All-Ireland SHC quarter-finals (Saturday, FBD Semple Stadium, live on RTÉ2)
Dublin v Cork (1.15pm)
Clare v Wexford (3.15pm)
Amid all the outrage aimed at the fact the All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals will take place on Saturday afternoon, the matches themselves caught a stray from an unexpected source.
The late attempt to move the fixtures to Sunday in place of football’s Tailteann Cup semi-finals, pushed by hurling counties to give the games greater prominence and by Wexford to avoid a clash with the National Féile it is hosting, failed at the start of the week.
As some hurling folk did themselves no favours with dismissive comments about the football competition, it was the right decision at this stage of the season and Sligo manager Tony McEntee was absolutely correct in noting how disrespectful it would be to the Tailteann Cup.
His analysis of the hurling wasn’t quite so on-point: “These are hurling quarter-finals, which are probably dead rubber matches in the most case.”
In reality, all four counties at FBD Semple Stadium will strongly fancy their chances of joining Limerick and Kilkenny in the last four, with the two beaten last time out in the provincial finals with the most to prove.
Heading into Clare’s Munster decider with Limerick the main question was: Can the Banner, so often the closest team to the four-time defending All-Ireland champions over the past couple of years, finally turn them over on the big occasion?
They couldn’t, and in the manner in which they fell off the challenge when Limerick asked them the real questions in the second half, losing by six having been level at half-time, will have stung Brian Lohan’s side.
They face a Wexford team today, while not quite on a free hit, in a spot that seemed unlikely not long into the Championship.
A draw with Dublin, in which they shipped two injury-time goals, then defeat to Antrim that saw them cough up a seven-point second-half advantage had Keith Rossiter’s side more concerned with the trapdoor to the Joe McDonagh Cup than anything else.
But a comprehensive win over Galway in a charged display at Wexford Park kickstarted their season and they narrowly missed out on a Leinster final spot.
Lee Chin has continued to drag them forward by force of will, while Conor McDonald showed glimpses of the form that can be match-winning on the biggest days in both the one-point Leinster defeat to Kilkenny and the 12-point preliminary quarter-final win over Laois.
Wexford will need both, and the supporting cast, to be hitting their straps against Clare this afternoon who, after two weeks to absorb the Limerick disappointment bring David Reidy back into the side for Saturday’s clash. He comes into a forward division loaded with the talent of Tony Kelly, Shane O’Donnell and Mark Rodgers among others, but which managed only five points from play in the second half against of the Munster final, with neither Kelly nor O’Donnell scoring after the break. They can all contribute enough today to see Clare through a third successive All-Ireland semi-final clash with Kilkenny.
While Clare are a just better than a goal favourites in most places to get past Wexford, with the handicap nudging double figures for the curtain-raiser in Thurles, Dublin aren’t expected to trouble Cork. The wave of optimism that carried them from their round robin win over Galway to the Leinster final against Kilkenny evaporated against the Cats in a chastening 16-point hiding.
It won’t get any easier against Cork, who huffed and puffed between turning on the style at points to beat Offaly in their preliminary quarter-final.
The final margin of nine was skewed by two Offaly goals in injury-time, and Cork looked like a team that hadn’t played in four weeks.
But if they give up the goal chances they did against Offaly against Dublin they’ll find it a lot harder to keep matters in hand.
At the other end of the field Seamus Harnedy comes in for Conor Lehane and the Rebels’ forward line – the only one that’s been able to burn off Limerick in this year’s Championship – appears too potent for the Dubs and can fire them to the last-four, where they’ll face a rematch with the Shannonsiders should Clare beat Wexford.
