Anthony Daly: Why the lack of respect for hurling and Kildare?

Is that harsh? No. I’d be thrilled if anyone could tell me how a preliminary All-Ireland quarter-final, and one of the biggest games in Kildare hurling’s modern history, is a curtain-raiser to a Tailteann Cup quarter-final?

I accept that the Kildare footballers are the bigger draw in the county. 

Playing Offaly in a local derby adds to the attraction, but this still goes back to my point about status and respect. Whether anyone likes it or not, the hurling match is a Tier One game. 

Tailteann Cup in a Tier Two competition. Facts are facts.

The GAA will argue that the Laois-Tipperary prelim quarter-final is being shown on GAA+, but my response to that argument is that it just further highlights the lack of respect being shown to the Joe McDonagh winners. 

If the Laois game is being televised, the Kildare match should be a guaranteed showing on GAA+.

It’s all an even bigger shambles again when the last thing that the Laois hurlers need right now is to be shown on live TV against some people’s dark horses for the All-Ireland. 

It all comes down to viewing figures but it’s another illustration of hurling just not being taken seriously enough.

When the GAA talk about promoting hurling, especially with an incredible story like Kildare on their hands, they are not being truthful.

In my mind, they are just relegating that incredible story to the back kitchen when they should be trying to keep it front and centre. And once again, hurling has to take its place behind football.

If the Kildare football crew are annoyed about being the curtain-raiser, so what? 

The Kildare hurlers deserve that stage when they have earned it. In any case, I think a lot of the Kildare football fraternity would have actually been delighted to stay on and support the team. Whether that’s fanciful thinking or not is not the point.

Maybe I’m just up on my high horse with the Joe McDonagh teams only being given six days’ preparation after last Sunday’s final, which Laois manager Tommy Fitzgerald accurately described as being a ‘joke’.

I won’t deny that it’s a legitimate question to ask as to whether the Joe McDonagh teams should still be in the championship when sides like Clare, Waterford, Wexford, and Offaly are gone (Antrim are relegated). But that’s a different debate.

My point is that when you are including the Joe Mac sides, at least give them a two-week break.

I’ve no doubt that the Kildare lads celebrated wildly on Sunday and Monday —which they are fully entitled to — but the GAA kind of took the sheen off those celebrations when fixing their next game for six days later. It’s even more frustrating again for Kildare when this is a game that they will be quietly confident of winning.

I don’t see that happening but this is a tricky fixture for Dublin. They have been operating at a different level in league and championship and have put up some serious performances against Antrim, Offaly, and Wexford.

It’s going to be hard for Kildare to get back up to that emotional pitch so soon again after last Sunday.

On the other hand, they are coming into this game full of confidence and belief, while the pressure is off Kildare now too. 

With the match on at home in Newbridge in front of a huge crowd, the conditions are there for a perfect storm to blow Dublin off track.

The big advantage that the older Dublin players have is experience of this situation — for all the wrong reasons. Dublin were hot favourites against Laois in 2019 but the then Joe McDonagh champions whipped up an irresistible wave of momentum and washed Dublin out of the championship.

As the only Liam MacCarthy team to be beaten by a Joe Mac side, Dublin will be primed and ready to ensure that doesn’t happen again. There is pressure on the Dubs but I expect them to take care of business.

So will Tipp. It must have been murder for Tommy Fitzgerald and Niall Corcoran to try and get the Laois lads up for this after the disappointment of last Sunday.

It can’t have been easy for management either with the Cha O’Dwyer situation, when he left the panel before the Joe McDonagh final, all of which feeds into the public frustration, and places further heat on the management.

Nobody knows what went on but everyone takes sides, none of which is helpful for morale and confidence on a week like this.

The whole thing is far more unstable and likely to fall apart now after the second-half no-show last Sunday, when Laois were obliterated. More worryingly again, they seemed to lack fitness as the match progressed.

It’s just a pity that everything has come off the rails for Laois, but a match-up like this isn’t of much use to Tipp now either, just as the annihilation of Offaly two years ago didn’t do them any favours going into their All-Ireland quarter-final against Galway, a match Tipp tamely lost.

I’m sure Tipp have learned from that experience, which will have dictated their training schedule in recent weeks.

The break will have refreshed them, while Liam Cahill will also have been able to get more of a look at some of the younger players now that they have won the All-Ireland U20 title.

Laois’s only priority now will be to keep the score down for as long as they can. They may even decide to play one, if not two, sweepers.

Whatever Laois do, whatever barriers they try and erect, it will only be like wet sand trying to beat back a raging Tipperary tide.