billing. These are, easily, the two best teams in the country at the moment so if they can’t come up with something compelling football is in a real rough spot.