Posts Tagged ‘Antrim’
Of all the games taking place this weekend, none will be as fraught with emotion as the tie in Newbridge between Kildare and Antrim. Dublin and Meath is always a classic rivalry, Sligo feel as if they are on the cusp of achieving something special in Pearse Stadium and Westmeath and Louth each have a wonderful opportunity to go farther than anyone would have thought likely, but the death this week of Dermot Earley senior has given a new level of gravitas to Saturday’s qualifier clash in St. Conleth’s Park.
Earley’s status as a legend of the game is set in stone and if a poll were to be taken asking who was the greatest ever footballer never to win an All Ireland, he would surely rank at or near the top of the list. His own achievements took place in the primrose and blue colours of his native Roscommon, however the former chief of staff of the Irish Army has long been a resident of Kildare and Dermot junior has enjoyed a fine career in the Kildare colours.
Usually by the end of round three, the betting for the National Football Leagues begins to look a lot simpler. In most divisions, as many as three or four counties would normally be out of the running by now, but unusually this season, very few counties are out of contention while equally, very few are still safe from the drop – notwithstanding those counties playing division four football.
Taking a helicopter view and looking down at division one first, Cork head the betting at 11/10, but this column can only speculate that there must have been plenty of money laid down on the Munster champions because this is a very short price, factoring in the football we’ve seen so far. They scraped home against Monaghan, beat a Kerry team that was very much in pre-season mode and very nearly let a huge lead slip against Galway last Saturday night on their home turf. Cork undoubtedly have ample quality, but Conor Counihan and most of the Cork supporters will know that to even win this league, much more will be required in the coming weeks.
Sometimes it can be difficult to apply logic to certain situations. Take the current crisis of form in Kerry – based on their performances in the championship so far, the Kingdom are the walking undead, limping through the championship waiting for someone to put a stake through their heart. Despite this, they continue to trade alongside both Cork and Dublin as the nearest contenders to Tyrone, as if their resurrection is right around the corner.
To put it another way, they have achieved no more in this championship than Wicklow for example, and yet Wicklow now trade at 100/1, a reasonable enough reflection of their chances. Obviously Kerry are still the National League champions, they are still going for their sixth All Ireland final appearance in succession and they are still chock-full of talent and experience. The question we face this week, is how will Antrim do in the face of such a heavyweight of the game, and how much will Kerry improve from their performances of the past couple of weeks, performances which one would think would not even be good enough to beat Antrim.
While the previous post in this column highlighted the dangers inherent in betting on a weekend like this where the motivation levels of the protagonists are wildly uncertain, any weekend with twelve intercounty matches still must offer some opportunity to the dsicerning punter. So while a health warning is attached to most wagers this weekend, with the exception of Armagh tomorrow night who remain a strong bet, there remain a couple of value betting opportunities that can be exploited.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, seeing as compilers’ attention tends to dwindle in accordance with the importance of the games, it could be argued that it is the game that will occupy the least column inches that appears to offer the best value.
Like any punter trying to get an edge wherever possible, Off the Ground likes to try and get a little bit of local insight any time life takes us outside the usual circuit of junior football training in West Offaly and paying the bills in Galway. A spin up to Donegal last weekend was one such reconnaissance mission as it afforded the opportunity of picking up a copy of Gaelic Life magazine.
For those who are unfamiliar, Gaelic Life is a publication based in Ulster, centred exclusively on Ulster GAA. More relevantly, while there was plenty of space set aside for writers to give air to their own somewhat childish intercounty slagging matches, the depth and range of the analysis was quite impressive, far beyond what one could hope to find in any of the mainstream dailies.
Of course the point of this little introduction is not to try and flog a newspaper, but to look deeper into the prevailing climate in our northern province that allows such a newspaper to come into being. This columnist is not privy to how well or otherwise Gaelic Life is performing as a profit making vehicle, however having worked in local news previously and knowing how crucial ad sales are to survival, it was striking how little advertising was in the paper – clearly their revenue was largely sales driven.
Having already recommended a bet on the Westmeath vs Wicklow Leinster quarter final, it seems a little bit unfair to casual punters to be looking at that game again rather than branching out into the other games, yet looking at the totals lines for the weekend games, it would be hard not to have a long hard look at the 28.5 on offer here in this match.
Westmeath’s shocking league campaign was well documented, however that league campaign was notable in that Tomás O’Flaithearta did try out several new forwards and generally speaking he did pick relatively normal lineups, with a healthy balance of attack and defence. Well championship has resumed, and as expected, it’s back to the Westmeath that we all know and, well, watch. With gritted teeth.
