Michael Fennelly has warned of the huge jump that the winners of tomorrow’s Joe McDonagh Cup final will face next year.
Whoever emerges victorious from the second tier decider between Offaly and Carlow at Croke Park will rejoin the Leinster Championship in 2024, with Offaly already guaranteed of a spot in the top flight of the Allianz Hurling League after winning the Division 2A title this year.
Offaly won that title under Fennelly’s management two years ago but endured a difficult season in Division One last year, losing all six games, most of them heavily, as they were relegated and they struggled for much of the subsequent Joe McDonagh Cup campaign.
“Those games are tough,” said Fennelly of Offaly’s exposure to the game’s elite. “We romanticise and we flirt with going up to Division One and we did that last year and you’re playing against Limerick, Cork, Clare, these teams, and you’re getting hammerings and people say, ‘Oh sure it’s good to be getting games against these teams’ and it’s not.
“You can’t be going up two or three levels, that’s how I look at it. If you’re going up another level, great, you’re playing against a team that you can compete with for 50 minutes, 60 minutes, whatever it may be, there’s a chance of beating them but if you’re going up two or three levels, that’s very difficult.”
Fennelly cited the difficulties that Westmeath and Antrim have endured in the Leinster Championship this year. The former Offaly boss feels that while those counties can be competitive against the likes of Dublin and Wexford, as illustrated by Westmeath’s sensational win in Wexford Park last Sunday, the gap to the competition’s two strongest teams, Kilkenny and Galway, is too great to bridge.
Antrim lost to Kilkenny by 17 points and Galway by 22, while Westmeath lost to them by 22 and 34 points respectively.
“I don’t know where the fun element is in that or how can you have motivation facing into games like that?” wondered the ex-Kilkenny star.
“I know there might be one or two games there maybe that you can compete, which is great, but like if you are getting hammerings like that, there is no fun element in it and that’s difficult.
“Either team [Offaly or Carlow], whoever wins, if they could stay up there it’d be great to be honest but it is difficult, without a doubt.
“Even in the League side of things, that’s very hard because if you end up in that stronger group, very, very difficult to stay up in it. It all depends on what group you go into.
“We went up last year and we played Limerick. We played nearly a full Limerick team. We won the Division 2A and here we are now playing the All-Ireland champions from the previous year. To me, that doesn’t make any sense.
“So I think there needs to be a bit more of a step by step process to playing the likes of your Dublins, your Wexfords, your Antrims, those teams, they’re ahead of Carlow and Offaly but you’d feel you could compete and you’d be hopeful of getting a win or two maybe if it was possible, but that’s definitely more where I would see teams facing off with each other.”
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