The All-Ireland quarter-final line up is now complete. The dates and venues should be sorted later today but in general it’s Kilkenny v Galway and Tipperary v Wexford next Sunday and then Waterford v Cork and Limerick v Clare the following weekend.

Waterford certainly drew the short straw, after being so impressive in winning the Munster title they now have to face Cork all over again. That has all the makings of a Cork revenge win and Waterford being left empty handed again on the All-Ireland stage.

Kilkenny should be able to see off Galway. Despite what I thought at the start of the year Ger Loughnane has failed to ignite anything in Galway, they’ve looked very ordinary at times indeed Loughnane’s efforts to turn them into a harder, stronger team may even be stifling their natural play.

Tipperary should be able to build on their great victory over Cork to see off Wexford. Wexford have been very poor this year and don’t even look capable of producing one of their once-a-year barn storming performances.

Limerick and Clare is very hard to call. Limerick need to win to get something out of the season but Clare have been ticking along nicely since their early defeat to Cork.

It would be great to see Waterford, Galway, Wexford and Limerick make the semi-finals but to me it looks more like a Cork, Kilkenny, Tipperary and Clare line up.

Update:
Sunday July 22nd
Wexford v Tipperary (2pm ,Croke Park)
Kilkenny v Galway (4pm, Croke Park)

Sunday July 29th
Limerick v Clare (2pm ,Croke Park)
Waterford v Cork (4pm, Croke Park)

While there’s much talk of the demise of Leinster hurling, the counties in the second-tier have shown there’s plenty of life there as all 4 semi-finalists are from the province. Carlow, Kildare, Meath and Westmeath have emerged from the group stages to fill the last 4.

In the third tier competition, the Nicky Rackard cup, Armagh, Donegal, Louth and Roscommon all won their quarter-finals with relative ease.

Update:

Saturday July 21st
Christy Ring Cup Semi-Finals
Westmeath v Carlow (5pm, Tullamore)
Meath v Kildare (7pm, Tullamore)

Nicky Rackard Cup Semi-Finals
Armagh v Donegal (3pm, Keady)
Louth v Roscommon (7pm, Drogheda)

Tipperary produced a surprise on Saturday by defeating Cork by a point to top group B of the qualifiers. Click here to read the Irish Independent report. Tipp’s reward is a quarter-final against Wexford while Cork now play Waterford again.

Saturday July 14th
Qualifiers Group 1
Galway 2-31 Antrim 1-9
Laois 1-11 Clare 2-14

Qualifiers Group 2
Offaly 2-25 Dublin 2-13
Tipperary 2-16 Cork 1-18

Christy Ring Cup - Group 2A
Westmeath 1-14 Kerry 1-11
Down 2-12 Meath 1-21

Christy Ring Cup - Group 2B
London 3-10 Carlow 2-16
Derry 3-20 Wicklow 3-12

Nicky Rackard Cup Quarter-Finals
Roscommon 4-19 Monaghan 1-8
Louth 4-26 Warwickshire 1-3
Armagh 2-19 Tyrone 1-9
Donegal 2-14 Longford 2-8

With the main provincial titles decided this weekends action is left to the final round of qualifiers, the final round of the Christy Ring Cup and the quarter-finals of the Nicky Rackard Cup.

Most of the placings in the qualifiers and Christy Ring cup are already pretty much decided, while the big clash of the weekend is undoubtedly the clash of Tipperay and Cork to decide who tops group B of the qualifiers. The winners will play Wexford in the All-Ireland quarter-finals while the losers will play Waterford.

Saturday July 14th
Qualifiers Group 1
Galway v Antrim (Pearse Stadium, 3pm)
Laois v Clare (Portlaoise, 3pm)

Qualifiers Group 2
Offaly v Dublin (Tullamore, 3pm)
Tipperary v Cork (Thurles, 3pm, Live RTE2)

Christy Ring Cup - Group 2A
Westmeath v Kerry
Down v Meath

Christy Ring Cup - Group 2B
London v Carlow
Derry v Wicklow

Nicky Rackard Cup Quarter-Finals
Roscommon v Monaghan
Louth v Warwickshire
Armagh v Tyrone
Donegal v Longford

Dan Shanahan’s scoring heroics helped Waterford overcome a strong Limerick challenge by 3-17 to 1-14 in yesterday’s Munster final in Thurles. Dan bagged a personal tally of 3-3 and it was his goals that helped Waterford pull away at the end of a pulsating game. Limerick matched Waterford all over the field but couldn’t get the goals to match the Deise men and while the 9 point winning margin didn’t do justice to Limerick it did emphasize the better scoring power of Waterford.

Read a full match report on the Irish Independent.

Munster Senior Championship Final
Waterford 3-17 Limerick 1-14

Qualifiers Group 1
Antrim 1-23 Laois 1-13
Clare 2-10 Galway 0-14

Qualifiers Group 2
Dublin 1-11 Tipperary 1-20
Cork 1-27 Offaly 0-11

Christy Ring Cup - Group 2A
Kerry 2-21 Down 2-11
Mayo 0-11 Westmeath 2-14

Christy Ring Cup - Group 2B
Carlow 2-15 Derry 3-9
Kildare 0-24 London 1-11

Nicky Rackard Cup
Tyrone 3-13 Sligo 0-15
Donegal 2-22 Leitrim 2-4
Monaghan 0-14 Roscommon 2-21
Cavan 0-7 Warwickshire 2-15

The teams have been announced for Sunday’s Munster final with both sides showing a couple of small changes.

On the Limerick side Peter Lawlor replaces the injured Damien Reale and Barry Foley comes in for Kevin Tobin. On the Waterford side Kevin Moran is named instead of James Murray, and while the team also shows a few positional switches it’s more than likely they’ll revert to the more regular positions come throw in.

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

Waterford: C. Hennessy; A. Kearney, K. Moran, E. Murphy; T. Browne, D. Prendergast, K. McGrath; M. Walsh, S. Molumphy; S. Prendergast, D. Shanahan, P. Flynn; J. Mullane, E. Kelly, J. Kennedy

Kilkenny hammered Wexford by double scores 2-24 to 1-12 to claim another Leinster title. The game was effectively over after 15 minutes by which time Kilkenny had scored 2 goals and opened up a sizable gap. Wexford had an awful day with lots of basic errors, poor execution and plenty of wayward shooting. So the Cats stroll on to another All-Ireland quarter final without having had any serious test in Leinster.

On a brighter note Dublin won the minor title beating Kilkenny by 2-14 to 1-10. Dublin are making great progress at minor and under-21 in the last couple of years, hopefully they’ll have the systems in place to bring those players through to senior level in the next few years. A nice boost for them this year would be to go on and win the All-Ireland.

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