Posts Tagged ‘Kildare’
The “Fish and Chip shop tour of Ireland”, as it was once called by Colm O’Rourke on the Sunday game, draws to a close this weekend as the final four qualifier fixtures take place and line up for the football championship quarter finals is finalised. Round four is usually one of the trickier rounds to assess, as the mental state of the provincial final losers is always difficult to predict with confidence. In theory, Limerick should be the most positive team of the four since they played some great football against a good Kerry team and they have the advantage of both a long break and a home draw, but they’ve been handed a very tough opponent in Cork and could conceivably play very well and still fall short.
Round three is invariably the most competitive round of the qualifiers since it features only teams who have won their previous game, each of them now within striking distance of getting to Croke Park for an All Ireland quarter final. This is particularrly the case this year, with so many teams likely to enter the draw in round four who simply will not inspire fear in their opponents. The Ulster final losers will be a tough nut to crack irrespective of whether it’s Tyrone or Monaghan who fill that role, however Limerick, Louth and presumably Roscommon are all likely to be big underdogs at that stage.
For all three of these teams, their shot at provincial glory was their biggest game of the season and it’s very unusual for a team like that to miss out on their chance of a provincial title and still pull themselves together for the qualifier fixture. Aside from Kerry twice and Cork once, only Kildare and Wexford have won round four qualifier fixtures in the last four years after losing a provincial final, those wins coming against Wicklow and Down respectively.
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.
Notwithstanding our speculative punt on Roscommon at 500/1 to win the All Ireland based on the draw, the first recommendation from this column for the 2010 season was Kildare to win division 2 at odds of 10/3, odds which are still available right now. The logic behind that post is explained here – http://betdiary.com/kevinegan/2009/12/15/on-your-marks/ – so there is no need to go through it again, other than to say that the passing of a month hasn’t changed anything contained therein.
However Ladbrokes have since opened betting on which province will provide the winner of each division, and for those interested in the betting on division two, the market is well worth a look.
We commented in a previous post that there were a couple of the leagues that appeared to offer each way value, but despite our original intention to hold off making any recommendations until the new year in order to see which counties were starting the season at full pace, the recent experimental rule changes has forced our hand somewhat, meaning that it’s well worth taking an early punt just in case the price were to move, which is not unlikely.
Despite the notional ban on intercounty training, one would do well to find an inactive county all across Ireland at the moment, with managers looking to find the extra edge that will propel their sides forward in 2010. The Christmas period in particular is likely to be quite arduous for many players, with the trend of managers using the holidays to suss out how much players are interested in the “sacrifices” currently very prominent.
Ask not what Off the Ground can do for you, but instead ask what you can do for Off the Ground!
Despite what it may sound like, that isn’t actually this column’s attempt at getting you, the reader, to do all the work. Instead, that is an ideal way forward to get plenty of winners over the Autumn as the bookmakers start to price club games and championships all over Ireland. Every reader of this column has a home county, and chances are there are one or two other counties as well where they have different reasons for being familiar with the local scene. With that in mind, don’t be shy about using the add comment facility on any of these blog posts. If you haven’t posted before, then it may take a while for your post to appear as it has to be moderated (you’d be surprised how many people out there think that this is a good site to try and advertise tamiflu or viagra online!) but once your first post is put up, from then on your comments will appear instantly. Unless you try to sell us tamiflu or viagra of course.
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.
As any serious bettor will tell you, every bet should be looked at twice. This doesn’t mean double checking everything, or treating it like crossing the road where you should always look both ways, but to look at the bet before it’s placed, and again after the result. Sometimes the result will confirm what you felt you knew all along, while quite often too you will learn something from it that you hadn’t otherwise realised.
To take two bets that were advised in this column last week, we can see one instance of each of these scenarios from Off the Ground’s perspective.
It’s fair to say that the vast majority of the 80,000 plus who attend the Leinster Final tomorrow will be doing so to keep an eye on John Doyle, Alan Brogan and all the other star names on show, but they would do well to make sure to be in their seats in time for the minor match throw in, since it’s shaping up to be an excellent fixture as well.
At this stage there is little or no value to be had in betting on the senior match, however the same cannot be said of the minor game. Kildare at 15/8 are a huge price for this fixture and are well worth a 4pt bet at the very least. To be honest they would probably be worth even more, but for the fact that minor footballers are teenagers after all, and are thus very prone to having complete off days.
