Hurling's mid-term masters and the must-do-betters

On the weekend that the Allianz Hurling League teams sit their opening exams, our headmaster assesses the best and worst boys in the class so far.

Hurling's mid-term masters and the must-do-betters

On the weekend that the Allianz Hurling League teams sit their opening exams, our headmaster assesses the best and worst boys in the class so far.

Limerick

Mr Kiely’s stream continues to be the outstanding group in the school, so much so that they’ve been given the weekend off as a reward.

The manager promised he’d use the league to develop his panel and he’s been true to his word; the All-Ireland champions have employed no fewer than 29 different starters to date and 32 players in all.

The games against Tipperary and Kilkenny demanded statement performances and got them, with their poise in possession against the wind at Nowlan Park hinting at the kind of evolution Galway lacked last year; the Cork game was a defeat rather than an off-day; and if Limerick couldn’t win in Ennis, they managed the next best thing.

Another sustained run this summer requires that two or three of the subs threaten the incumbents.

In that regard Peter Casey can’t be far off the starting XV. The only worrying short-term scenario would be to reach the league final and win it doing handstands. A, say, four-point defeat in the final or semi-final sounds just the ticket to keep everyone on their toes and allow Kiely to shout at a few people. Eternal vigilance and all of that.

Wexford

A very pleasant surprise. One worry at the outset was that the momentum of last season, their first back in the top flight, would wear off. Another was that Davy, in his third year at the helm, might — the customary charge laid against him — be running out of things to say.

Not so far. Wins against Cork, Tipperary, and Kilkenny constitute a formline of substance. Equally encouraging is the change of direction and the greater emphasis on attack.

After losing successive All-Ireland quarter-finals in the same dreary, adventureless fashion, the last thing Wexford needed to do in 2019 was to return to a Plan A that had outlived its usefulness.

Thus Kevin Foley, the nearest thing they have to an Eoin Quigley, has been reformatted as a sweeper and a more expansive attitude is the order of the day. They wired into Kilkenny from the off last Sunday and had all too much for them in terms of physicality and athleticism.

Clare

Whether or not the pair are still there in 12 months’ time, this is the year that Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor have been building towards, the year we’re entitled to see both the team and the managerial duo at their best, comfortable in their own skin and their gameplan. Were disappointing against Tipperary, should have beaten Cork, were much too good for Kilkenny and emerged with honour intact against Limerick.

Were there a Banner star of yesteryear they could do with, it would be neither Tull Considine or Jimmy Smyth but Frank Lohan. A defender. Who can defend. And gives away neither soft scores nor soft frees.

The 15 frees with which Patrick Horgan was allowed win the Cork match will live on indefinitely as some class of bizarre punchline. As ever in such situations, the solution for Clare’s defensive woes can be found on the training field, time machines being unavailable. This is a coaching issue.

Tipperary

Who and what are Tipperary? We’ve had a better idea this past week.

Or perhaps not. Rather than offering some blinding new revelation the win against Cork, and its manner, merely reiterated a truism: give these Tipp forwards time on the ball and they’ll gut you as soon as look at you. It might be best to leave it at that for the moment.

After all, one knows the type of strings Noel McGrath is capable of pulling when sited at midfield and the winged beauties Jason Forde can arrow between the posts when lavishly supplied.

But one thing can be hazarded safely: should Tipperary reach a third successive league final, they won’t die a death in this one.

The school authorities wish to make it clear, incidentally, that last Sunday’s result does not mean they’ll be greenlighting trips to Spain for every class in 2020.

Cork

Would have been an unremarkable group campaign – two wins, two defeats and something else – but for the Páirc Uí Rinn fiasco six days ago. If the National League teaches us anything it instructs us in the importance of avoiding arriving at hard and fast conclusions on the evidence of one match. Still, contrast Limerick’s approach every day they’ve taken the field with Cork’s attitude against Tipperary, when only Bill Cooper was cited by John Meyler as bringing the “necessary competitive attitude”.

Michael Breen’s point shortly before the interval came about because Jake Morris, who supplied him with the assist and required two attempts to do so, was only half-marked while Breen was not being marked at all – and this when the hosts were facing the breeze and should have had the middle third flooded with red shirts. As a result of last Sunday’s antics both they and Mr Cody’s class have been sentenced to detention this afternoon.

Kilkenny

A case that the wins against Cork and Tipperary, the latter of them fortuitous, made them look better than they are, whereas defeats to Limerick and Clare, where they were playing second fiddle for long periods, were a true reflection of where they are? Probably, and that’s even before getting around to the issue of how heavily beaten they were by Wexford. Padraig Walsh will ply his trade out the field this summer, which is progress, though the identity of his replacement at full-back is not yet settled.

The stuff about “the return of the Ballyhale lads” has been overdone; it’s really only TJ Reid who’s guaranteed to improve matters. Two years ago Kilkenny went to Wexford Park as uneasy favourites for the provincial semi-final and were beaten. This year they’ll go there as underdogs.

Galway

Like every manager who’s lost an All-Ireland final, Micheál Donoghue is a wiser man this season. Last year he experimented in the league because he felt he had to, as is the custom with MacCarthy Cup-winning managers. This year he’s experimenting — Padraic Mannion at centre-back, Cathal Mannion at midfield — because he knows he has to.

The arrival of Kieran Donaghy is an intriguing piece of left-field thinking for which Donoghue deserves to be complimented, although one stone in the shoe remains. In their five outings in Division 1B, Galway managed five goals. They’re not going to be seen on the Hogan Stand podium next August if this pathology isn’t altered.

Dublin

Topped 1B, an achievement for which their reward is a trip to Tipp. Harsh, dude. Best performance was against Waterford, a 1-26 to 4-15 victory, where the respective points totals told the story. Too early to conclude that Mattie Kenny has put his stamp on the team but the backs look settled and Oisin O’Rorke has been a discovery up front.

As ever, turning possession into scores will be the hard part, to which end it looks like Liam Rushe will play in the forwards come summer. Could have been the championship dark horses of 2018; may be the championship dark horses of 2019.

Waterford

For the neutral they’re the most interesting of the four teams on view on TG4 today, if only because so little is known about them in their present incarnation. But they’ve gone about their business briskly under Paraic Fanning and wound up with by far the biggest plus points difference in their group. Fanning favours a more conventional configuration than Derek McGrath did, a switch that the current bunch needed at this stage.

The return of Shane Bennett increases their firepower, Stephen Bennett is in the form of his life and Walsh Park will be available for the championship. What’s not to be happy about?

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