Compiled by SEAN MORAN and MALACHY CLERKIN
TODAY
All-Ireland SFC Qualifiers, Round Four
Meath v Laois, Tullamore, 3.30
With 15 minutes to go in last week’s Leinster final, Laois would have been fancying their chances in this but Meath’s late revival against Dublin gave them momentum going into the dreaded six-day turnaround, from whose bourne no traveller returns.
Seámus McEnaney has experience of reviving a team’s fortunes after a provincial final defeat when Monaghan reached the quarter-finals five years ago and his team came out of last week more buoyantly than might have been expected 10 points adrift. But he also fell victim to the six-day interval between the 2010 Ulster final and the final qualifier round, where they lost to Kildare.
In their favour is Laois will not have the capacity Dublin demonstrated to take them apart but against that Justin McNulty’s men are unlikely to make the equivalent of a cricket declaration, as the All-Ireland champions appeared to do last week.
The midlanders had been having a poor season up until the qualifiers, which have seen them beat Carlow, Monaghan and Leitrim on the spin.
Centrefield will be important because it’s been Laois’s strongest suit and where Meath have experienced greatest fluctuation between the high-rise form of Conor Gillespie against Kildare and Graham Reilly’s probing on the one hand and the much more muted displays in last week’s final.
Meath’s forwards are likely to be the match winners. Just as they produced under pressure against Kildare in the final quarter they also punished Dublin’s lassitude in the closing stages to make the scoreboard respectable.
MEATH: D Gallagher; D Keogan, K Reilly, B Menton; D Tobin, S McAnarney, M Burke; C Gillespie, B Meade; A Forde, D Carroll, G Reilly; B Farrell, J Sheridan, C Ward.
LAOIS: E Culliton; C Healy, K Meaney, J Kavanagh; D Strong, J O’Loughlin, C Boyle; B Quigley, C Begley; R Munnelly, B Sheehan, G Walsh; D O’Connor, P Clancy, C Kelly.
Referee: Joe McQuillan (Cavan).
Sligo v Kildare, Dr Hyde Park, 6.30
This fixture provided arguably the first great shock of the qualifiers format in its inaugural year at Croke Park less than a year after Kildare had been All-Ireland semi-finalists. The one-point win convinced Sligo to hang on to the all-black playing strip they had been wearing to avoid a clash with their Lilywhite opponents.
Sligo have been a serious presence in Connacht for a few years now and were narrow losers to Mayo a fortnight ago having given Galway a sound beating. Kildare, on the other hand, have endured a nightmare championship, losing to Meath when they were expected to challenge for the Leinster title and requiring extra-time to beat Limerick.
Kildare are now doing what they know best – edging a way through the qualifiers. The match in Cavan was a challenge because of the Seán Johnston affair whereas Limerick had them dead in the water with 40 seconds to go.
Somehow they survived and asserted themselves in extra-time and manager Kieran McGeeney may well be happy enough to go into a potentially tricky match with expectations down.
Sligo work hard, cover well and have good forwards and if Kildare perform with the same lack of conviction on show in recent matches, Kevin Walsh’s side have the wherewithal to punish them. The belief here, however, is Kildare will kick on from last week’s shock and show some more improvement in sight of a fifth successive All-Ireland quarter-final.
SLIGO: P Greene; N Ewing, J Martyn, R Donovan; C Harrison, M Quinn, P McGovern; S McManus, T Taylor; M Breheny, D Maye, B Egan; A Costello, A Marren, D Kelly.
KILDARE: S Connolly; A MacLochlainn, P Kelly, H McGrillen; E Bolton, M O’Flaherty, E Doyle; M Foley, R Kelly; E O’Flaherty, M Conway, A Smith; J Doyle, T O’Connor, J Kavanagh.
Referee: David Coldrick (Meath).
Tipperary v Down, Cusack Park, Mullingar, 4pm
There are six-day turnarounds and there are six-day turnarounds. Meath came within a kick of a ball of the All-Ireland champions and, crucially, were strongest at the finish. Down got battered in their first Ulster final in 18 years and were running on empty long before the final whistle.
Should they lose to Tipperary here, it will complete a clean sweep of sorts for the Ulster Council, with the defeated provincial finalists exiting the championship for the fifth year in a row a week after going out of Ulster.
Since the advent of the qualifiers, only Cavan in 2001 and Donegal in 2004 have lost their next game when given a fortnight to prepare. The pattern isn’t hard to discern.
There’s every chance Down will go the same way here. Tipperary may have taken advantage of a benign enough qualifier draw to get to this point, with Wexford the only game they went into as underdogs, but they have faced down each challenge put in front of them. They’re solid at the back, with Ciarán McDonald blossoming into one of the blue-chip defenders in Munster and they have a strikeforce of real potential in Peter Acheson, Alan Maloney and the brilliant Michael Quinlivan.
Down will expect to have too much football for them and if the game was a week later, you probably have to agree. But Tipp are headed in the opposite direction to Down and just might pass them out here. Tipp by two.
TIPPERARY: P Fitzgerald; A Morrissey, P Codd, C McDonald; B Fox, R Kiely, A Campbell; G Hannigan, H Coghlan; R Ryan, P Austin, D Leahy; A Maloney, P Acheson, M Quinlivan.
DOWN: To be announced.
Referee: Cormac Reilly (Meath).
Kerry v Clare, Gaelic Grounds, Limerick, 7pm
The Clare players must feel like they kicked an army of black cats somewhere along the way. At a push, there might be one team in the country who would be left standing after having to face both Cork and Kerry before the end of July; it’s very unlikely there are two.
Clare will walk away from the table tonight knowing that no matter how smart you play, sometimes the dealer just doesn’t like the look of you.
They’ve given the championship a slew of solid performers. Gary Brennan, in particular, has been eye-catching in midfield and against a Kerry side that still isn’t hugely convincing out around the centre, he can hope to make a modicum of hay this evening. David Tubridy has taken his chance to introduce a wider circle of observer to his range of talents, often on a limited supply of ball.
Had Clare drawn Laois or Tipperary or maybe even Kildare, they would go in here with a lightness in their heart and a maybe-just-maybe chance. But against the dark lords from the south, they will struggle to find any sort of foothold. It’s a long, long time since 1992 and all that.
For Kerry, it’s a matter of fitting everything into place now ahead of Croke Park next weekend. Jack O’Connor has named the same team, clearly for just that purpose. They obviously don’t need everything to click like it did against Tyrone but they do need to assure themselves it can click again when they reach for the switch.
Above all else, they need to get through this without an injury and suspension-free. Kerry have bigger battles to come and tonight won’t necessarily tell us anything about their state of readiness. Their need to keep the engine turning over, however, could mean a distinct lack of mercy when it comes to putting up a score.
CLARE: J Hayes: K Harnett, B Duggan, L Healy; E Coughlan, G Kelly, J Hayes; G Brennan, G Quinlan; S Brennan, S McGrath, A Clohessy; R Donnelly, D Tubridy, M ’Shea.
KERRY: B Kealy; M Ó Sé, A O’Mahony, S Enright; T Ó Sé, E Brosnan, K Young; A Maher, B Sheehan; P Galvin, Declan O’Sullivan, D Walsh; J O’Donoghue, C Cooper, K Donaghy.
Referee: Maurice Deegan (Laois).
Sunday
All-Ireland SHC quarter-final
Waterford v Cork, Semple Stadium, 2pm
Tomorrow’s first of this year’s GAA All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals is the hardest of all the weekend’s matches to call. It wouldn’t have looked that way during the league, as the counties – both under new management – were set on different trajectories.
Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s Cork skimmed through to the final, while Waterford struggled to stay in the top division but by the end there were signs of convergence, as Cork crashed against Kilkenny and Waterford pieced together a revival that preserved their status.
Michael Ryan has steadied the ship and the championship performances have been creditable, as the team proved too good for Clare and surprisingly resistant to Tipperary.
At the heart of the team effort has been a formidable half-back line, featuring Tony Browne – who must have a scary portrait somewhere in his attic – in his 20th championship, captain Michael Walsh and Kevin Moran, a leading All Star contender.
How Cork’s half forwards cope will be one of the match’s principal criteria. Cork’s championship has been a flurry of inserting a large key-ring into a variety of locks and trying to remember which ones fit, while coming to a dawning realisation that some fit better on particular days than others.
Stephen McDonnell’s return at full back picks up on his steady pupillage through the league, which was abandoned after the final horror-show against Kilkenny, but leaves unresolved his greater suitability as a corner back.
Seán Ó hAilpín’s return makes for an experienced wing-back pairing with Tom Kenny on the other flank, acting as air-raid wardens for Eoin Cadogan in the face of Séamus Prendergast’s threat.
Cork ultimately have a couple of advantages, though. Patrick Horgan is more reliable on dead ball duty than Maurice Shanahan and already Barry-Murphy has assembled a very quickly experienced bench, given the amount of changing that has been done from match to match.
They are also a team on the move and even if how far that will ultimately take them remains indeterminate, it should fuel them as far as next month’s semi-finals.
CORK: A Nash; S O’Neill, S McDonnell, B Murphy; T Kenny, E Cadogan, S Ó hAilpín; D Kearney, P Cronin; C Lehane, C McCarthy, N McCarthy; P O’Sullivan, L O’Farrell, P Horgan.
WATERFORD: S O’Keeffe; S Daniels, L Lawlor, N Connors; T Browne, M Walsh, K Moran; S Molumphy, Philip Mahony; Pauric Mahony, S Prendergast, M Shanahan; J Mullane, S Walsh, T Ryan.
Referee: Barry Kelly (Westmeath).
