The inter-provincial final on Saturday night looked great on the telly as it was played under the floodlights but in reality it was in front of a near empty Croke Park with only 10,000 in attendance. Munster won by 2-22 to 2-19 with John Mullane of Waterford lifting the cup.

It’s hard to know how to ressurect the inter-provinicals. The players claim they still want and appreciate it but the fans have no interest. We’ve got so much coverage of the games now on TV that there’s no aura or mystique to seeing the best players from a province play together, and even at that it’s rarely all the best players but a mish mash of who’s available at the time. Allied to the fact that hurling is played in so few counties it’s really only the all-ireland teams (all-stars etc.) that garner interest anymore.

Seeing as Camogie is hurling in the female form and it doesn’t get much coverage it’s time I started including a few stories here. The All Stars is a good place to start. Their nominations were announced during the week and will be given out on November 10th.

The list is predictably dominated by the champions Wexford and beaten finalists Cork but as I was looking down through the list of counties represented it prompted me to compare the hurling strongholds with the camogies ones and see if there’s much difference in where the use of the hurl is best practised around the country.

Camogie has reworked it’s structures recently and is operating at slightly different levels to hurling but the senior championship was contested by 6 teams - Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Tipperary and Wexford. Limerick won the senior B title which is mostly made up of B teams from the counties mentioned. Those counties would be in line with the strong ones in hurling, aside from Dublin maybe but then again they appear to be on the way up in the hurling ranks.

Derry won the junior title beating Clare in the final and the beaten semi finalists were Antrim and Waterford. Presumably Derry now move up to senior. Anyway again those would all be recognised hurling counties, less so Derry perhaps but they’ve been there competing well in Ulster for a good few years now.

Laois beat Meath in the junior B version and again that might be broadly reflective of their level in hurling aswell where both would be at the top of the second tier.

There are possibly only 1 or 2 counties I haven’t mentioned there, Offaly and Down and both of those contested the junior rank where Derry won.

So realistically looking at it hurling and camogie seems to go almost hand in hand around the country. If a county is strong in one it’s likely got a good team in the other or vice versa and there’s no real case where a very weak county in one group is very strong in another. So if you draw a line in the country from Galway across to Dublin you can be sure that almost anywhere you go south of that line you’ll find good hurlers and camogie players (camogiers??) but if you go north of the line you’ll have to head all the way up to Down, Derry or Antrim to find any.

Is there something wong with that section in between that they don’t produce natural players? or have no interest? or try their best but are ignored by the powers that be in terms of coaching and help so they can’t make it? or football just rules the roost there?

As we mentioned previously the Gaelic Games Hurling PS2 game is due out for christmas. It’s now on pre-order at thegaastore.com (i.e. you can order it but won’t get it till it’s actually released). They also have the new version of the football game. Both seem to be selling at €51.87 and they come with an official GAA hurling / football skills DVD. You can get both games (and the free dvd) as a bundle for €74.11.

The official blurb for the game is:
“Gaelic Games: Hurling For the first time ever, exclusive to PlayStation®2, take to the field in a Hurling game fully licenced by the GAA.
Full Hurling Season: NHL, Provincial / All Ireland Hurling Championships, Nicky Rackard & Christy Ring Cups. Club Championship Competitions: Complete with player, team and kit modifier features. 11 photo-realistic stadia including: Croke Park, Semple Stadium, Pearse Stadium & Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Mission Mode: Mission for every county team. Team Manager Mode: Choose a management style for your team. Commentary from the voice of the legendary Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh.
Pack includes an Official GAA Hurling / Football skills DVD. This DVD features routines which can be practiced to help master the key skills of the game and is ideal for both Hurling players and coaches.“

With all the teams of the year having been announced we can look at them side by side and compare them. We have the All-Stars team, the GPA team and Sunday Game team.

The breakdown per county on each team is:
All-Stars: Kilkenny (6), Waterford (5), Limerick (3), Tipperary (1)
GPA: Kilkenny (7), Waterford (3), Limerick (4), Wexford (1)
Sunday Game: Kilkenny (7), Waterford (4), Limerick (3), Wexford (1)

The consensus selections (i.e. the same on all 3 teams) are numbers 2, 4 and 5 which are Michael Kavangh, Jackie Tyrell and Tommy Walsh, Number 6 Ken McGath, Midfield with Cha Fitzpatrick and Brick Walsh, Centre Forward with Ollie Moran, 13 with Andrew O’Shaughnessy and 14 with Henry Shefflin. Eddie Brennan and Dan Shanahan are also on all 3 teams although the GPA team decides to position them differently to the other two. That’s a total of 11 players on all 3 teams which is a fair reflection on the players that stood out all year. There was only one position that was different for all three and that was the final forward spot, number 12 or 15 depending on which team you look at. They all agreed on 5 of the forwards, the last one they couldn’t pick a stand out performer for so we got Stephen Molumphy of Waterford from the All Stars, Martin Comerford of Kilkenny from the GPA and Eoin Larkin of Kilkenny from the Sunday Game.

The GPA have announced their team of the year for 2007. It’s along the lines of most of the other teams we’ve seen so far with the possible exception of Martin Comerford of Kilkenny being selected at 15.

The team is:

1. Damien Fitzhenry (Wexford)

2. Michael Kavanagh (Kilkenny)
3. Stephen Lucey (Limerick)
4. Jackie Tyrell (Kilkenny)

5. Tommy Walsh (Kilkenny)
6. Ken McGrath (Waterford)
7. Mark Foley (Limerick)

8 James Fitzpatrick (Kilkenny)
9 Michael Walsh (Waterford)

10. Eddie Brennan (Kilkenny)
11. Ollie Moran (Limerick)
12. Dan Shanahan (Waterford)

13. Andrew O’Shaughnessy (Limerick)
14. Henry Shefflin (Kilkenny)
15. Martin Comerford (Kilkenny)

We can now compare all the teams of the year.

As expected Dan Shanahan won the All-Stars player of the year award. Don’t know if it’ll be much compensation for losing out in the all ireland semi but it’s due recognition for the outstanding season he had and his brilliant goal scoring exploits.

Similarly Limerick’s Seamus Hickey won the young player award. He had a tough time in the all ireland final but the award recognises his brilliant displays all through the year from his corner back spot.

There were several one sided county finals yesterday in some of the strong hurling counties. In Tipperary Loughmore-Castleiney easily beat Drom-Inch by 0-22 to 0-13, in Wexford Oulart-the-Ballagh hammered Buffers Alley by 4-14 to 2-6 and in Galway, as expected, Portumna strolled past Kinvara on a score of 6-12 to 0-11.

In some closer games, Birr led by Brian Whelehan once again won the Offaly title beating Kilcormac/Killoughey by 0-15 to 0-10 and in Clare Tulla pipped Crusheen by a point 1-7 to 0-9.

In the Ulster club semi final replay Dunloy from Antrim got the better of Ballycran from Down 1-17 to 1-13.

Connacht (or more accurately Galway) beat Ulster by 1-28 to 4-13 to qualify to meet Munster for the inter-provincial title.

Here’s the RTE Sport report on the game.

It’s a bit stupid having one county representing a whole province although obviously Galway are far above anyone else in Connacht. It just emphasises the troubles hurling has with provincial structures because of the lack of top quality teams. It’s a hard one to deal with.

Nice to see the Ulster hurling selectors including players from some of the weaker counties in their lineup for their inter-provincial clash with Connacht. It’s a great way of promoting the game in the weaker areas and giving exposure to the talented players who are outside the mainstream. There’s no doubt that most counties out there would have 1 or 2 top notch players who wouldn’t look out of place in a Kilkenny or Cork team.

Pity Leinster didn’t try shake up their team with a few more non standard players. Instead they loaded it with Kilkenny players who obviously had better things to be doing and duly got stuffed by Munster.

It’ll be interesting to see what team Connacht puts out, hopefully it won’t be the usual Galway 15.

The inter-provincials have been dying a death for many a long year. This year they’re trying to drum up interest by playing both the hurling and football finals on the same night under lights in Croke Park. Sounds like a good idea but hard to see a big crowd turning up - especially when leinster won’t be involved, so fans would have to travel some distance. If they really wanted a crowd they should make it free entry - they (GAA/Croke Park) make enough all year with prices from 30 to 70 euro - it wouldn’t hurt if they gave a little back by waiving the entrance fee. It might even ecourage more families to attend for a novel occasion.

For the record that Ulster Connacht clash is on Saturday night in Ballybofey at 6pm. The Ulster team which has players from 6 different counties: Antrim, Armagh, Down, Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone is:

Graham Clarke (Down),
S Delargy (Antrim) (capt), M McCambridge (Antrim), A Graffin (Antrim),
J Donnelly (Donegal), K McKeegan (Antrim), Gabriel Clarke (Down),
K McGarry (Fermanagh), N McManus (Antrim),
M Herron (Antrim), P McCormack (Armagh), D Coulter (Armagh),
T McIntosh (Tyrone), K Kelly (Antrim), D Cullen (Donegal).

With the All Stars announced, the Sunday game team of the year picked and the GPA team coming soon we might as well wade in here with our own team of the year.

So here it is - the 2007 HurlingBlog team of the year:

1. Damien Fitzhenry (Wexford)

2. Michael Kavangh (Kilkenny)
3. Stephen Lucey (Limerick)
4. Jackie Tyrell (Kilkenny)

5. Tommy Waslh (Kilkenny)
6. Ken McGrath (Waterford)
7. Mark Foley (Limerick)

8. Michael Walsh (Waterford)
9. James Fitzpatrick (Kilkenny)

10. Dan Shanahan (Waterford)
11. Ollie Moran (Limerick)
12. Eoin Kelly (Waterford)

13. Andrew O’Shaughnessy (Limerick)
14. Henry Shefflin (Kilkenny)
15. Eddie Brennan (Kilkenny)

A few variations from the all stars. Have to give Fitzhenry the goalkeeping spot for his efforts for Wexford, there’s no way Declan Fanning can beat Stephen Lucey (or Noel Hickey for that matter) to full back. I would have given number 4 to Seamus Hickey if he hadn’t suffered so badly in the final. Mark Foley deserves a wing back spot over Tony Browne, he was the experience and the passion behind a lot of Limerick’s great play. Eoin Kelly had a great year for Waterford and how the all star selectors forogt that I don’t know so I’ve given him number 12. The rest of the forwards more or less pick themselves.

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