Anthony Daly's verdict: Cork confidence is loud, but Clare are quietly confident

When Landers arrived up for our Irish Examiner podcast on Thursday night, I had one tiny flag stuck up in the corner – it was a car flag. ‘Don’t say I didn’t put out some Cork colours,’ I said to the bould Markeen. If you blinked you’d have missed it.

It's been a crazy, enjoyable – and yet terribly sad - few days. We waked my cousin Mick Daly on Wednesday and then buried him on Thursday morning.

Mick was a great Clare supporter until he was called too early. He’d love to have been there Sunday.

We had our breakfast morning for the Clare hurlers on Thursday . I’m headed for Up for the Match in Montrose Saturday night, before being on The Sunday Game Live the following day. I’m nearly wiped before a ball has been pucked.

The new format is brilliant but it also has that chaotic and hectic vibe about it, especially the build-up. I met John Conlon ten days ago in the Temple Gate hotel for the Clare press day, where I interviewed him for a feature that will go out on The Sunday Game live show.

We were speaking about the lead-in to the All-Ireland finals in 1995 and 1997, which was a four week gap back then.

The lead-in was a mixture of feeling that the time was flying but dragging, whereas now, everything flies.

John said that it was stressful for the few lads that have niggles, especially when you only have a handful of sessions to get right for the biggest game of the year.

I know the finals will never go back to September but I think a three-week lead in would be far fairer to the players.

It would also give them more time for head-space, even just to embrace the whole sense of importance around how big this whole occasion is.

Of course there is a balance to be found between being switched on and still finding the time to switch off. Ger Loughnane always encouraged us to take it all in. Back in 1995, I couldn’t but avoid all the madness going on around us as I was working in the bank behind the counter.

My boss Martin Coffey was good enough to let me go upstairs and do some work away from the public glare for part of that week while I took the Friday off and went fishing with Ger ‘Sparrow’ O’Loughlin in Rockmount lake in Inagh.

I wasn’t there to catch any big trout or pike – I was just there to switch off. And yet, I was still 85 per cent focussed on marking Johnny Dooley and what that job entailed.

That is the balance – the psychological sweet spot – that every player is trying to find. Then again, players had more time to put down back then than they do now.

They have less time to think about it all now but I don’t think that extra week would do anyone any harm. It would also give more time to promote our marquee hurling day. 

It has been low key enough in Clare, especially early on in the week, but I think much of that was down to the uncertainty of losing the Munster final and the trepidation of losing the last two semi-finals.

When I was down in Clarecastle on Wednesday for the funeral, Maddens Terrace was festooned in saffron and blue – bar my home house, where we had a small flag out.

It brought back great memories of when the place was a carnival of colour any time Clare were involved in a big match, never mind an All-Ireland when the whole county went bananas.

Apparently it’s like that in Cork – bananas. Liam Ruttle from Party Marquees who put up the marquee here for the podcast said that there was no comparison between the level of calm up here and the mad hype below in Cork.

It's only natural that the county is going a little crazy, especially after beating Limerick twice, but I think that is a help to Clare. Not to be quoting Davy Fitz, but I think it’s no harm to roll out one of his most famous lines this week in that we’re the smaller fish in the big ocean with the great blue whale.

Pat Ryan will no doubt insulate his squad from all that chatter but it’s hard to keep all that stuff out. On the other hand, the Clare lads will know that they are the underdogs, even if the bookies haven’t set the odds as low some people think they should be.

The general sense I get from Cork people is that they fully expect to win.

What is sure – which the customers in the bar have consistently said to me – is that if Clare play as poorly as they did in the first half against Kilkenny, we can forget about even entertaining notions of winning. Cork will be out of sight and on the way up those steps of the Hogan Stand.

Clare are conscious that they can win but only if they hit 90 per cent of their ability. Clare know that they can beat Cork, especially after taking them down in their last three matches.

But there’s a huge difference between the momentum Cork have now compared to the minimal force and support they had behind them in 2022, 2023 and back in late April.

That was obvious on both days against Limerick, and against Tipperary, when Cork – and their supporters – looked like an unstoppable force.

They’ll feel even more confident again now after the performance two weeks ago. But I also think it will be very difficult for Cork to replicate that performance.

Clare are coming in with so much room for improvement. The match could have been over at half-time. Kilkenny rarely lose games from that position. Clare were in the horrors heading into the second half but they still turned around and won the match.

Clare also had an extra day’s preparation, mentally as much as physically. When Cork and Limerick were battling it out on the Sunday, the Clare lads were at home watching it all unfolding, already mentally prepping for what was coming. That may seem insignificant now but I don’t think it is.

Cork do pose a different threat, especially with their big men up front. We all know what Hoggie, Seamie Harnedy, Shane Barrett and Alan Connolly can do but Deccie Dalton and Brian Hayes have brought a different physical element this summer.

From midfield up, Cork look to have a slight advantage. But I think Clare can get at the Cork defence, especially down the middle.

For all the firepower Cork have up front, this Clare froward line is frightening too on paper. Some of those players like Tony Kelly, David Fitzgerald and Mark Rodgers need to be better than they have been – but they can be. I think Rodgers could be a real match-winner here.

The midfield battle will go a long way towards deciding this game. Cathal Malone will have his hands full with Darragh Fitz but Malone is one of these guys who can really focus on a specific job when it is given to him.

Do Clare start Ryan Taylor? I wouldn’t. I’d hold him until the game opens up and he can attack the match then with his pace and energy like he did against Kilkenny.

Going into the 1997 final, David Forde was on fire in training. All of us were thinking that he had to start, but Loughnane wisely held Fordie back. When he was introduced in the second half, he had a massive impact on the match.

If Clare are in touch at half-time and can be firing Taylor into the mix, they’ll be in a much better position than having to take him off with 20 minutes to go when he might have run out of gas – which would be likely after having only played 20 minutes in 12 months.

There are so many intriguing aspects, one of which is how Clare will stop Cork doing so much damage from their quick puckouts, especially if Patrick Collins is firing them out like bullets like he did against Limerick two weeks ago.

The other big question is will Johnny Murphy allow Collins to pull the trigger that quickly once the ball does dead? Johnny deserves his shot.

He will have a big say in how this game goes but I hope that he lets the match flow, which has long been a theme of the great All-Ireland finals.

If there are borderline frees, I hope Johnny doesn’t allow this to descend into a shootout between the free-takers.

I think this will be a great final. As Pakie Tuohy, Fergie’s father used to say to me when he was a selector with Clarecastle, ‘Set fire to the magazine, Mr Anthony’. What Pakie really meant was just burn it up, cut loose, let yourself go, leave it all out there.

Sunday is a day for burning it up, for cutting loose. Both teams will. 

And I think Clare will shade it.