May is a wonderful month of sport. The finale to the club soccer and rugby seasons are approaching, while the second major of the golf season is now upon us. We also, of course, have the GAA seasons, moving with their own fluvial sense of purpose through the provincial championships.
It’s easy at this time of year to overlook the EFL playoffs. I have often done exactly that in the past – but I’ve always regretted it. They repeatedly seem to throw up the most outrageous storylines. On Tuesday night, I saw Southampton (with Finn Azaz and Ryan Manning) knock Alan Browne’s Middlesbrough out in the Championship playoff semi-final with a goal in the 116th minute of the second leg. It followed accusations that Southampton had spied on a Middlesbrough training session last week ahead of the first leg.
It was a hilariously spiky, tetchy affair but you couldn’t take your eyes off it. For many people, the Championship is where it’s at, if you can accept the quality isn’t at the standard of the Premier League. What it lacks in quality, it more than makes up for in competitive uncertainty.
And it gives me great pleasure to say the Leinster Hurling Championship has got some of that juice all of a sudden. No-one’s saying the Leinster championship is being played at a higher level than the Munster round-robin . . . certainly not anyone who sat through Dublin v Wexford last Saturday.
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But at the moment, it is all gloriously uncertain. Offaly’s draw with Kilkenny last Sunday has comprehensively put the cat among the pigeons. As a result of Eoghan Cahill’s controversial 74th-minute 65 in Tullamore, there is a sequence of not-at-all-unlikely events that would see Kilkenny deprived of even third place in Leinster.
There are six games left in the Leinster championship. On Saturday evening we have Galway at home against Dublin, Kilkenny host Kildare and Offaly take on Wexford.
On the final weekend, we have Dublin against Kilkenny in Parnell Park, Kildare meet Offaly and Galway go up against Wexford. If the winners of those first five games listed are Galway, Kilkenny, Offaly, Dublin, and Offaly . . . then Kilkenny will be out of the championship. You have my permission to go back and read that again.
Neither Offaly beating Wexford, nor Kilkenny losing in Parnell Park could possibly be described as shocks going on this season’s form. For example, Dublin and Kilkenny both drew with Offaly and they were both far too good for Wexford. For their part, Galway’s home record in the round-robin is formidable.
Offaly are now in danger of becoming the story of the provincial championships. Two wins against the two teams currently bottom of the standings would put them in a very positive position, but they would still need help. If Galway beat Dublin and Kilkenny take care of business against Kildare this weekend – as we must assume they will – then two wins for Offaly would qualify them, as long as there is a winner between Dublin and Kilkenny.
If that game ended in a draw, then Offaly would need to have made up the 13-point differential between their scoring difference and Kilkenny’s over the next two weekends. Eminently possible, but the points difference is a wrinkle they need to be aware of. One thing’s for sure – every point scored to pad out a winning margin will be vital.
For the sake of their team captain Charlie Mitchell alone, Offaly making the All-Ireland series would be a roundly welcomed surprise. Doing so at the expense of Kilkenny would be absolutely seismic. The performance in Nowlan Park against Wexford was supposed to have quieted the natives, but instead of rampant inconsistency, maybe what we’re seeing is performances of about the same level from this Kilkenny team.
Perhaps hammering this iteration of Wexford was not the statement response we thought it was a fortnight ago.
Wexford are the fifth-best team in the province and they are possibly blessed to have played Kildare first up, because the Lilywhites are starting to get the hang of it at this level. Kildare gave Galway plenty of it on Saturday and were full value for their 10 point half-time lead.
But by the same token, if Wexford beat Offaly this weekend there’s a good chance they could be playing an already-qualified, Leinster final-bound Galway in the last round. If they then happened to beat Galway’s B team, they would finish on six points and would also only need a winner between Dublin and Kilkenny to finish third.
Wexford might not have played anywhere near well enough yet to deserve that shot, but what’s beyond doubt is that Galway (and Cork, in Munster) have earned the right to choose whatever side they like for their last game. Round-robins are inexact sciences, but every team gets the chance to win enough games to rotate their squads in their final game.
Cork have the weekend off and Limerick will be hotly fancied to take care of Waterford’s walking wounded at home. If Limerick beat Waterford and Clare beat Tipperary this weekend, the whole southern jamboree will be wrapped up a week early, with only the order of the top three up for discussion. That really would be something, for all the annual talk of the Munster bear-pit.
The standard in Leinster might not rival what we’re watching in Munster, but the permutations are pretty dazzling. This weekend will define seasons.
