Pondering Preseason

January 24th, 2009 by Kevin Egan

GAA dressing rooms in January are an odd environment, a distant cousin to the tense and energised setting that one finds in the summer. For every enthusiastic teenager with energy to burn and a point to prove, there’s a grizzled veteran in his early thirties who has been through it all before and knows well that the summer is a long way away yet. For every local lad who’s been pounding the roads over Christmas making sure that any traces of turkey have long been burnt away, there’s yet another lad who’s been burning sambucas deep into the night without a thought towards the calorific content in the glass, or even the crisp weather and mucky pitches that lie in waiting, ready to severely punish any such flamboyancy of lifestyle.

So it is with county teams at this time of year. There are those who have been looking after themselves keenly since October, eager to impress a new man at helm, or perhaps redeem an appalling campaign the previous summer, while there are also those for whom football or hurling was a distant memory over the winter, something to be thought of only when the panel regrouped, but not before. There will be teams up to their oxters in fitness training who’ve lost all recollection of what a football or a sliothar actually looks like, and there are those who have barely stopped playing for even a week.

Managers who seek championship success will usually tell you the same thing – preseason campaigns, and even the first half of the league, mean very little. They are essentially challenge matches to test the unproven new recruits, or to try out older hands in a new role. However at the risk of sounding hackneyed, an even money winner in January pays just the same as an even money winner in July, so there is no reason to slack off the effort when it comes to digesting the information at hand and picking winners.

With two or three games under their belts, now is an excellent time to look past things like county reputation, head to head records and all these things which are irrelevant at this time of year, instead to focus on the basics like how teams are playing and how they measure up against each other.

Tonight’s McKenna Cup final will attract a fair chunk of media interest, however as a betting medium there isn’t really much value to be had. Both sides are playing well and look well matched based on form, so the match betting is a no go area. If a small wager was to be advised, we would look at two equal stakes, four more goals at 5/1 and exactly three goals at 9/2. Both these sides have been running up some healthy scoring tallies and this market has been priced as if scoring will be relatively low. With a free flowing game in store (more common in Ulster than many people would have you believe, and certainly very common in the McKenna Cup) then I would suggest a more realistic price for these two outcomes at around 3/1 each.

However our main bet for the weekend takes place tomorrow, where a decent sized wager is advised on Louth to beat DCU in the O’Byrne Cup final at 8/11. Louth have been simply devastating in this competition so far and they are clearly way ahead of any other team in this competition in terms of their training and fitness. Eamonn McEnaney has a quite talented bunch of players at his disposal, but he is no doubt aware that several of those players have shown a tendency to head for foreign shores rather than stick around when times are tough. He’ll want to keep a positive mood in the camp throughout the Spring and has clearly set out his stall to keep the foot on the accelerator at all times.

The level of talent within the DCU ranks is not at issue either, but their run to the final was a lot less spectacular and the Kildare panel will no doubt have felt Kieran McGeeney’s wrath for letting last weekend’s match slip when they were clearly the better team over the course of the match. A one point win over a mediocre Laois team and a dogged success over DIT offer evidence that DCU are competitive, but they’ll need more than that to overcome a Louth team which is firing on all cylinders. Louth minus one point on the handicap market is fair value at evens, but this column recommends the 8/11, just to be on the safe side – while the double result bet Louth/Louth, though attractive at 13/8, is never a good idea in Winter conditions where there can be a huge wind advantage one way or another. This bet should never be made before the coin toss, at least until after the clocks go forward.

For one final recommendation, a small nibble is advised on Carlow to upset Laois in the O’Byrne Shield final at 5/2. Carlow have been going really well in this competition, albeit against very poor opposition, but Luke Dempsey appears to be doing a good job and with the team working well for each other, it’s highly possible that a decent sized home crowd and local derby motivation will push them over the line tomorrow. If this was the summer then Carlow to beat Laois would be a bad bet even at 5/1, but at the time of year and with Seán Dempsey still keeping plenty in reserve in Laois, this looks set to be a very keenly fought contest with little likely to seperate the sides.

Tags: Goals, Louth, McKenna, O'Byrne, Preseason