DASH TO GLORY
Get ready for a rapid nine weeks of of intense Championship drama but do not expect to be shocked at the end
BY THE end of this second pandemic Championship, the novelty will have long worn off. Vacuum-packed seasons have guaranteed football and hurling competitions through the bewildering days that have littered our lives since March 2020. The winter campaigns of last year will live long in the memory, with All-Ireland finals played in the run-up to Christmas, in a cold and echoing Croke Park, understated but indomitable triumphs.
Few expected Championship matches in the early weeks of the pandemic, and so the effectiveness of the GAA in successfully holding them will be a cause of pride for years to come.
Now, the crisis is abating but with a stubbornly slow pace that dashed any hopes of a reversion to the old ways this summer.
This was, blessedly, recognised by the GAA leadership, who consistently showed an understanding of the wider national crisis that has escaped those demanding crowds, matches and all the other familiar touchstones that have been simply swept away over the last year.
The prospect of decent crowds in Croke Park over the final two weekends in August, for the hurling and football finals, is a gratifying one, and if the vaccination programme maintains its current pace then there should be a reasonably familiar look to the two biggest days in the Irish sporting year.
However, the pervasive uncertainty wrought by Covid-19 – evident in the scramble to revise reopening plans in the UK this week – continues to inform the planning of responsible organisations, and so the football and hurling championships take the form, again, of a dash to glory.
And the nostalgic giddiness caused by the return of straight knock-out in the football championship for a second season will be well gone by the August Bank Holiday, by which time most teams in the country are done for the year.
The championship starts in six days’ time, with games in the Connacht and Munster football championship (featuring Mayo and Kerry), and the Leinster hurling campaign.
The Munster hurling romance resumes this day week, Clare-Waterford the pick of a busy day that also includes the resumption of the gritted-teeth hurtle that is the Ulster football experience.
And in nine weeks it will all be over. The cups will be ribboned and handed over on the steps of the Hogan Stand. There should be some possibility of celebration with supporters in the days after victory, but the inter-county season will be concluded and the clubs will have the autumn and winter to themselves.
BY NEXT spring, the fervent wish is that life in all its manifestations will be taking on a recognisable shape, but until then it is another summer of make do and mend. And in the football championship, it is expected that no one will do this better than Dublin.
They will charge through Leinster and few expect their gallop to be checked by anyone outside the province, either.
Mayo were game in the Christmas final, but at no point did it feel as if a shock was in the offing.
There have been attempts to stir some mystery and drama around the future of Stephen Cluxton, after he failed to feature in a League game. This is hardly a surprise for a player who will be 40 in September.
And even if he has retired – and done so in a typically unique way, with the world only finding out long after he has put the boots into the attic – it will not be a fateful blow to their hopes.
They are simply too good, in too many ways, to be upset by the departure of one player – even one as great as he.
Beating Dublin is not a mystery, and while no one has managed it in the Championship for almost seven years, the key remains obvious: playing aggressively, matching them man for man, and taking just about every opportunity that comes your way.
Mayo have consistently been able to fulfil the first two criteria, but their failure to be ruthlessly efficient in attack is why they have fallen short against the champions.
And that is why Kerry are, rightly, fancied as Dublin’s closest challengers. David Clifford is carrying a tremendous burden of expectation, but he happens to be a phenomenal talent and is good enough to cope. Moreover, Paul Geaney is another premium forward in their forward line, with Sean O’Shea equally impressive. The doubts about Kerry are further back the field, and present in two ways: their overall defensive certainty; and their ability to play against Dublin man for man, and outlast them. There was mounting evidence in the drawn 2019 final that they could do so, until they ran out of energy in the drawn match and were utterly sucker-punched by Eoin Murchan’s goal after half-time in the replay.
Of course, the disastrous loss to Cork in a Munster semi-final last winter meant Kerry never got to re-join the battle with Dublin, but Peter Keane will have learned from his mistakes.
Clifford leading the resistance come August is the most likely agent of change in the football summer – with due respect to Donegal, the other significant presence in the football draw.
Limerick cast a long shadow across the hurling fixtures, but it is not the impenetrable gloom that Dublin have thrown across football.
They were marvellous in squashing Waterford’s hopes in the hurling final last December, while their league campaign was palpably experimental, too – until they obliterated Cork.
This was hardly coincidental, given the two teams meet on what should be a blistering Saturday evening in Thurles in 13 days’ time.
That presumes Cork will be able to last long enough with Limerick to make it into a drama, and the defensive shortcomings suspected and exposed by John Kiely’s team means doubts about the viability of Cork’s challenge bloom anew.
The depth of Tipperary’s ambition is to be gauged, too. As with Cork, most of the uncertainty attends their back-line, which is starting to creak and which could be ruthlessly exposed.
Waterford are entitled to court ambitions, while Clare ended the League well, but the most convincing challenge to Limerick could emanate from the west.
It is now three years since Galway won the Liam McCarthy Cup, and time is running out on proving it was more than a one-off.
Kilkenny look too vulnerable to sustain a run at another title.
The hurling campaign at least affords a second chance, whereas football’s contenders take to the high wire one more time.
It will be dramatic for those of us watching on, but the shocks are likely to come early in the summer.
As the days start to shorten and the field narrows, familiar figures will be expected to gather around Sam Maguire.
Hurling accommodates a little more mystery, at least.
A slaloming summer awaits. It’s worth being thankful for that, too, in a world that continues to tumble through confusion.
‘KERRY ARE QUITE RIGHTLY FANCIED AS DUBS’ CLOSEST CHALLENGERS’