Big weekend ahead for Carlow teams
Carlow manager Joe Murphy Photo: ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy
It is old news now. Joe Murphy is manager of Carlow. The Carlow County Board made the announcement at the end of March. It is hard to believe that he has been in situ for over a month now but that is it. Life moves on quickly and the first round of the Tailteann Cup takes place at the weekend.
When it is pointed out to him that his appointment has generated good will among Carlow GAA folk the new man says he is hoping to reciprocate that positivity.
“Right from the start when it was announced, the good will out there was very evident. Not just for me. There is a longing for Carlow to step up and do something special. I have been tasked with helping to do that and we will be doing everything we can to fulfil the potential,” says the newly appointed Carlow senior football manager.
He doesn’t mind that Carlow have been handed a tricky assignment in the first round which is away to Fermanagh next Sunday. A week later, they have Wexford at home and Longford in June at a neutral venue.
“With the first seeds there was no easy games. It is much of a muchness. Fermanagh are a very good side as are all the other first seeds. All we can do is prepare the best we can and go and face it head on,” notes Murphy.
Fermanagh with three wins and two draws finished fourth in division three of the National Football League. Carlow were fourth in division 4. That is a distance of an entire league table.
It is not coming from the Carlow management team but there are stories circulating that players who had left the squad under the previous manager, Shane Curran, have returned when they heard that Murphy had been appointed.
Will Carlow be at full-strength on Sunday? Murphy is not so sure. He is still assessing what he has.
“I don’t know but I am very happy with what we have. The players have worked extremely hard. They have put their heads down and have taken on the principles which we have tried to bring to the table. We have no excuses that way. The guys have worked so hard,” he says.
“You will always have a few scrapes around this time. Frances, our physio, is working very hard with players. Hopefully, we will have a clean bill of health for Sunday.”
The new Carlow manager has enjoyed an amazingly successful management club career with Old Leighlin, Éire Óg and Naas. He brings this to Carlow at intercounty level now. The response from the players fills him with hope. Murphy is not quite part of the furniture now but he has settled. So have the squad of players under him.
“Look forward. That is what we all have to do. Believe in what we are doing and hopefully we will get the result which the hard work as deserved,” he reasons.
It is something the Carlow manager, Tom Mullally, will not want to hear. Carlow go into this next round Joe McDonagh Cup tie against their hurling neighbours as favourites to register their third win of the campaign.
In horse racing terms, Carlow have to be more than fancied. Kerry beat Kildare in Newbridge in the opening round and Carlow subsequently made it two wins out of two when dismantling Kerry in Tralee.
In addition, Carlow have been putting up big scores in their two games and, at the other end, have not conceded even one three-pointer against either Down or Kerry.
For once, Marty Kavanagh, with 0-14 from the two games is not Carlow’s leading scorer. That honour, if such a thing exists, falls to Chris Nolan with 4-6.
It is a phenomenon but sport has a strange way of levelling matters.
Carlow players will do their best to heed their manager and not get carried away with themselves. Yet even the best managers, and Tom Mullally is one of them, will be stressing to his players that even the slightest feeling of over-confidence can quickly spread and a potentially bad performance can be the outcome.
If both sides play to the best of their ability, Carlow should win. Yet that is why spectators come to games. Nothing is definite. The unpredictability. Carlow are in that position where expectation follows them. They have to guard against what people outside the circle will be telling them. It is their biggest enemy when Kildare come to Netwatch Cullen Park on Saturday.
