With the Leinster Final, 4 qualifiers and a whole schedule of Christy Ring and Nicky Rackard games on at the weekend there’s plenty of hurling action to keep us interested. The Dublin v Cork qualifier on Saturday is live on RTE 2 at 3.30pm as of course is the Kilkenny v Wexford Leinster Final at 4pm the following day. With a lot of heavy rain forecast over the week some of the games could turn into tough slogs which always opens up the possibility of upsets.
Kilkenny as would be expected are very short odds to beat Wexford, being available at around 1/14 while Wexford are around 7/1. We live in hope that Wexford will turn in a barn-storming performance and stun the cats but your head tells you that this will be an easy 10 point win for the champions.
Offaly seem to be a quite generous 5/1 against Tipp, given that Tipp are only a week off their devastating loss to Limerick. If Offaly can pull out a high tempo performance they could upset the odds there.
Galway are an unbackable 1/66 or 1/100 away to Laois and there’s no way you can see anything other than an easy Galway win there.
You can get 7/1 - 10/1 on Dublin to topple Cork. Dublin have certainly shown promise and playing in Parnell Park should help but it’s hard to see them being able to cope with Cork for 70 minutes, especially with the 3 combatants restored to goals and defence.
Clare have the long trip up north to face Antrim and while it’s always seen as a tough journey and a hard place to get a result, Clare seem to have a habit of knocking up big scores against the weaker teams.
After over 250 minutes of hard fought hurling we finally got a result as Limerick saw off Tipperary with 3 late points in the Gaelic Grounds yesterday on a scoreline of 0-22 to 2-13. A wet day made conditions tough but the players again served up a gripping encounter. This time it was Limerick who took the initiative and Tipperary who had to fight back with the help of timely goals. A late Seamus Butler point forced extra time with the scores at 1-12 to 0-15 but Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Ollie Moran and Niall Moran were all on target at the end of the second period of extra time to clinch the win.
Limerick fans invaded the pitch prematurely at the end with 1 minute still left and when it was finally over they stormed on again to congratulate their heros. Clearly a huge outpouring of relief as well as joy as Limerick finally won a Munster championship game for the first time in 6 years. The only concern now is whether they have anything in the tank to battle Waterford in the Munster final.
Tipperary on the other hand have to somehow drag themselves off the ground to play Offaly next Saturday in the qualifiers. Having been in a dominant position for so long in the first 2 games they must be absolutely shattered to have finally lost while Offaly have had time to regroup after their loss to Kilkenny and will be boosted by their under 21 victory over the cats.
The three Cork players suspended in the so called “Semple-Gate” affair have finally spoken out.
Click here to read the article in today’s Examiner. They’ve apologised for their actions but had a real go at the GAA for the way they handled it. When model players like Sean Og O’Hailpin are the victims of crazy GAA disciplinary procedures you know there’s something wrong. With the guys being such prominent members of the GPA there’s bound to be more heard from the players on this whole area.
The GAA top brass better wake up quick and start sorting out some of their disciplinary procedures mess. Nickey Brennan, who has come in for plenty of direct criticism on this issue, is having a none too rosy presidency.
In an update to an earlier post
RTE have decided to show the Limerick Tipperary second replay live on RTE 1 this Sunday. While the football action is taking over RTE 2 for the afternoon you can now switch over to RTE 1 around 3.10 to get live coverage from the Gaelic Grounds.
Tipperary have named an unchanged team which means Gerry Kennedy continues in goal in place of Brendan Cummins.
There’s hope for Leinster hurling yet! Last night in the under-21 semi-finals, the all-Ireland champions Kilkenny were dethroned by Offaly and Dublin made it to another final beating Wexford.
Several of Offaly’s players had been on the senior team that got hammered by the cats a few weeks ago but this time they got their revenge on a scoreline of 1-13 to 0-13. They built up a 6 point lead at half-time thanks to an Alan Egan goal and then held off a second half fightback from the champions.
Dublin overcame Wexford by the minimum 3-12 to 2-14 in a tense battle in Parnell Park.
The Tipperary Limerick replay is the only championship game on this weekend. Unfortunately it’s not available on live TV, being scheduled for 3.30 on Sunday so you’ll have to head to Limerick to catch the action live. Might be available on radio 1 but seeing as the Dubs are playing football they’re more than likely to dominate the airwaves. Tipp have injuries to Eamon Corcoran and Shane McGrath delaying their team selection.
There is a full schedule of Christ Ring and Nicky Rackard Cup games on. Could be a big clash in the Christ Ring group A where two potential winners Westmeath and Down meet on Saturday in Mullingar.
Plenty more controversy to go around aswell. Cork boss Gerald McCarthy
launched an attack on the GAA, it’s disciplinary procedures and it’s president Nicky Brennan. Brennan has responded by calling an unscheduled meeting of the Central Council this weekend to try deal with all the current disciplinary problems and the Clare Cork fallout.
And as if Cork haven’t created enough problems they apparently
have now challenged the selection of venues for the qualifier games. Apparently they don’t agree with the home and away basis because it wasn’t specified in the motion at congress. You’d think Cork would be trying to promote the game not drag it down into petty disputes and childish arguments.
Christy Ring Cup - Group 2A
Kerry 1-18 Mayo 0-11
Meath 2-16 Westmeath 1-19 Christy Ring Cup - Group 2B
Carlow 3-13 Kildare 0-15
Wicklow 1-22 London 1-10
The website was unavailable this morning for a few hours due to
a problem at the hosting company. Apologies for that, was outside my control. Back now as of 14:50.
The two big games of the weekend are obviously the Munster semi-finals. The odds haven’t changed a lot in the betting shops recently and are somewhat similar for both games.
Tipparary are around 8/13 or 4/6 against Limericks 6/4. Limerick have shortened a bit from last week’s odds but clearly the bookies feel Tipp have more in reserve. I generally think the same way although if Tipp were to be missing Eoin Kelly who’s carrying a hand injury that would change things a lot.
As I said in an earlier post Waterford are favoured over Cork at around 4/6 against 11/8. Seems fair enough and indeed with Cork missing 3 crucial players there’s just no way I can see Waterford losing this one.
Ladbrokes are offering odds on the Christy Ring cup games. The two ones that stand out are Wicklow(at home) at 1/10 to beat London 5/1 and Westmeath(away) at 1/10 to beat Meath 5/1. Given the unpredictability of the lower divisions I’d find the the 5/1 on Meath at home pretty generous, but then again Westmeath and Wicklow have proven they’re two of the best in the second grade. So a quick prediction on the 4 games, I’d go with Wicklow to beat London, Kerry and Mayo to draw, Westmeath to beat Meath and Carlow to surprise Kildare.
Loading ...
