Championship is wide open after Old Guard’s frailties are laid bare

ANATIONAL League final that provided more questions than answers. Mentally, Tipperary have to be scarred by losing to Kilkenny – again. My gut feeling is that, deep down, they just didn’t believe.

If there is a saving grace for Éamon O’Shea’s (below) players looking ahead to the summer, it’s that competition is thin on the ground. No disrespect to Clare, but there is no one team you could say looks exceptional. If the reigning champions secure backto-back titles, they will then, certainly, join that bracket.

But it was easy to pick out flaws in Kilkenny’s performance last Sunday. They struggled for long periods and some of the older players, in particular, could struggle again when the ground hardens.

Cork are still searching for players to make the fullback and centre-back positions their own. Limerick are under pressure after the big blow of joint manager Donal O’Grady pulling out and Galway remain an enigma. Traditionally, Dublin don’t do All-Irelands.

This is good for hurling, because it makes the game exciting. No team is going to go out and destroy the opposition. The race for the Liam MacCarthy Cup looks balanced, without being brilliant. On the law of averages, Tipperary have to beat Kilkenny on a big day soon.

They contributed hugely to an absorbing game and, overall, will look at the League as a positive step for the Championship. I saw them against Cork in the quarterfinal and their supporters had deserted them after a turbulent campaign. Victory in that game, though, seemed to spark a resurrection.

The worry is that Lar Corbett and Eoin Kelly haven’t really featured yet. Both have had injury problems, and Corbett has his own business to occupy his focus, but they were always the two forwards who pulled the game out of the fire. Tipperary will find it hard to win without them, just as they did last Sunday.

When they were in need of some inspiration, it just wasn’t to be found. In fact, it didn’t look like coming from anyone in the forward line. They just don’t seem to have that bit of mental toughness - that steely belief - that’s needed.

Take Seamus Callanan, the great white hope for Tipperary. There’s no doubting his potential and hurling ability but when the big day comes, and when the crowds are flocking, he has been found wanting. And he ended up being taken off and put back on again. In midfield, they are after finding a settled pattern of play, a nice, solid unit.

It just seems to me that they are lacking penetration up front. Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher was superb in winning ball but he is more of a hard-working forward than a scoring forward and he finished the match with just a single point to his name. In saying that, Kilkenny’s marquee attacker Henry Shefflin was a pale shadow of his brilliant self. The legs seemed to have gone a bit and he hardly got a puck, though a stress fracture to his foot that looks set to rule him out of Kilkenny’s championship opener against Offaly could explain his poor form.

JJ Delaney was very solid at full-back but a hot summer’s day is going to ask an awful lot more of him. Mother nature is catching up with key members of Kilkenny’s squad and I’m not sure if I can see them winning the All-Ireland.

Still, it’s going to be very exciting. I wouldn’t like to be a betting man. The bookies will be laughing all the way to the bank by the looks of things. Another league title suggests Kilkenny will certainly be in the mix but if the spring has taught us anything, it’s that the Championship looks wide open.