Beware the sheep in wolf's clothing
May 29th, 2009 by Kevin EganEvery punter has their own litmus test to assess whether or not any given team is worth backing or opposing on a particular weekend. Off the Ground often likes to run what we call “the jersey test”. Essentially, the jersey test is when you take the players that make up a certain team and ask yourself if you’d still view the team in a similar light if they were wearing different jerseys. For those of us immersed in GAA traditions, the respect or lack thereof that is accorded to certain jerseys can often blind us to the qualities of the players who must fill those jerseys.
In recent years, the perfect example has been Meath footballers. The history and tradition of the Royal County in Gaelic Football is beyond question and the past exploits of men such as Mick Lyons, Colm O’Rourke and Trevor Giles will long live in the Association’s history books. However in recent years Meath have come a cropper against Wexford (twice) and Limerick, on all three occasions starting the match at odds of 1/3 or shorter. In every instance, Meath were entitled to be slight favourites based on player quality, but by slight we mean of the order of 4/6, perhaps 4/7 at a push – not 1/3.
Essentially a great bet was revealed by mentally taking Meath jerseys off those players and replacing them with Longford, Louth or Leitrim jerseys – stripping away the myth and legend, and leaving only the football. Sometimes there isn’t a lot left.
The converse is often true as well – with the perfect example being the Tipperary footballers this spring. They clearly had a good unit of players and were in flying form, yet they went off big outsiders against teams such as Roscommon and Offaly, both counties with a better football reputation but nothing like the same quality of player right now.
This week sees two heavyweight counties go head to head in Semple Stadium and it is a brave man who would argue that the blood and bandages is a more mythical garment than the blue and gold, or vice versa. To say that both counties are heavyweights of hurling is to state the patently obvious.
Tipperary’s form is pretty well established right now, in that they finished the scheduled league poorly but their league final appearance illustrated that they remain the team most likely to usurp Kilkenny’s throne. Cork on the other hand, have nothing so tangible to back up their claim to be real All Ireland contenders. Their reputation, their jersey, their profile and their newsworthiness all feeds into the same pot and the concoction that results from these assorted ingredients is a stew which is high on critical acclaim but low on real nutritional value. The perfect example of the contrast between the two will occur on the Cork 45, where John Gardiner will line out against Seamus Callinan. Gardiner is rarely out of the news, he is one of the biggest names on the Cork scene and he is one of the players that supporters point to when they suggest that Cork are live contenders to win the Liam McCarthy cup in 2009.
Gardiner will do very well to break even with Callinan on Sunday, a young player with oodles of talent who has spent the spring improving his game while his Cork opponent was at a plethora of press conferences and media nights.
Those looking for evidence that this Cork team is the real deal also point to their startling results on the challenge circuit where they have run up huge tallies against Limerick, Dublin and Wexford, but these games remain utterly meaningless and to attach any significance to challenge results good or bad is to distort your view of a team, nothing more. They can occasionally point to areas of concern, they are never an indicator of robust health.
The fact remains that if this were an Offaly, Clare or Waterford team going out against Tipperary with a hardcore of ageing legends flanked by unproven youngsters, Tipp would be 1/4 for this match. Put Cork jerseys on these lads and suddenly we have 8/15 about Tipperary, with the entire media community suggesting that in this “Old Firm” fixture the underdogs have a great tradition and that anything is possible.
Of course anything is possible, and of course any Cork team is likely to be lifted by the prospect of a match against their oldest rivals in Semple Stadium, but to extrapolate from this that Tipperary are only two or three points the better team at most? This is most definitely a bridge too far.
Even disregarding the return of Eoin Kelly since he’s likely to be a fair bit ring rusty, this Tipperary team looks too strong to be caught out by Cork. At 8/15, it might not be the kind of price that the small stakes punter likes to get involved in, but for those who are betting for profit, it’s simply too good to turn down. Off the Ground is not going to go all the way up to ten points, those are special occasion bets where a long odds on shot is available at a very backable price, but we are going to recommend a 6pt bet on Tipperary to beat Cork at 8/15. Tipperary are way overpriced for this game and a strong bet is the only way to go.
Tags: Cork, Jersey test, Semple Stadium, Tipperary
Categories: Hurling
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