Saturday August 4th

Minor Semi-Final
Dublin v Cork (7pm, Portlaoise)

U-21 B Final
Roscommon v Kerry (3.45pm, Thurles)

Sunday August 5th

Christy Ring Final
Kildare v Westmeath (12.15pm, Croke Park)

All Ireland Semi-Final
Kilkenny v Wexford (2pm, Croke Park)

All Ireland Quarter-Final Replay
Waterford v Cork (4pm, Croke Park)

Looks like the GAA have decided on the unusual move of putting the Waterford Cork quarter final replay on with the Kilkenny Wexford semi final next Sunday. And in a move that seems like a kick in the teeth to Leinster hurling and to the Christy Ring cup, the replay will take main billing at 4pm, the semi moves to 2pm and the Christy Ring final gets shunted to 12.15 and an empty stadium.

Limerick 1-23 Clare 1-16
Waterford 3-16 Cork 3-16
Wexford 3-10 Tipperary 1-14
Kilkenny 3-22 Galway 1-18

Semi-final line up:
Kilkenny v Wexford
Limerick v Cork/Waterford

Cork have made a few changes to their line-up for Sunday’s clash with Waterford. Captain Kieran Murphy is replaced by Timmy McCarthy and the captaincy goes to Joe Deane, Tom Kenny returns to midfield in place of Kevin Hartnett and Shane O’Neill and Barry Murphy replace Cian O’Connor and Shane Murphy in the corner back slots.

Cork: D Og Cusack; S O Neill, D O Sullivan, B Murphy; J Gardiner, R Curran, S Og O Hailpin; T Kenny, J O Connor; B O Connor, T McCarthy, P Cronin; N Ronan, K Murphy (Sars), J Deane (capt).

Damien Reale returns to the Limerick team in place of Mark O’Riordan and Kevin Tobin replaces Barry Foley at corner forward.

Limerick: B Murray; D Reale, S Lucey, S Hickey; P Lawlor, B Geary, M Foley; D O’Grady, M O’Brien; M Fitzgerald, O Moran, N Moran; A O’Shaughnessy, B Begley, K Tobin.

Eoin Kelly remains among the subs for Tipperary.

Tipperary: G Kennedy; E Buckley, D Fanning, A Byrne; E Corcoran, C O’Mahony, S Maher; H Maloney, S Butler; J Carroll, B Dunne (Capt), D Hickey; L Corbett, D Egan, W Ryan.

Wexford are unchanged from their initial line up.

Wexford: D Fitzhenry; M Travers, K Rossiter, P Roche; R Kehoe, D Ruth, D Lyng; D Stamp, R McCarthy; E Quigley, M Jordan, S Nolan; B Lambert, M Jacob, R Jacob.

With all 4 quarter-finals on this weekend in Croke Park we have a feast of top class hurling in store. The Kilkenny/Galway and Tipperary/Wexford betting odds haven’t changed much since our last report, both Kilkenny and Tipperary are clear favourites. However the two games on Sunday are much tighter with no standout favourite.

Both games are offering similar odds with Limerick slight favourties at 10/11 over Clare at 11/10 and Waterford at 5/6 over Cork at 11/10. It’s a tough job to call either of those games and the odds reflect that.

Limerick really need to beat Clare or their epic win over Tipp counts for very little, however I have a feeling Clare will sneak that one. Waterford have had a great year so far but they need to go on and lift the Liam McCarthy or they’ll feel like they’ve failed again. They have not done well in Croke Park over the years and I have a feeling that a Cork team who have been given a kick up the behind by the defeat to Tipp will avenge their Munster semi-final loss to the Deise.

On Saturday Tipperary should be too good for Wexford and they can always call Eoin Kelly off the bench if they’re in trouble. The big question with Kilkenny is how last weekend’s tragedy affects them. It’s bound to have shaken their concentration and it may open the door for Galway to catch them. It’ll be interesting to see what team selection and other ploys Ger Loughnane comes out with to upset the cats.

I’ll hazard a guess that the semi-final line up will show Kilkenny v Tipperary and Cork v Clare but the only betting I’d be doing is a few bob on Galway to win.

They were no surprises in the Nicky Rackard cup semi finals as Armagh and Roscommon recorded two very easy victories to advance to this year’s final.

Armagh saw off Donegal by 3-28 to 2-10 with Declan Coulter in super scoring form as he bagged a tally of 3-8.

Roscommon had no trouble beating Louth on a scoreline of 2-13 to 0-5.

Westmeath and Kildare came through two very close semi finals on Saturday to earn the right to contest this year’s Christy Ring cup final.

Westmeath saw off Carlow by just two points, 4-11 to 2-15 to put them in line to regain the title they won in 2005. Westmeath started the game in powerful style and knocked in 3 goals to open up an 11 point lead at the break. Carlow came back very strongly in the second half but the gap was just a bit too big and a 4th Westmeath goal helped them seal the win.

Kildare edged Meath by the smallest of margins, 1-14 to 1-13. Kildare started strongly to open a 6 point gap but by half time they were behind by two. They were the better team in the second half but they hit 14 wides and had to rely on a great late save by their keeper to prevent Meath snatching it.

Sunday’s two All Ireland quarter finals at Croke Park have been postponed due to the tragic death of James McGarry’s wife Vanessa in a road accident on Thursday. Her burial is taking place on Sunday and the Kilkenny county board requested a postponement. The games (also including the minor quarter final) will instead take place on the following Saturday, July 28th, back in Croke Park.

Tickets already bought are valid for the next day but they can also be refunded if you cannot make the new date, as long as you return them to the original source.

Almost forgot this during the week - Dublin beat Offaly 2-18 to 3-9 on Wednesday night to win the Leinster under-21 title. That’s the double in a sense as they had earlier won the minor title. No doubt a lot of the team had come through from their 2005 minor team that also won Leinster. It’s all boding well for the future of Dublin hurling. The underage work is paying off, the players are getting experience of winning and beating the best and maybe in a couple of years time it’ll be Dublin rather than Wexford or Offaly who are challenging Kilkenny in the senior.

What would be really impressive this year would be if they could go on to win the All-Ireland in either minor or under-21.

Click here to read the hoganstand report of the game or here to read the Irish Independent report.

The betting on Sunday’s two quarter finals seems pretty clear cut. Tipperary and Kilkenny are both short odds favourites to beat Wexford and Galway respectively.

• Tipperary 1/5 Wexford 4/1 Draw 11-1
• Kilkenny 2/9 Galway 7/2 Draw 10-1

Boylesports were giving 4/1 on Galway, and on Betfair Wexford have drifted out near 9/2 so if you fancy an upset in either game they might be the best values you’ll get.

Ladbrokes are again offering odds on the Christy Ring semi-finals. They have

• Westmeath 1/2 Carlow 15/8
• Meath 8/11 Kildare 13/10

I like a double there on Carlow and Kildare. Both sides were impressive during the group stages and no team has home advantage (games are in Tullamore) so I don’t see how you could offer short odds on Westmeath and Meath.

« Previous entries