Canning and Morrissey make a bad hurling day worse
The quest for the Liam McCarthy cup got off to the worst possible start with two desperately poor Leinster first round games in Port Laoise on Sunday. At least the Dublin/Westmeath game was interesting for 50 minutes, but its predecessor was essentially over before it began, with Laois taking the field in no fit mental state to make a fight of it against their next door neighbours. Their hurlers are definitely better than they looked here, but they were completely devoid of focus and concentration, as evidenced not just in the poor quality of their striking, but in the way Offaly players all over the field repeatedly gained possession without a marker in sight.
It is not all that long ago that Laois would have routinely regarded themselves as superior hurlers to Offaly, but that was before Brother Denis got to work in the Faithful County and, with a little help from Diarmuid Healy, changed the course of modern hurling history. Only one of the current senior squad took part in the glory years, but there remains a residue of almost arrogant confidence which keeps Offaly well ahead of the Laois men. It will be a different matter altogether, of course, when they face up to the Cats in three weeks time.
There are a lot of unfamiliar names on the Offaly team nowadays. On last Sunday’s evidence they can all hurl a bit, but whether they will be allowed to do so against Kilkenny remains to be seen. One notable feature of the current team is the number of big men it contains, a feature which will become even more obvious when Joe Bergin and Rory Hanniffy return. Big men who can hurl a bit are always likely to prove troublesome, although trying to convert Paul Cleary into a forward does have an air of desperation about it.
Notwithstanding the poverty of the opposition, it was great to see the evergreen Ger Oakley turn in another dashing performance on Sunday. Oakley’s experiences during the Offaly glory days were not the happiest – regularly getting a starting place on the base of good form on the training ground, and equally regularly failing to reproduce that form where it mattered most. As a consequence, Oakley was a marginal figure in the shadows of the Whelahans, Dooleys, Pilkington and Troy. However, with the fading of these bright stars into memory, Oakley for the first time had responsibility thrown upon his shoulders as Offaly sought to stay in the big time with a new generation of hurling hopefuls and, for the most part, he has performed the role quite well, filling in gaps all over the field as required. One hopes he is better appreciated in his home county now than was once the case.
In the second game on Sunday, there has no hint after even fifty minutes that the final score would be as lop-sided as it eventually turned out to be. With the aid of the strong wind, Dublin were beginning to open a bit of daylight between themselves and Westmeath, but they looked far from comfortable and appeared vulnerable to conceding a goal or two which could have undermined their brittle temperaments. Johnny Dooley clearly had done some good work with Westmeath, whose first touch was good and who had a number of players with a promising combination of pace and skill. However, they lacked the craft to turn good possession into scores and it was they who proved the more brittle as they fell asunder after conceding those killer goals halfway through the second half.
Whether Dublin can build on this remains to be seen. They are fit, hard-working and have some skill. However, there is still a lightweight feeling about the team, especially in their forward division. In Ronan Fallon they have a player of serious quality, but apart from him, there are few obvious leaders in the team. The return of Dotsy O’Callaghan from the football fringes appears to have given them extra scoring options, but the loss of Conal Keaney could ultimately prove the difference between this team going the extra mile and remaining stuck among the also-rans.
Following last Sunday’s one-sided skirmishes, the hurling championship is likely to really get going this weekend when defending Munster champions Waterford put their title on the line against Clare in Limerick. This column has never gone in for predicting the results of future games, as experience shows that time and again the assumptions on which such predictions are based are rendered meaningless by the actual turn of events. Who, for example, would have predicted Clare’s complete implosion in the corresponding game between the counties in 2004? One can expect Clare to be fit and combative, but their inability to unearth players of genuine quality in recent years remains a problem. Even without Ken McGrath, and with Eoin Kelly and Dan Shanahan unlikely to be fully fit, the Déise side still contains a lot of classy and experienced players. However, their problem may reside in their ability to maintain their motivation after long years of repeated disappointment on the road.
Elsewhere, much attention has focused on the prospects of Tipperary re-emerging as genuine contenders following their impressive league victory. However, this column retains reservations on this count. Tipp put in a major training effort over the winter, hit the ground running when the league commenced and, with the exception of Galway, were streets ahead of everyone else in terms of fitness and preparation. Despite Brian Cody’s reputation of wanting to win every game, this year the Cats took an early season breather and clearly are reserving their resources for a major assault on the elusive three-in-a-row in what may be Cody’s last year at the helm.
Waterford took a similar course of action, possibly because they felt that the effort they put into the league last year eventually told against them when it mattered most in August, but also because a lot of their players have major mileage on the clock and need a lot of recovery time. Meanwhile, Cork had their own early-season diversions and, when they eventually got going, they devoted their foreshortened league programme to trying out new players who looked promising but remain to be tested in the heat of championship action.
By high summer, then, Tipperary’s early season fitness advantage over the other major contenders (with the possible exception of Galway) will have largely disappeared and then the questions will really be asked about those who figured prominently in the league campaign. Is Lar Corbett a changed man or will he revert to the combination of occasional flashes of brilliance and long periods of anonymity which has been his normal form in the past? Can a reputedly slimmer and fitter Eoin Kelly find the extra half-yard against increasingly quick, tight and wise defenders – and, more importantly, even if he can, will he get the supply required for him to be able to do serious damage? Will Shane McGrath continue to emerge heroically, ball in hand, from tougher, more crowded, midfield exchanges? This column, for one, has doubts over whether Tipperary have added much of real quality to a squad which simply wasn’t good enough in recent years. This may change in time as some of the current series of good minor teams progress to senior level, but that time is unlikely to be 2008.
On a final note, congratulations to RTÉ for their new service which allowed Irish-based Internet users to watch the Dublin/Westmeath game live on Sunday last. We got a half-hearted commentary from Marty Morrissey to go with it, enlivened by the audible and frequent guffaws of those sharing the studio with him. And usually the guffaws were well-merited. Once, when Morrissey expressed surprise that what he thought was a puckout for Dublin turned out to be a free (even though the ball clearly had never crossed the end line) someone in the background could be clearly heard to exclaim: ‘Watch the monitor, Marty!’
This brings into focus the poor quality which is a routine feature of both Morrissey’s and Ger Canning’s commentaries. It is bad enough regularly mis-identifying players, but their inability to correctly interpret refereeing decisions indicates that neither commentator has a real feel for hurling. Last Sunday, for example, Donal O’Grady had to correct Canning several times for making wrong calls on fouls that had been committed. Sometimes you would wonder if Canning is watching the game at all, so obvious are the fouls which he misses or misidentifies. These people are presumably well-paid professionals from whom high standards should be expected. But then, the latest design and format for ‘The Sunday Game’ shows just how low standards generally are in the RTÉ sports department.
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