Hurling is down to six of the best
MAYBE Éamon O’Shea truly believes there are nine teams who can win the All-Ireland Hurling Championship. He earns his living as a professor of economics so his intelligence is sound. It is worth considering if he had other motives in talking up the wide spread of contenders for the Liam MacCarthy Cup.
A canny manager might seek to free his players of expectation by describing the hurling summer as a theatre of intense battle with many contenders. Reality is very different.
This morning, just hours before Tipp take on Limerick, the fiercest competition is between, at most, six counties. Kilkenny and Clare have most cause to believe they will end the summer as champions.
Cork, the beaten finalists last year, will fancy that lessons learned against Waterford can fire them towards September. Galway and Dublin will trust that recent glories can be recaptured and made last for an entire campaign.
After that, Waterford, Limerick, Wexford and Offaly have hopes of varying credibility. And Tipperary? They place somewhere behind Clare and Kilkenny. They raised their standards as the League went on, and after a poor first season as manager O’Shea will be expected to pilot them deep into the campaign.
A year ago the hurling Championship was predicted to be a battle between Kilkenny and Tipp. There followed a summer of joyous unpredictability but there is no reason to believe we have seen wholesale change.
Clare have emerged as true blue bloods but after that, attention falls on the usual two – and Tipperary fall under that burning glare from today.