Hurling showdown in Tullamore looks poised on a knife edge
By Kevin Egan
If the the result seems inevitable in the Offaly footballers' clash against All-Ireland champions Dublin on Sunday, there is a game involving the Offaly hurlers this weekend where the sides look very evenly balanced, and the outcome rests on a knife edge.
Offaly versus Westmeath (Saturday, 3pm) is as close to knockout championship hurling as you’ll see anywhere this weekend. With Offaly having lost to Laois and Westmeath defeated by Kerry last Sunday, the pressure is on both sides. In the battle to reach the McDonagh Cup final on June 8, losing a second consecutive game will almost certainly be fatal to whichever side comes off second best.
If we leave out 2021, when the round robin stages were split up into two groups of three for Covid-related reasons, there have been five Joe McDonagh Cup groups played so far. Ten teams have ended their campaign with two defeats, and only one out of those ten (Kerry 2022) reached the decider despite that.
Even if either Offaly or Westmeath were to win their last three games after rebounding from defeat, they would still need favours from elsewhere to sneak into a decider – and that’s not a place where either Johnny Kelly or Joe Fortune wants to be by 5pm on Saturday evening.
In wider hurling terms, this contest is also a very significant marker for both of these sides. The prevailing view in Offaly is that the graph is pointing upwards on the back of an incoming crop of extremely talented young players, several of whom have reached two All-Ireland finals – but breakthroughs are never easy to complete, and at some point very soon, senior milestones will have to be passed in order to keep the sense of positivity and momentum alive.
In Westmeath the landscape is different. They too have a talented U-20 group this year, with David Williams, David O’Reilly and Peter Clarke all featuring last Sunday in Mullingar, while on current form, it’s unlikely that the full year will pass without Rian Holding also being asked to step up to the next level and to assist at senior level.
Yet there is a greater sense in the Lake County that their established, core group is a lot closer to peak maturity, and as a result, the time to deliver silverware is now. Results like last year’s incredible Leinster SHC win in Wexford show how high the ceiling is for this panel, and if Offaly feel that they need to step back up to the full provincial championship in the near future, then Westmeath will say that they are ready to hurl at that level right now.
Is there a path to the 2025 Leinster SHC that doesn’t involve getting two points on the board on Saturday? If there is, it’s hard to see it.