For real GAA enthusiasts, it’s difficult not to get caught up in the romance of the All Ireland club finals. No single day in the GAA calendar has such a wonderful tradition of throwing up pairings that can whet the appetite for a variety of reasons, and in 2010, the pairings couldn’t be better if they were chosen by hand at the start of the year. The hurling contest sees two of the most celebrated clubs in the land going head to head in the final pairing that everyone wanted to see since last year’s one-sided semi final in Thurles. Each side will line out with one of the best hurlers of the modern day in their starting forward line, and with wonderfully contrasting approaches in terms of how to hurl and create scores. They represent East vs West and the game also serves as an excellent form guide in advance of Galway’s assault on Kilkenny’s Leinster crown later this year.
Being honest, ever since the results from last week, Off the Ground was keeping an eye out for one fixture out of this weekend’s football matches that dripped with the potential for good value. To my immense shock and not inconsiderable disappointment, the bookmakers actually ignored history, tradition and all that stuff, and appeared to have more or less priced the game accurately.
I refer to the NFL division two encounter between Tipperary and Meath this weekend. The bookmakers have a ridiculous track record of overestimating Meath, underestimating Tipperary and failing to appreciate the importance of home advantage to the Royals – and of course the converse to that argument, which is quite how poor they are away from the familiar surroundings of Páirc Tailteann. Being truthful, I fully expected to examine this week’s prices, note a 7/2 or 3/1 beside Tipperary, circle it and advise a very large investment. Instead, a much more moderate 7/4 has been chalked down. Still good, but much shorter than it would have been even a year ago, despite both sides being more or less the same.
So far this year, Tipperary have played very competitively against Laois, struggled against a much more powerful Kildare team and secured an excellent draw in Newry. Meath scraped home against Armagh despite conceding three more scores than they took themselves, struggled in Newry and almost got nabbed by an understrength and woefully off-form Westmeath outfit.
