T he nature of hurling’s quarter-finals have changed over the years according to the format of the championship but for the last 20 years it has always involved damaged teams. Not every team that loses a provincial final can get over it in the space of a fortnight. Everybody loses differently and recovers differently.
Sometimes, there is no way of knowing. Fifteen years ago, I played on a Galway team that lost to Waterford by 10 points in an All-Ireland quarter-final just a fortnight after Waterford had lost the Munster final by seven goals. Who saw that coming? Not us.
This weekend, Offaly are the only one of the quarter-finalists who won their last game. They’re on a three-match unbeaten run. Everybody else is dealing with a negative: Clare lost their last game to Cork by 16 points, Dublin lost the Leinster final by 14 points , Cork lost a gruelling Munster final to the team that probably stands between them and the All-Ireland.
Nobody is worrying about Cork. The big question marks hang over Dublin and Clare.
Before the Leinster final the feeling was Dublin had moved to the next level. In the games that mattered they stood up. Beating Galway in Salthill and Kilkenny in Parnell Park were statement performances. Winning a Leinster title was regarded as a natural progression.
Instead, Galway tore them apart. Dublin were out-hurled and out-smarted. All of a sudden, it was as if nothing had changed. They went into that game with complete belief in their system of play and how they were set-up and all of it fell down.
How do they come back from that in two weeks? Do they still believe in the way they’ve been playing for the last six months or are they forced to try something different? Can you make those kind of fundamental changes in a fortnight?
Galway's Padraic Mannion and Dublin's Ronan Hayes in the Leinster hurling final. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
[ Dublin hurler Brian Hayes: ‘There’s a lot of belief in our panel, we know how good we are’ Opens in new window ]
Clare will pose a different challenge to Galway. There will be more room to breathe. When Galway don’t have possession they basically have 13 players behind the ball. Clare’s defence is never packed. Brian Lohan doesn’t believe in sweepers. That gives Dublin a chance.
Donal Burke, for example, couldn’t make any impression in the Leinster final because the pockets of space in the middle third where he usually thrives were packed with Galway players. Against Clare, that won’t be the case. Burke will drift from centre forward and John Conlon won’t follow him. He will have to deal with pressure from Clare’s centre fielders and wing-forwards, but not to the extent that he experienced in Croke Park a fortnight ago.
It’s hard to know where Clare stand. The hidings they took against Limerick and Cork went against the grain for Clare teams under Brian Lohan. The performance they produced against Tipperary would make them competitive against anybody, but they haven’t put two good games back-to-back yet.
The four-week break since their last game will be a huge advantage to Clare though. Ryan Taylor and Mark Rodgers were injured for the Cork game, and they were a massive loss. They will surely be back. With Conlon playing as a sitting six, Taylor’s defensive role is crucial because he covers the spaces that Conlon leaves.
Ryan Taylor of Clare against Waterford. Photograph: Natasha Barton/Inpho
You’d wonder if Clare considered their alternatives at centre back over the last month. Niall O’Farrell played there during the league, but he has been outstanding at wing back and it probably makes sense to leave him there. Conlon had a blinder against Tipp but in the Cork game he couldn’t cope with Shane Barrett’s pace.
I was covering that game for RTÉ and we had access to the communication system between the referee and his team of officials. At one stage you could hear Johnny Murphy shouting at Conlon, “Stop holding John, stop holding.”
Dublin are in a similar situation with Liam Rushe. Conor Whelan scored two points at the beginning of the Leinster final and another two points at the start of the second half. On each occasion he made a dart to get away from Liam Rushe.
Dublin want Rushe to be a sitting six and not necessarily marking a man, but everybody is marking somebody at the throw-in. Galway exploited that at the beginning of both halves.
Dublin's Liam Rushe after the Leinster final loss to Galway. Photograph: Tom O’Hanlon/Inpho
Conlon turned 37 in January; Rushe turned 36 on Thursday. They’ve both been great players over a long period of time, and maybe they have a couple of big days left in them, but it’s not ideal when you’re turning to players of that age to be the anchor of your defence. Brian Hayes must do the kind of covering for Rushe that Taylor does for Conlon. Cork and Limerick are not asking any of their centre fielders to spend their energy in that way. It makes a difference.
This is the first weekend of the season when Leinster and Munst…
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