Life, liberty and Lohan… Banner are buzzing again
MAY 8 feels like no time to be talking about make-or-break days in the Championship. But this is the new hurling order and, whatever reservations people may have, the usual drama has been in plentiful supply. Amid the excitement and the uncertainty, some familiar sights remain.
The most compelling have been provided by Limerick. Before a ball was pucked, there was talk of Limerick’s patchy Allianz League form. Now it’s not boasting on my part when I say that I didn’t buy into it. A couple of poor matches in the League does not compare to the heights we know they are capable of hitting.
Spring isn’t of interest to this group or their management. Championship is what counts. John Kiely has been clever in his selections, as we saw with the use of Kyle Hayes against Cork.
Cian Lynch is gone for the rest of the Munster SHC and Peter Casey is out long term, but they can cope because have real depth. Don’t underestimate how important the breakthrough of Cathal O’Neill is, too. He looks a rare talent.
Then you see the county winning the Munster Under-20 title on Wednesday night, beating Tipp without O’Neill in the team.
The fact that Waterford are closest to Limerick is no surprise, either. They still look best placed of any of the other contenders to upset Limerick, but I don’t think there’s an awful lot between the teams in that pack chasing the champions.
That neither Cork nor Tipp are part of that leading group of challengers brings us to one of the unexpected elements of the summer so far. The two traditional giants of Munster hurling are hanging on by a thread, and it really does look like both of them could be eliminated within weeks, and Tipp effectively from tomorrow if they lose to Limerick.
Their struggles are no big surprise, given the obvious need for transition to a new group of players. They played really well for large stretches of their opening match against Waterford, but then Clare really took them apart.
They simply had no answers to the movement, speed and inventiveness of Clare.
Liam Sheedy took a lot of heat last year for not bringing in younger players sooner, and you could look at it now and say that if he’d done so they would be a year more experienced and the growth of a new team would be further advanced.
That’s a black-and-white way of looking at it, though. The truth is that the step up to senior hurling is huge and any manager, be it Sheedy or anyone else, will pick players that can live with senior championship intensity.
You can’t ditch older players and pick young ones simply because of the dates on their birth certs. But teams need to evolve, too, and finding that balance is very difficult, as Tipp’s current difficulties show.
Cork are taking huge criticism, with the flak coming not just from the public but from a number of ex-players, too.
It’s no surprise that Kieran Kingston mentioned the effect of criticism after the loss to Clare.
The other big surprise has been Clare. They’ve been terrific, and two wins from two leaves them in a strong place to progress. I’ve known Brian Lohan a long time, playing against him for years and then getting to know him a little bit off the field.
Playing against him, you quickly understood his passion and his ruthlessness, and I know the enormous passion he has for his county. Clare have problems, and the off-the-field stuff is well detailed, but they have made huge strides under Lohan.
It seems sometimes that his passion is a huge factor in driving them on, but there’s a lot more to them. The players look like they are loving their hurling.
They are playing with freedom, and there is drive and determination in every line of their team.
After Limerick, be it Kilkenny, Galway or one of the other two teams that comes out of Munster, there isn’t a lot between that second group of teams.
It’s worth mentioning the most famous GAA handshake in years, too. The Galway-Kilkenny game had everything, I thought, a ferocious battle between two well-drilled sides.
But the exchange between Henry Shefflin and Brian Cody stole many of the headlines. It mightn’t have looked very warm to the outsider, but that is top-level sport. These men are fierce competitors, and neither will care what anyone says about their handshake.
Henry left Kilkenny, and that was understandable. He was never going to be a No2 or go in under Cody, as far as I could see, and why should he? He had shown his managerial ability at Ballyhale. He took on a job that many would have found daunting in Galway, and that showed his ambition and self-belief. You have to admire, too, how Henry has come back after the death of his brother, Paul.
It showed his mental strength and courage. His is just one great story in a summer that’s now in full flight.