With a number of season-defining hurling games this weekend, some counties, like Waterford and Wexford, will have to break new ground at venues that haven’t been kind to them historically if they are to stay in the Championship, while others don’t have to move the dial back too far for examples of the kind of result they need.
TIPPERARY-CORK
Having been on life support following their defeats to Limerick and Clare, Cork are suddenly within reach of the knockout stages following their rousing win over Waterford last Sunday.
It’s very straightforward for them - beat Tipperary in Thurles and they’ll be through to the All-Ireland series, regardless of what happens elsewhere.
Cork last beat Tipperary in Thurles in the Championship in 2017, scoring a surprise 2-27 to 1-26 victory over the reigning All-Ireland champions.
Nine of the Cork players that played that day featured against Waterford last Sunday, namely Damien Cahalane, Ciarán Joyce, Mark Coleman, Darragh Fitzgibbon, Séamus Harnedy, Conor Lehane, Shane Kingston, Patrick Horgan and Luke Meade while the team was managed by current boss Kieran Kingston, who was in his first stint at the helm.
Cathal Barrett, Ronan Maher, Séamus Kennedy, Michael Breen, Dan McCormack and Noel McGrath remain involved with Tipp and Seamus Callanan may return from injury for the weekend.
Tipperary require a seven-point win and a Clare victory over Waterford to progress to the next phase and you only have to go back a further 12 months for the last time they managed that against Cork in Thurles.
They cruised to a 0-22 to 0-13 victory in 2016 in Kingston’s first Championship game in charge in which he employed William Egan as a sweeper, a move that spectacularly backfired.
It forced a major rethink as to how Cork went about their business, with Coleman, Shane Kingston, Meade, Fitzgibbon and Colm Spillane handed their debuts the following year.
CLARE-WATERFORD
Championship meetings of Clare and Waterford on non-neutral territory are extremely rare, with Thurles invariably the chosen venue for their clashes in Munster over the years.
Sunday’s game will be just the third time that Waterford have travelled to Ennis for a Championship game and they have lost on the two previous occasions, a trend that will have to be reversed if they are to stay afloat in the 2022 Championship.
In a round robin qualifier group in 2005, they suffered a 4-14 to 0-21 defeat, a game in which Clare manager Brian Lohan played at full-back, while current Waterford selector Tony Browne struck a point from centre-back.
Waterford’s only other trip to Cusack Park in the Championship was in the opening round of the Munster round robin in 2018 when they were soundly beaten, 2-27 to 2-18.
Remarkably, Tadhg de Burca and Conor Gleeson are the only players that started both Waterford’s defeat to Cork last Sunday and that game four years ago, a reflection of the fact that they had a lengthy injury list at the time but also the significant turnover in playing personnel in the interim.
From that 2018 game, John Conlon, David McInerney, Cathal Malone, Tony Kelly, Shane O’Donnell and Peter Duggan remain involved with Clare but whether Lohan will field them all with a Munster final place already assured remains to be seen.
KILKENNY-WEXFORD
Similarly, Championship clashes involving Kilkenny and Wexford taking place anywhere but at Croke Park is more a recent phenomenon.
The 2011 meeting at Wexford Park was their first outside GAA headquarters since 1950 and though Wexford have beaten Kilkenny at home and in Croke Park in the Championship in recent years, they have never scored an away victory over them.
Defeat has been their lot on Kilkenny soil in 1943, ‘45, ‘47, ‘50, 2015 and ‘18.
Wexford must win to stay in the Championship on Saturday but their recent history at UPMC Nowlan Park is more encouraging.
In 2017 they scored their first win over their arch rivals at the venue in 60 years in the League quarter-final, while their best showing there in the Championship came the following year, when they slipped to a one-point loss.
GALWAY-DUBLIN
Dublin may not need a result against Galway to progress to the All-Ireland series as anything less than a win for Wexford will be enough for them, but a win will see them into a Leinster final.
Galway are assured of a spot in the knockout stages and a draw or better will secure a provincial final berth.
Although they suffered a sixth successive Championship defeat to Kilkenny last weekend, Dublin don’t appear to have any such hang-ups with Galway, having beaten them in their previous two meetings, in 2019 and last year.
Their only previous visit to Pearse Stadium, the venue on Saturday, for a Championship game was in the first year of the Leinster round robin series in 2018 when they suffered a one-point defeat.
LAOIS-WESTMEATH
Arguably the most pivotal game of the weekend is the meeting of Laois and Westmeath at MW Hire O’Moore Park.
Westmeath have been significantly more competitive over the course of the campaign and their draw against Wexford was in marked contrast to how Laois fared against them - a 28-point defeat.
Laois must win to avoid relegation and condemn Westmeath to the Joe McDonagh Cup and have had the better of the recent meetings between the counties, including a 10-point win in the McDonagh final three years ago along with a victory in last year’s Division One League relegation play-off.
