Tales at bath-time with Anthony Daly

In today’s Hospital Pass, we discuss the odd bathroom rituals of Dublin manager Anthony Daly and wonder who exactly is going to kick things off in the Munster football final.

By Conor Heneghan

Dublin hurling manager Anthony Daly doesn’t strike us as a man that would have a bath. We can’t envisage hard-as-nails Dalo as the type of guy that would fill the tub up with Radox, fire up some Toto on the CD player, sink beneath the bubbles and forget about his troubles.

Sure if the rumours are true, not only were the Clare team of the mid-90s forced to run up and down the Shannon hill over and over again in those infamous training sessions of yore, but instead of showers after training, they had to line up in the nip up agin’ a wall in the dark while Ger Loughnane and his backroom team hosed them down with blasts of freezing cold water.

But it turns out we’re wrong, Daly does like to indulge in a dip in the tub every now and again and it was from that peculiar vantage point that he learned of the quite tricky Leinster Championship draw awaiting his Metropolitan side late last year.

“I was up in the bath the night the draw was on,” Daly revealed.

“Eilish was down in the kitchen relaying the messages through Orla, my daughter, shouting in the door.”

“Offaly, Dad.”

“When?”

“Quarter-final.”

“Feck, who’s next?”

“Galway or Westmeath.”

“Jaysus.”

About eight months on from that draw, the Dubs are entering a Leinster Final with both Galway and Offaly easily accounted for and a Walsh Cup and a National League title neatly tucked under their belts.

All has gone swimmingly for Daly and Dublin so far this year, then, but on Sunday they will come up against a Kilkenny side that don’t do defeat very well. Having already been beaten by the lads from the big smoke already this year, the Cats will be positively chomping at the bit to exact some revenge.

At least if they lose, Anthony can seek the comfort of the bath tub. Better have the water running, Eilish.

Munster mash

Down south, meanwhile, fans eagerly anticipating a good old fashioned dust-up in the Munster final this weekend will have been dismayed at the sight of the respective team sheets ahead of the meeting in Killarney.

No Eoin Cadogan? No Paul Galvin? No Tomás Ó Sé? And with the likes of firebrands in the shape of big brother Darragh and Cork’s Derek Kavanagh long since departed, who exactly is going to provide the fireworks?

Rest assured, you can always rely on good old Noel O’Leary, who has already seen red against the Kingdom this year, but he isn’t going to let the prospect of a two-month ban affect his attitude on the pitch on Sunday.

"My attitude to the thing is if you are going to come out with an attitude of 'look I'm going to have to hold back on this one' then you are no good to anyone that way,” said O’Leary.

"I'll be going out, and I presume anyone else caught in the same situation would be going out the same way they always would.

"If it happens, it happens, we can't do a lot about it, that's the way it is."

Good man, Noel. We knew we could depend on you.