After Tipperary beat Galway – on the same day Limerick were eliminated from the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship – Tipp boss Liam Cahill said that his Cork counterpart Pat Ryan was the only man smiling. It was more or less what everybody was thinking. Nobody was talking about the smile on Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng’s face.
It always seems crazy when Kilkenny go under the radar. They won their sixth Leinster title in a row this year more easily than the other five. Nobody laid a glove on them. The only game they lost was a dead rubber against Wexford. In that game, Kilkenny only fielded five players who will be starting in Croke Park in Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final against Tipperary. Adrian Mullen played centre back. For them, it was like a challenge match.
This year’s Leinster championship was so downbeat that Kilkenny didn’t get much credit for winning it. The Leinster final was a dead duck. What could Kilkenny do? They won all the games they needed to win.
When I look at this Kilkenny team I don’t see a weakness. Huw Lawlor is the best fullback in the country, Mikey Carey has been having an outstanding season at wing back, Cian Kenny is having his best season yet at centre field, John Donnelly is in the form of his life. Mossy Keoghan is much more consistent now than he was three or four years ago.
Inside Gaelic Games: The weekly GAA newsletter from The Irish Times
Dean Rock: Dessie Farrell had the players’ backs and he was repaid with unlikely 2023 All-Ireland win
Joe Canning: Most people think it’s Cork’s All-Ireland to lose and that suits Kilkenny just fine
Kilkenny’s Billy Ryan is tired of going close and wants to finally get his hands on Liam MacCarthy
Mullen is capable of hitting half a dozen points on any good day, and the return of Eoin Cody is a massive boost. TJ Reid, Cody, Mossy Keoghan and Billy Ryan all have an eye for a goal.
The Kilkenny backs are physical and ruthless. The forwards work with huge intensity. TJ is still their top scorer and the leader of their attack, but they don’t depend on him as much as they used to. That couldn’t go on forever. All around their forward line they have players who can chip in with four or five points on a good day, or a goal and a couple of points. They have threats all over the place.
Looking back over the quarter-final, Kilkenny will be encouraged by how many chances Galway created against Tipperary. Galway’s finishing was terrible but if Tipp are that open on Sunday, Kilkenny will pick them off.
The improvement in Tipp has been clear for everyone to see, not just in the last 12 months but since the start of the championship. Six years is a long time for Tipp to be missing from Croke Park, but after the beatings they took in last year’s Munster championship, nobody would have predicted such a turnaround in 12 months. Liam Cahill and his management team deserve huge credit for that.
But this will be a serious test. I can’t see Jake Morris, Jason Forde and Andrew Ormond getting the kind of space they got against Galway. Richie Reid at centre back is a little vulnerable to players running at him, but I’m not sure Tipp are going to be able to launch Ormond or Morris in that channel.
Since the last time Tipp played a championship match in Croke Park, Kilkenny have been in five All-Ireland semi-finals and two All-Ireland finals. The experience they have of this stage of the championship is greater than any of the other teams still standing. On top of everything else, I think that will give Kilkenny an edge on Sunday.
The crowd will be bigger for the other semi-final on Saturday, but there probably isn’t the same amount of excitement about that match. As soon as Dublin won their quarter final, people were looking for all the things Limerick failed to do on the day. Everyone loves an underdog story and neutrals all over the country were delighted to see Dublin win, but they were basically written off again once they had beaten Limerick.
The general feeling is that Cork have been forewarned. The Dublin performance against Limerick was probably better than anything they had produced since Anthony Daly was in charge, but to win again on Saturday they can’t afford to produce anything less. Can they get to that level two days in a row?
If Limerick weren’t helped by the lack of atmosphere in Croke Park the last day, as Graeme Mulcahy suggested, that won’t be a problem on Saturday. The Cork crowd will probably out-number the Dublin crowd by four or five to one. If Cork get up a head of steam you can imagine the noise.
Séamus Harnedy is a big loss to Cork, but I think he’s not as big a loss as he would have been four or five years ago. They have options now in the forwards, and all around the field, that they didn’t have before. Declan Dalton has been picked as a straight replacement for Harnedy and if they need to move Darragh Fitzgibbon into the forwards at any stage during the game, they have options off the bench to slot into centre field. I’m talking about the likes of Ethan Twomey, Brian Roche, Tommy O’Connell and Luke Meade.
Diarmuid Healy has made a big impression in his first season and Shane Barrett is much closer now to the form he showed all last summer. At this stage, though, the player that Cork can’t afford to be without is Brian Hayes. So much goes through him. He can take the ball any way it comes and he’s a playmaker as well as a finisher.
The Dublin full-back line was very good against Limerick, but they will need a lot of help from out the field if they’re going to shut down Hayes, Patrick Horgan and Alan Connolly. Will Dublin be able to stop the supply? I don’t think so.
I can see Cork making a fast start and targeting early goals. And even if they don’t get them, I think they’ll just have too much for Dublin.
