Worth closing out with a cover on Clara
Fewer games than might have been expected fell by the wayside last weekend, with three of the five games that had been arranged playing out to a conclusion. The Connacht decider was unsurprisingly called off relatively early, while in Portlaoise, referee Joe Curley was left with little choice but to bring matters to a premature conclusion when he saw the conditions that prevailed at the start of the second half.
Indeed for those who follow this blog and its recommendations, the Meath official’s decision was extremely welcome. Portlaoise had played with the advantage of a stiff but tricky breeze in the first half, and Clara were definitely the happier team going in at half time level pegging. Stephen Deehan’s point at the start of the second half was taken with the kind of relaxed kicking stroke that simply wasn’t an option in the first half, and with Thomas Deehan also playing extremely well in the inside line, Clara were definitely odds on to progress had the match played to a natural conclusion.
The refixture takes place this Saturday in Portlaoise, and the issue for those with a current position on the Leinster Championship outright, or indeed those currently uninvolved, is whether or not the market currently reflects the state of play of the three clubs involved. Clara were at least a match for Portlaoise last Sunday in the thirty five minutes of play that took place and their excellent use of foot passing over ranges of twenty and thirty yards really discommoded Portlaoise’s pressure defence. Portlaoise manager John Mulligan is unlikely to let the lessons from last Sunday go unheeded, but the evidence is stacking up that Clara are not just an unspectacular club team that pulled off a shock win over Rhode, but that they are right at home in this kind of company.
The bookmakers continue to view Clara as three point outsiders looking for a shock result this weekend, but this column is not so sure that this is the case. Portlaoise at 8/11 to win Leinster outright is way too short to justify punting after a shock to the system like this, particularly in the light of an excellent display from Garrycastle in Mullingar last Sunday. This column has bets running on Portlaoise at 6/4 and Garrycastle at 16/1, and bearing in mind that the Offaly champions still look very dangerous, a covering 1pt bet on Clara at 6/1 is definitely in order right now.
From an All Ireland perspective, our existing position on Corofin is perfectly healthy, however Garrycastle very definitely entered the list of potential contenders on Sunday. The poor standard of football on display in Munster was also a factor in this regard in that neither Kerins O’Rahillys nor Kilmurry-Ibrickane look strong enough to go the whole way, meaning that Garrycastle are probably the second most likely team after Portlaoise to reach the final from that side of the draw. Indeed Sunday’s football threw up the very real possibility that no Munster team will play in the All Ireland semi-final at all. Based on the form shown by the Kerry and Clare representatives, this year is the best chance Tír Chonaill Gaels have had to win a quarter final since they started lording the London scene, and in familiar territory in January, they could cause the Munster champions real problems.
Garrycastle would be underdogs in any hypothetical final since the odds of neither Corofin nor St Galls making the decider are few and far between, but at 14/1, it’s could be worth getting a small interest on the Westmeath men into the portfolio now. A natural distrust of Westmeath men in the latter stages of All-Ireland competitions, bred into all West Offaly Gaels from a young age, prevents Off the Ground from going on record and staking on this selection, but they have been handed a huge advantage now in that either Portlaoise or Clara will be going out for their third week in a row in the Leinster decider, while a win for Kilmurry-Ibrickane in Munster, also a distinct possibility, would also greatly shorten their All-Ireland price, were a victory for the Claremen come to pass.
Tags: Championship, Clara, Football, Garrycastle, Leinster Club
Categories: Gaelic Football
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Comments (7)
Kevin,
I don’t know how your perception of UCD has changed to the point where you make them 7/4 shots to go down to Templemore and beat the Gardai,considering you would have made them odds against at home to beat UL?It’s madness.UCD are actually a nice little team and i don’t know are you judging them on their O’Byrne cup performances or what because they never had a full line up together in that competition.Anyway they have very nice footballers but to go down to Templemore and beat a physically stronger garda team without their strongest midfielder John O’Loughlin would be highly impressive.
On to the GMIT game,I presume you aren’t aware of the fact that DIT are without their two starting midfielders,they also have a full back playing with a broken hand.Still i can see your reasoning in fancying DIT,i’m on the other side though
Very hard to get this bet on with so little notice!
I’m aware of that, but unfortunately there’s little I can do when the bookies price these games up so late. I checked late last night and there was nothing, so I got to writing as soon as I saw the prices this morning – but it does leave a very narrow window I’ll grant you.
The unfortunate thing about these games is that when it’s all about price, and every bet is about price, you can’t draft them up without knowing what the bookies are offering. Suffice it to say that if it was 4/1 GMIT and 2/9 DIT my recommendation might have been different – though after seeing the game, 2/9 probably would have been the right price. The gulf in class was just as big as I expected.
Fair enough. Good call on DIT and the other recommendations on NUIG and UCD, just a pity I wasn’t on!
It’s a fair point, I do try and give time, however not being the earliest riser in the world at the best of times, I’m not good to get on these things first thing in the morning.
I have heard that the GMIT vs DIT game was actually evens each of two earlier this morning but that money for GMIT moved them in. No idea who would have done that, but if so then so much the better. I would have piled into evens just as heavily as I did at 6/4 and not been a bit the wiser for it.
Good calls there, something of a shark you are. Any advice on the club games this weekend, especially Porumna vs Ballyhale Shamrocks?
Goose, apologies for being so slow but I meant to get back to this. I won’t go into the games that have gone by except to say that this column is all about value. The reason for backing UL against UCD was the price, something that I still think the match itself bore out. I have great time for that UL side and I do believe that they were greatly under-rated. Likewise I thought the guards were over-rated, but if the guards were available at 5/4 I would have recommended them too. However at 4/11 with this column’s sponsors, they were quite simply unbackable and UCD were the only team you could back.
Never forget that price is the key factor in all your bets.
As for the DIT injuries, I knew about Flynn but didn’t know that Coughlan had the rib injury – however to see him fielding balls like a lord out there, all I could think of was how great it would be if he’d forget about the Dubs and come back to the motherland. He is turning into a fantastic player and he’d be a huge addition to Offaly if he had any interest in coming back to his roots.