Kelly key to helping Tipp to lift the 'huzun'

MOSTLY HURLING: Tipperary’s league final form sees them as firm favourites on Sunday and in reality the only team with the strength…

MOSTLY HURLING:Tipperary's league final form sees them as firm favourites on Sunday and in reality the only team with the strength in depth to win back the MacCarthy Cup, writes JOHN ALLEN

IS THERE a sense of inevitability as Championship 2009 is now almost with us? Do the bookies seldom miscalculate? (well except for the odd English Grand National winner?) Is there any point in playing for the MacCarthy Cup this year? Is there a real danger the hurling public will become ambivalent towards the competition or, on the other hand will the crowds want to witness the making of contemporary history at every tackle, thrown hurl, turn and score? Are we about to witness the next and most historic chapter in the Kilkenny hurling story?

The Turkish Nobel-winning author Orhan Pamuk in his evocative and erudite memoir Istanbul: Memories of a City frequently uses the word huzun to describe the sense of melancholy that, he imagines, constantly envelopes his birth city. Has this huzun descended on the Liam MacCarthy competition in this, the 125th year of the Gaelic Athletic Association?

Have we witnessed any evidence so far this season that Brian Cody’s warriors won’t inflict further pain and embarrassment on all who are unfortunate enough to have to face the Noreside marauders? Have we experienced enough over the past three seasons to just accept the inevitable? Should we all be experiencing this huzun, this state of melancholia? Is there any way forward for the other teams this year?

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Will some tactical wizard conjure up plans to outfox the Great One? Might fitness be brought to a new level by a modern-day Mike Mac or indeed by Mike himself? Can John McIntyre produce a script that will be used on some big day by both sides (no more of the great unscripted drama stuff) with Brian’s acceptance of course and with an ABK victory.

Might Davy Fitz bring the physicality to a new level now he has the world bantamweight champ in his corner? Indeed he might give magician Keith Barry a second chance (we’ll overlook his misdiagnosis of last September).

Tipperary, on recent form the most likely cause for optimism, might look to plagiarise all of the above or they might just wait in some uncut sward for a period and just do enough to hang in there and then produce the performance of a lifetime on the first Sunday in September. Or maybe we’ll just pray for atrocious weather on big-match day when the champions’ skills will be greatly diminished.

Is there a realistic chance that the champions will have an off-day soon (well not too soon, early August will be time enough)? We can’t expect two off-days now can we?

What are the chances of one of the pretenders playing above themselves and springing a surprise? Well, where there’s life there’s hope.

The last time a team was heading for a historic four in a row a combination of over-confidence, a wet day and a Galway team on the rise (even though it did take them another year until we got to hear Joe Connolly’s wonderful eulogy) put an end to Cork’s attempt to emulate the feat of their counterparts of the ’40s.

The tide will turn but the question is how soon. I don’t think the lunar cycle will have any bearing on this particular tide though. Even though we might keep a weather eye on the lunar calendar in the hope that a full moon might have an unsettling effect on the neural wiring of some of the champions’ star performers.

Is this huzun also affecting the managements and players of the other teams in the competition? I presume some of them believe they are good enough to cause an upset, given the opportunity? Have Waterford and Limerick improved since their final cameos of the past two years? Will Joe Canning be expected to do most of the scoring for Galway and supply the passes for the rest? Is there one final kick in the Rebels or are Father Time and the Grim Reaper both appearing on the horizon again and not a championship sliotar pucked yet?

Has Liam Sheedy got Eoin Kelly back to full fitness, because if he has, Tipperary could be the team to finally lift the huzun. They impressed for much of last year but were out-foxed tactically by Waterford in the All-Ireland semi-final.

For the rest of the teams it’s a matter of performances and improving those performances and avoiding Kilkenny at all costs. In the early 1970s when that great Kerry football were putting considerable daylight between themselves and the distant chasing pack there seemed to be a similar huzun developing. For quite a few years the best that this particular mar-dhea footballer could hope for, after another Munster final drubbing, was a first 15 Kingdom jersey for the trophy chest.

Séamus Darby, though, ended that particular voyage. Who will the next Séamus Darby be and when will he strike, or will it take 15 Séamus Darbys to bring down this particular dynasty?

So is this generation different from others? The statistics don’t lie. Kilkenny, Cork or Tipperary have dominated all of the decades since the association’s founding, amassing a staggering 86 titles between them.

If I was forced to pick an outsider that might offer value for money this season it would have to be Dublin. They have made steady progress under Anthony Daly and could make a big breakthrough within the next few years.

So this weekend Offaly and Wexford open championship matters. I expect a repeat result of the recent league decider. Galway begin their maiden voyage in Leinster and should be much too strong for Laois.

The match of the weekend, though, should be in Thurles on Sunday. Cork have had three strikes off the field and at this stage should be out but recent challenge game results have produced (to use a well over-used topical quote), some green shoots.

But in reality this is a match between a good team on the way up against an ageing team on the slide. Brian Murphy and Diarmuid O’Sullivan will be missed from the full-back line, as will the wizard that was Joe Deane from the attack. Tipperary’s league final form sees them as firm favourites on Sunday and in reality the only team with the strength in depth to win back the MacCarthy Cup and lift that damned huzun.