On a very basic level, if Clare repeat the performance they put in during the Munster final, they will surely beat Wexford.
They reached a level in that game that is a good bit above what Wexford have shown so far. If they reach it again, they should be through to the All-Ireland semi-final.
But doing it again isn’t straightforward. For a start, lifting everybody in the group after losing an epic Munster final after extra-time is very difficult. A game like that takes so much out of you mentally and physically. Getting yourself ready for an All-Ireland quarter-final 13 days later is a job in itself, whatever the circumstances.
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In Clare’s case this time around, there has been a potentially bigger problem in the two suspensions that hung over Rory Hayes and Peter Duggan until late on Wednesday night. At least they know now that the two boys are available. Training on Thursday would have been buzzing. It could be exactly the lift they need at just the right time.
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We won’t know for sure until the game is over what effect it all had. These things can be a huge distraction. Not so much because of the suspensions themselves, although that side of it is tricky to handle, especially when you’re appealing them. Planning becomes that bit more complicated when you’re not sure who you’re going to have available.
If you pour too much of your energy into thinking the world is against you, you risk becoming over-invested in the wrong thing
But the bigger distraction for Clare had to be the fact that this became such a public topic of conversation. All through last week and into this week, people in Clare were going on social media and giving out about an agenda against the county.
There have been columns in newspapers, people talking on radio, lot and lots of grievances being aired. The one thing you can tell from all that is that this was a huge talking point within the county.
If you were a Clare player trying to prepare for an All-Ireland quarter-final, this was the last thing you need. Because all of a sudden, the major theme of the week was something that actually had nothing to do with the game. It must have been difficult for them not to lose focus.
A distraction like this can be lethal. Everywhere you go, you have people telling you it’s awful for the two lads. Everyone you come into contact with is either asking if there’s an appeal or telling you Clare are always hard done by in these situations. Or they’re saying it’s trial by media, or that the GAA are a disgrace. All the other talking points you’ve heard a hundred times by now. And every bit of headspace you’re giving it is a bit of headspace you aren’t giving Wexford.
It’s so tricky to navigate for the Clare management. If you start to try and build up a siege mentality, it might not be enough to do the job you need to do. Game preparation has to be about what you’re going to do on the day against Wexford. If you pour too much of your energy into thinking the world is against you, you risk becoming over-invested in the wrong thing.
When you are building your siege mentality, you’re not thinking about how you’re going to set up. You’re not thinking about how you’re going to play. You’re not going over match-ups. Most of all, you’re not thinking about Wexford.
They have no role in your siege mentality. They weren’t involved at any stage in the proceedings. There was no Wexford pundit on The Sunday Game picking out incidents. They’re just sitting there waiting while you focus on something other than them. It suits them down to the ground.
The big positive for Clare is that it was eventually sorted on Wednesday night. That gives them two and a half days to move on and refocus. It didn’t drag on closer to the weekend and they have clarity on who is available to them. No distractions. Just a clear run at the job they have to do.
Still, for Wexford, this is a bit of a free hit. Nobody really expected them to be here after Dublin beat them in Wexford Park. Most people presumed that was the third-place decider in the Leinster championship. So they kind of have nothing to lose.
Darragh Egan has done a good job with them. I’ve noticed that as the season has worn on, they’ve gone back a little bit to setting up the way they did under Davy Fitz. Not all the time but here and there, as if it’s a habit they can’t quite shake. I think that’s very understandable and it’s a good sign of what a smart coach Egan is.
It’s a results-driven business and it would have been very hard to completely change tack on a team that had been together for five or six years playing in a particular way.
Any time we played against Wexford, our big focus was on tracking their runners. We never really went for man-markers – it was more about matching them when they became very fluid.
Lee Chin would obviously have to be watched but it was more a case of passing him on. If he was around centre-forward, Gearóid McInerney took him up. If he went into the full-forward line, Daithí Burke would do it. You had to match him physically, more so than follow him around and tag his every move.
The Wexford half-backs got forward to join in the attacks the whole time, so we always had to be vigilant as forwards and make sure to track them. They often flew forward to get in around the break from puck-out.
Mark Fanning would hit a long puck-out and someone like Diarmuid O’Keefe would sprint forward, even going past his own half-forward line to get in around the break. Joe Cooney was huge for us when we played Wexford, tracking back those sort of runners and helping out his defenders.
Matthew O’Hanlon used to man-mark me in those games and we’d play a bit of cat and mouse with each other. He would get forward and join in the attacks as well and a lot of the time I would have to go with him because he was well capable of taking his point when he got the chance. That was obviously a part of their game plan, to try and drag me away from their goal.
But I remember a few times deciding to let him off and to start heading in towards full-forward, just to see what he would do. A couple of times he looked around and saw me trotting off in the other direction and he had a decision to make. I could see him cursing me as he came back after me. Same as I would be when I’d have no choice but to chase back after him. Defenders getting forward is still a feature of Wexford’s game so Clare will have to be conscious of that throughout.
The big call Wexford have to make is what to do about Tony Kelly. It’s all very well saying you have to put a man-marker on him but you have to think long and hard about who that man-marker is. It has to be someone who is willing to completely sacrifice his game. He has to be happy not to touch the ball all day if that’s what it takes. It can’t be one of the defenders who is going to get forward and try to score. The job for the day has to be keeping Tony Kelly to two or three points from play, nothing else.
In the end, this will come down to Clare’s mental preparation above all else. They have the better team, especially back at full strength with Hayes and Duggan good to go. They are physical enough and fast enough and fit enough to beat Wexford. They have shown how good they are when they perform to their highest level. Getting that performance is the job now.
The other game is going to boil down to a battle for control of the middle third of the pitch. You have two sides who both know that winning clean ball around the middle is the platform for everything they want to do.
They differ in how they want to use the ball but they are very similar in where they need to start. For both of them, losing the middle third means losing the game.
Cork have won three games on the bounce so they’re coming in with confidence flowing through them. Like all Cork teams, they will hurl if they’re let hurl. They want to free their runners coming through that middle third – Darragh Fitzgibbon, Luke Meade, Robbie O’Flynn. If they can get those guys on lot of ball coming at speed, it means space opens up around them and for the forwards up ahead of them. That’s how they want to play.So the job for Galway is to negate that. This involves standing up to them physically around the middle third, getting in their faces, giving them no time on the ball. It’s crucial for Galway not to stand off the Cork players and give them time in possession in this part of the pitch because the knock-on effect is what that does to their own full-back line.
There is very little any full-back line can do if there’s no pressure on the ball out the field. If you leave brilliant stickmen time and space to pick out their passes into the full-forward line, you’re hanging your inside defenders out to dry. So that’s the key for Galway – the Cork runners have to be stopped at source around the middle.
And by the same token, the big thing missing from Galway’s performance in the Leinster final was that lack of clean ball into the full-forward line from that middle third. Kilkenny were able to get in there and disrupt the supply of ball into Conor Whelan and Brian Concannon. They were the ones who brought the physicality in and around there, not Galway.
So really, both teams go to Thurles looking for the same thing. Win the battle for the middle of the pitch and take it from there. Purely because they have to have been so disappointed with how the last day turned out, I expect a big reaction from Galway, especially in that area. I think it should be enough to see them through.
