Munster SHC (All games on Sunday)
Clare v Cork, Zimmer Biomet Páirc Chíosóg, 2pm
Three years ago, the Munster championship opened with a rerun of the previous year’s All-Ireland final. Limerick went to Cork and showed that the relative hierarchies hadn’t really changed. This weekend, the reunion of All-Ireland champions Clare with the side they edged aside in last year’s final is however expected to signal a decisive shift in fortunes.
Last July was a bit different from the 2021 final – a one-point contest that went to extra time as opposed to a massacre – but it’s unusual to see the credentials of champions discarded within so short a period of time.
It is true that the teams’ respective fortunes have diverged quite violently this season, culminating in Clare’s relegation and their six-goal whopping by Cork in Ennis last month. Much of that was caused by injury and player unavailability. The team Brian Lohan names for Sunday is as strong a selection as he has been able to field this year.
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Shane O’Donnell misses out because of his long-term injury and for all the admirable enthusiasm of his comments earlier this week in relation to the shoulder injury, even the most optimistic prognosis will keep him out until it may be too late.
The loss is all too calculable. O’Donnell’s terrifying amalgam of strength, movement and finishing was indispensable to Clare’s recovery in both matches against Cork last year.
Maybe the best solution is not to fall so far behind because if they repeat those lapses of Páirc Uí Chaoimh and Croke Park, it looks impossible that the opposition in its current form, will not take the opportunity to run away with the contest.
It is though the same Cork defence – exactly the same now that Cormac O’Brien is out with injury – that gave up the critical three goals last July even if it has looked more settled and formidable during the league.
One of the few positive indicators – the only? – from the league humbling for Clare was the extent to which Peter Duggan at full forward troubled Eoin Downey in Ennis before getting a red card.
The problem with that as a solution to O’Donnell’s absence is that Duggan was another significant element in the team’s successes against Cork when he played on the wing and he doesn’t have powers of bilocation.
Cork’s superpower in the league has been the rapacity of their attack and its ability to shoot goals – 13 in the last three matches. Even in this age of high point scoring, nobody wants to be needing to sling that sort of requirement over the bar if they are to keep up.
The pace of the attack, especially now that Darragh Fitzgibbon is at centre forward, and the orchestration of Brian Hayes will exert big pressure on Clare whose defence has been riddled with injury in the league and the prospects for the likes of Diarmuid Ryan hitting the ground running are at best, uncertain.
Still, Clare are sure to bring a store of doggedness to the task, especially after the league embarrassment. They are also fighting precedent, as this could be the third successive championship opener in Ennis that they fail to win even if they showed plenty of resistance in those defeats by Tipp and Limerick.
There’s no doubting their spirit for the contest but is it ultimately, an unequal fight?
Verdict: Cork
Tipperary v Limerick, FBD Semple Stadium Thurles, 4pm
Nickie Quaid’s extraordinary comeback from a cruciate injury may not be the greatest comeback ever seen on this particular weekend but there may well be queues to venerate his knee. It’s certainly a massive shot in the arm for Limerick.
The defending provincial champions have been very low-key and it’s a long time since they entered the championship so under the radar. Their league was extremely uneven between big wins over Galway and Tipperary and a near coup in Cork on one hand and losing without distinction against Kilkenny and Wexford.
More worryingly for John Kiely has been the signs that the large core of the team that recently dominated hurling is beginning to lose mass with niggling injuries and a decline in dynamism afflicting them.
A wealth of talent sits on the bench: Peter Casey, Seán Finn, the Morrissey’s, Dan and Tom, and Darragh O’Donovan. If they were fully ready, they’d be starting.
Limerick do have a great record in this fixture and have lost just one of the last eight meetings since the round-robin format began. Even this year’s league encounter failed to give Tipp much glimpse of a better future in that although competitive, they were outmuscled and beaten.
Since the league final, Liam Cahill has disputed the view that his team lack physicality but it has been the story of many of the last few matches against Limerick. He also hinted that Tipp might bring something new, which had been held back, for the championship.
That might involve a more varied restart strategy. It will need to, as they’ll find Limerick’s centrefield no less inclined to gobble up imprecise distribution than Cork were two weeks ago.
Tipperary competed with Cork for the first quarter, were blown apart in the second and for the remainder of the match, pucked about in the ruins. If however, Limerick don’t click or experience turbulence, it’s not beyond Cahill’s team to find a performance.
Some of the youngsters, Darragh McCarthy and Sam O’Farrell are having an upbeat time in the under-20s and whereas Cork overwhelmed them a bit two weeks ago, they would be still be buoyant if the gate was opened here.
Overall, though, you’d fancy the champions to find a way.
Verdict: Limerick
Leinster SHC (All games on Saturday)
Wexford v Antrim, Chadwicks Wexford Park, 2pm
Keith Rossiter did a fine salvage job on Wexford’s league campaign as soon as he got some of the missing players back. They finished respectably, defeating the All-Ireland champions and then the Munster champions – even if their straitened circumstances earlier in the campaign made relegation unavoidable. They’re still short Shane Reck and Conor McDonald but Liam Ryan is listed among the substitutes. Their former manager David Fitzgerald returns to town with a stuttering Antrim side that held its own in Division 1B but was well off the promotion race and accumulated just one point on the road.
Verdict: Wexford
Dublin v Offaly, Parnell Park, 6pm
Dublin may take solace in the venue given how Offaly clipped them late in the league match in Croke Park. Niall Ó Ceallacháin’s team finished out of the promotion places as a result but will hope to deploy their physical advantage here. Offaly took a while to get going in the Division 1B final but looked feisty when they got to the pitch of the game and but for a questionable penalty decision involving Brian Duignan, might have turned it all the way around against Waterford. Dublin’s new manager will hope to harness some of the genuinely impressive forward play by his All-Ireland winning Na Fianna side, who supply half the attack, Dónal Burke, Seán Currie and AJ Murphy. Anything but a win would turn the screw on Dublin.
Verdict: Dublin
Kilkenny v Galway, UPMC Nowlan Park, 3.45pm
This should be a box-office event for Leinster every year but low levels of jeopardy given expectations that both will progress, have tended to anaesthetise the spectacle even if the matches have been entertaining.
Galway have yet to lose a round-robin match in Kilkenny, having won and drawn previously. They also had an encouraging win here in the league, losing the initiative and their lead with it but bouncing back to edge out their opponents.
Declan McLoughlin must look forward to these matches. He equalised the match two years ago off the bench with his first touches in senior hurling and in February scored 2-2 in the league victory. Galway do have more of that evening’s team than Kilkenny but it should be competitive.
TJ Reid’s calf injury is a medium-term concern, as the team still relies on him more than is ideal at this stage of his glittering career. Derek Lyng has done what he can to seek out fresh blood for Kilkenny but he hasn’t been overwhelmed by candidates.
Still, what he has managed to field is close to the best available. A strong defensive spine from Eoin Murphy through Huw Lawlor and Richie Reid. Cian Kenny at centrefield was one of their best players, as was wing forward John Donnelly whereas Martin Keoghan has been heroic in this year’s league.
Adrian Mullen returns after a long spell out with injury and club mate Eoin Cody is also ready to go, so it’s a decent lineout.
Galway have Daithi Burke back on the panel and have it in them to give this a rattle but Kilkenny have responded more convincingly to the season’s challengers to date.
Verdict: Kilkenny
