AS THE TYPE of person who doesn’t like to leave things up to chance, the manner in which a venue was selected for this weekend’s Allianz National Hurling League Division Two final against Clare won’t have pleased Limerick hurling manager Donal O’Grady greatly.

With neither county particularly anxious to travel to Semple Stadium in Thurles for Saturday evening’s clash, it was agreed that home advantage would be determined by that most traditional of methods – a coin toss.

And though O’Grady has welcomed the decision not to stage the promotion decider in Tipperary, he knows that his side’s task has been made that little bit more complicated by the fact that they will face their divisional rivals in their own backyard, Cusack Park in Ennis.

“I didn’t see much point in both Clare and Limerick heading across to Thurles for a game,” O’Grady told TheScore.ie earlier today. “The toss is 50-50 but if you lose it, you’re going to Ennis to play Clare up in Cusack Park where there’ll be a big home crowd.”

Home advantage is worth a couple of points, so it‘ll be a huge challenge for Limerick to go back up to Ennis again.

In any case, Saturday’s game will almost certainly provide a sterner test for O’Grady and his charges than the last time that the green and white graced Cusack Park. The two sides met in the opening game of this year’s league campaign with Limerick running out comfortable winners on a scoreline of 2-09 to 0-06.

This time around, though, the former Cork manager expects the game to be a lot tighter and knows that a vociferous home crowd may tip any borderline decisions in the hosts’ favour.

“You don’t say it too often but in tight games, refereeing decisions can be crucial and if there’s a big roar from the home crowd, it can from time to time influence the officials. That’s being honest,” he said.

“Any tight game I was ever involved in, whether it was as a player or as a coach or as a mentor, you need to win the 50-50s and if they go against you, that’s that. That’s a fact of life.”

There’s a lot of pressure on referees and they do a good job. But I spent some time refereeing myself and when there’s a big roar, it does force you to think again.

If we get the 50-50s, I won’t be cribbing and if we don’t, you just have to get on with it.

Although the Shannonsiders’ opening Munster Championship game against Waterford is still over six weeks away, O’Grady knows that winning promotion to Division One is equally as important as any of the challenges which his side will face for the remainder of the season.

Like many of his managerial colleagues, the Limerick boss is less than happy with the current format of the league’s top two tiers which he feels does not provide enough truly testing fixtures for the better hurling sides in Division Two.

“Some of the matches will be competitive enough in Division Two and some will be poor enough,” he said, adding that “there are varying standards between the teams as well. There are three or four teams who are at a certain level and then there are another four teams who are below that level.”

“It’s very hard to get up for some of the games. We learned early on that you don’t always have to be at your best to win.”

It looks impressive to say that you lost no matches but the level required for that wouldn’t do at the top level.