Paul Murphy Column- Cats to advance but Clare to push them all the way

We’ve two great games to look forward to this weekend and two games that will take on different lives of their own really.

Galway are coming in against Limerick and they have a free shot in many ways, but Limerick are improving the whole time.

While they are only winning games by a one or two point margin , it’s the ability to do that which makes them champions.

On the other side then, it’s Kilkenny and Clare and we didn’t really learn a whole pile about Clare from the corresponding game last year so this is unventured territory in many ways, as Clare will have to feel that they didn’t perform last year and they didn’t in so many ways. I don’t expect such a flat performance this time round and they’ll hope to have John Conlon on the pitch for their sake and it should be a much closer and tight game.

I think Clare arrived into last year’s game with a mentality issue as emotionally there was quite a lot taken out of them coming into the game and while you’d expect them to be much improved, if Kilkenny can get a good start, last year may come into their minds again quite quickly.

If Kilkenny can sow a few early doubts with an early goal, it may be like deja vu for Clare.

There is certainly large aspects of last year’s game that Kilkenny will look to repeat as it worked like a charm for them on the day.

Kilkenny are coming into the game on the back of a four week break and I certainly think that’s an advantage. Because the calendar is so condensed, often teams don’t get really big blocks of training in once the round-robin kicks off.

You are constantly trying to reset for matches so having four weeks off at this stage of the season is ideal as it gives you time to get in the recovery from the Leinster Final before moving into more heavier training.

The team can maybe get away for a weekend and have some training matches too, so it serves everyone well as you can get some injured lads back onto the pitch as well as getting in some productive training sessions.

Clare won’t mind too much about having only two weeks preparation but ideally you’d take the extra time if you could get it as it gives you an added freshness. It’s been a good season so far for Derek Lyng and getting to the league final was the first step. While they lost on the day, it was still a decent footing into the year.

They’ve won a Leinster Final since then and are now advancing to an All-Ireland semi -final, so if you were to say to the Kilkenny management at the start of the year that this is where they’d be, I think they’d be really happy about it as they already have a cup in the bag and now they have one more game before facing into an All-Ireland final.

The management team have done a good job thus far and the panel looks really fresh and lads seemed to be really enjoying it.

There’s been a lot of players blooded in that time too so Kilkenny have been offered the opportunity to cut their cloth to measure on who they play as they’ve a lot of options.

It’s an ideal position for the management really and I’m sure they’ll be really happy that they are now in a place where one win will get them to an All-Ireland Fianl in their first year . That’s not a feat that most management teams achieve.

Looking ahead to the game on Sunday and you’d have to imagine that Mikey Butler will pick up Tony Kelly again. While it will be tough to match last year where he kept him scoreless in an incredible defensive display, there are also some other key matchups.

Shane O’Donnell was one of the few Clare forwards that performed last year in scoring four points from play and he’s a very elusive player so tieing him down and making sure he doesn’t get traction is vital as even if the other forwards don’t fire, O’Donnell has the potential to bring them into the game.

I think David Fitzgerald is another impressive player for Clare in midfield. He’s just a powerhouse.

When he’s afforded space to run at teams, he can be a real danger and he’s a very big player to stop.

Kilkenny will look to stem the influence of those three players in particular because if anyone of them gets going, they can certainly cause harm.

If Kilkenny can tie down that trio, then they may well go a long way to winning the game.

We saw in the Galway game the variety of goals that Kilkenny got.

The four goals were all different, you had Walter Walsh winning a 50-50 before scoring or Mossy Keoghan (left) using his sidestep to good effect in around the goal so the team does have a wide range of ability to be able to create goal chances.

That goal threat could be a big asset on Sunday but the defence has also been very good this year and while the Clare selection of forwards can be quite orhidox with a number of threats, Mikey Butler, Huw Lawlor and Tommy Walsh are not easy to get the better of.

As man markers they’ve done really well this year, and as a unit they’ve shown they can all go 50-50 and not be found wanting in any area.

Those two areas with the threat up front and the ability to tie lads down at the back is what gives Kilkenny a slight edge. T

hey’ve really impressed me this year so hopefully that can be the platform for the lads to go on and win the game.