Vulnerable Cats will do well to avoid relegation dog fight
Retirements, injuries and club duties have left the champions badly exposed for League
KILKENNY In Relegation Battle. Cats Bid To Avoid Drop. Kilkenny Facing Prospect Of Life In Hurling’s Second Tier. Not the sort of headlines anybody expects to see any day soon. And yet, as another Allianz Hurling League campaign unfurls, never has a team who stand apart as the reigning League and All-Ireland champions ever looked as vulnerable in the spring under Brian Cody.
When Séamus Moynihan retired, and later Darragh Ó Sé, Kerry football folk wondered aloud would the county ever be able to fill the gaps left by such giants of the modern game.
And yet, the world kept turning and Kerry kept winning All-Irelands.
Same in Kilkenny when DJ Carey retired. Those who wondered aloud again about finding a replacement to a forward mentioned in the same breath as Eddie Keher and Christy Ring soon saw Henry Shefflin blossom to become the game’s all-time Championship hurler and set a medal record that may never be equalled.
But never before has the depth of Brian Cody’s squad been tested to this extent. In a six-team division of such tight margins, the prospect of Kilkenny being dragged into a relegation playoff has to be a live option.
With the news during the week that Eoin Larkin went under the knife to fix a groin problem, the number of players from the All-Ireland final squad missing for next Saturday night’s opening round fixture away to Cork in Páirc Uí Rinn is of the order of 11.
The five high-profile retirements over the winter alone mean the dressing room is without the talent and experience that comes with a staggering 38 All-Ireland medals.
Those keen to point out that Tommy Walsh, Brian Hogan, Aidan Fogarty and David Herity didn’t make the starting 15 for the All-Ireland need to remember that they were very much part of Kilkenny’s plans last spring. And the last to retire, JJ Delaney, just happens to be the All Star full-back.
Ger Cunningham’s take on Kilkenny earlier in the week then was well worth listening to. Asked if Kilkenny’s retirements gives hope to the rest of Leinster, the Dublin manager replied without hesitation: ‘Absolutely. If you take out, someone said 38 All-Ireland medals, out of a dressing room it must. You have to give people a chance I suppose and those names won’t be as well known.
‘They’re losing top players and then topped up by JJ going which was a surprise. He’s still a relatively young man. There was no indication from hurling people that he was going to go. So, again, he’s been a phenomenal defender.
‘If you sit down and debate, would you pick JJ or Tommy? Two players that are gone, phenomenal players. From that point of view it’s probably less intimidating but they still have an awful lot of very good players.’
What separated Kilkenny’s achievements last year was that the League and Championship double was won without the same sense of aura and invincibility that the county wore like a cloak between 2006 and 2012.
Cunningham’s words are an illustration that such an aura no longer exists, not after 2013 when Kilkenny lost a Championship replay under Cody for the first time, crashing out to Dublin in Leinster, before going out at the earliest stage ever in a reign that extends into 17 seasons.
Then there is the structure of the League which does few favours for the holders. Just five matches means that teams can go into the last round of games teetering between finishing as group winners or bottom of the table, as in 2013.
ARELEGATION play-off between the bottom two teams is one thing but the fact that the first four of six teams make the quarterfinals, along with the first four in Division 1B is a GAA solution to a GAA problem of counties feeling they hadn’t enough games.
And so Kilkenny and Dublin for instance could find themselves in a dogfight to stay in Division 1A while the fourth best team in the division below them scrambles into the playoffs. Bonkers, really.
Little wonder when the Hurling 2020 committee did some research into the competition, its survey returned some interesting findings. Results from a survey of 3,859 people showed just 28 per cent in favour of the current Division 1A/1B structure of six teams. Instead, 61 per cent favoured the old eight-team model as an alternative.
Interestingly, the 2020 committee itself expressed a liking for two seven-team divisions whereby the top three teams in Division 1A, along with the Division 1B champions would qualify for the Division One semi-finals. It has a lot of merit, particularly the fact that it gives counties an even balance of home and away games.
It shouldn’t be a case where a county’s promotion and relegation prospects are tilted by the vagaries of the draw. This year, Kilkenny’s itinerary is a challenging one, falling the wrong side of that home and away split: away to Cork, home to Dublin, away to Galway, away to Tipperary, home to Clare.
Ballyhale Shamrocks winning the Leinster club championship has only further served to take five key players out of the equation.
Kilkenny were the highest scorers in last year’s group stages, hitting 14-99, but it’s hard to imagine the holders scaling anything like the same heights with Michael Fennelly, Colin Fennelly, TJ Reid and Henry Shefflin all out of commission.
Then there’s Joey Holden, whose exploits at No 3 for Ballyhale suggest he is a live candidate to plug the huge gap left by JJ Delaney.
When Delaney wasn’t playing last year, Kilkenny struggled, the League encounter at home to Tipperary when Séamus Callanan wreaked havoc being a a prime example.
The key to Kilkenny’s season will be the emergence of a worthy heir to Delaney. Every other top-tier county has had a chance to use the preliminary season competitions but Kilkenny come in cold.
The Hurling 2020 committee alluded to the fact that All-Ireland champions Clare had just two home games last year, describing it as ‘a missed opportunity’ given the county ‘was on such a high after their 2013 breakthrough success’.
Yet the same applies to Kilkenny this year. And, with margins so tight, managers generally can’t afford to experiment too much, leading to close to Championship line-outs in a lot of cases.
If Cunningham’s words are anything to go by, Kilkenny are no longer as ‘intimidating’ as they once were. Not for the spring at least, or until such time Cody gets to pick from a full hand.
In the eyes of the bookies, they are still favourites. It might not be quite that cut and dried though. The surprise will be if there’s isn’t a bump or two in the road as Kilkenny setoff on their title defence.