Joe Canning: Summer will be over before it starts for losers of Munster showdown - and US clubs are ready to pounce

Saturday night in Ennis will feel like a throwback to the 1990s and early 2000s when Clare and Tipperary couldn’t stand the sight of each other. In those days, they played many high-stakes matches with no safety net for the losers. That’s the deal again this weekend – the losers will have no way back.

It seems crazy that any team should be out of the hurling championship on May 10th. If you look at the football championship, every team is safe for at least another month. The hurling weather has only arrived in the last fortnight, with a bit of sunshine and firm pitches. These lads have been training since last November, or probably even October, and their championship could be over soon.

The other winners in this scenario are the clubs in America trying to stock up their teams for the summer. In my Galway career, June 16th was the earliest we were eliminated. Cork beat us in Thurles on a Saturday evening and before I left the field there was a message on my phone from a guy in New York.

That’s what will happen this weekend. A bunch of players from Clare or Tipperary will be making plans to play hurling in America for the summer. This is an unintended consequence of the split season and the pushing back of the club championships until August. It opened up America again for intercounty players that were knocked out before the middle of May. It’s crazy in lots of ways.

READ MORE

At the height of their rivalry, around the time Ger Loughnane was manager of Clare (1994 to 2000), Clare and Tipp never played in Cusack Park in the championship. I think the venue will be a big factor on Saturday night. I never played a championship game there, but even for league games it felt like a big advantage for Clare.

Even allowing for the fallout from Darragh McCarthy’s early red in Páirc Uí Chaoimh a couple of weeks ago, both teams will be revved up. The managers, Liam Cahill and Brian Lohan, aren’t going to change their ways. That will feed through to the crowd and there’s no doubt it will put pressure on referee James Owens.

A significant worry from Offaly’s point of view is how weak they have been at minor level

There will be plenty of collisions and some split decisions. Even though he’s an experienced referee with a lot of big-game experience, he won’t get everything right. The crowd will get on the ref’s back at some stage and he will need to be strong.

I think it comes down to Tony Kelly. If he plays, Clare will win. Without him, they’re vulnerable. McCarthy is obviously a loss for Tipp, but I still think they have enough firepower to take this game down to the wire. In a contest like that, Kelly can make the difference.

Offaly celebrate winning the 2024 under-20 All-Ireland hurling title. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho

In Leinster, Offaly and Antrim both face the prospect of effectively being eliminated from the championship this weekend. The way the fixtures have been scheduled, these teams are due to meet on the final weekend, which looks destined to be a relegation shoot-out.

Offaly hurling has been a good-news story for the guts of a year. Their under-20s won a brilliant All-Ireland last summer and their seniors did well to win promotion from Division 1B. However, they have been beaten in their opening two games in the championship and they were poor against Galway.

[ Unlucky Waterford faced almost impossible task against Limerick due to schedulingOpens in new window ]

[ Ciarán Murphy: Daft scheduling leaves GAA fans channel-hopping between games in biggest Saturday of season so farOpens in new window ]

Most teams find it very difficult to get motoring when a player is sent off, but Galway had only 14 players for the whole second half against Offaly and it didn’t make any difference. In Nowlan Park on Saturday, Kilkenny will show them plenty of respect and I can’t see it being close.

It has been a worrying few weeks for Offaly hurling in general. Their minors lost to Laois in the championship by 7-23 to 0-13 and their under-20s were eliminated from the championship by Dublin.

This is their golden generation, most of whom played on the team that won the under-20 All-Ireland last year and that were pipped by Tipp with a last-minute goal in the minor All-Ireland three years ago.

At the start of this year’s senior championship, they were among the favourites to win it. In the end, they never raised a gallop. I’m involved with the Galway under-20s and in the group phase of the championship we beat them by 10 points. Dublin beat them by seven points earlier this week and were well worth it.

For this generation of players, the next jump is the biggest one. A good few of them will be lining out against Kilkenny this weekend and it won’t matter if they looked good as minors or under-20s. Games like this will be the acid test over the next couple of years.

A lot of great work has been done in Offaly over the last few years, but people can’t expect dramatic changes overnight. Just because the county produced one outstanding group of underage players and fought its way back into the Leinster championship, people seemed to think they would be seriously competitive again. It doesn’t work like that.

A significant worry from Offaly’s point of view is how weak they have been at minor level for the last couple of years. In last year’s Leinster championship, they competed in tier two in the group phase. When they reached the knock-out stages, they lost to Wexford by 10 points. In 2023, their only wins in the Leinster championship were against Westmeath and Kerry. There is no conveyor belt of talent coming through.

The biggest game in Leinster this weekend is in Salthill. Neither Galway nor Wexford can afford to lose. Some of those lads will be in America before we know it.

Click here to read article