There’s a big line up of fixtures for next Saturday.

The Waterford v Offaly and Galway v Cork qualifiers will be played as a double header in Thurles at 5 and 7pm and both are live on RTE2.
Antrim and Laois play off in the relegation dogfight to see who’ll do battle with the Christy Ring winners.

All the quarter finals in the Christy Ring and Nicky Rackard cups are down for decision too. Christy Ring favourites Westmeath have to travel to Andy Comerford inspired Kildare and could well get dumped out of the competition. In the Nicky Rackard the two newbies - Fingal (aka North Dublin) and Non Ards (aka South Down) - both have home ties and look good for semi spots.

Saturday July 19th
All Ireland Qualifiers Round 4
Waterford v Offaly - (Thurles, 5pm, Live on RTE2)
Galway v Cork - (Thurles, 7pm, Live on RTE2)

All Ireland Relegation Play Off
Antrim v Laois - (Navan, 2.30pm)

Christy Ring Cup Quarter Finals
Wicklow v Mayo - (Aughrim, 5pm)
Down v Derry - (Newry, 3pm)
Kerry v Carlow - (Tralee, 3pm)
Kildare v Westmeath - (Newbridge, 5pm)

Nicky Rackard Cup Quarter Finals
Fingal v Leitrim - (Parnell Park, 3pm)
Non-Ards v Louth - (Newry, 1pm)
Monaghan v Cavan - (Clones, 1pm)
Sligo v Tyrone - (Markievicz Park, 3pm)

As expected Tipperary won the Munster title, their first since 2001, beating Clare by 2-21 to 0-19 at a packed Gaelic Grounds. They’re unbeaten in all games this year and move on to the All Ireland semi final where they’ll wait to see who emerges from the qualifiers.

Tipp led by 8 at half time and finished up ahead by the same margin but Clare put up a hard fight for a lot of the game and only undone a lot of their work by shooting loads of wides. When they looked dead and buried in the second half they put together a great revivial led by Niall Gilligan but just as you thought “here go Tipp collapsing again” - up popped John O’Brien with a great goal and that was the end of the comeback.

Conor O’Mahony got over his injury troubles and was brilliant at centre back for Tipp whereas Clare’s Conor Plunkett who had been dominant at centre back for them all year never got going and was roasted by Seamus Callinan for some great first half scores. Shane McGrath has all but guaranteed himself a midfield all star with another all action display and threw in a great point from a sideline cut to cap it all. Brendan Cummins was back to his imperious best - how on earth he was dropped last year is beyond comprehension.

I’m not sure Clare have it in them to beat whoever gets through the next round of the qualifiers, likely Galway or Waterford. They’re full of passion and commitment but short on a bit of class (which is exactly what you’d expect from a Mike McNamara outfit really). On the other hand Tipperary are making it look like 2001 all over again and they now have around 5 weeks to pass till their semi final date on August 17th.

Great to see the huge crowd of over 48,000 after the miserable Leinster Final attendance. With all the talk of altering the championship to a possible champions league style it’s hard to see where you’d get crowds and atmosphere like that without a Munster championship.

Great day of hurling on Saturday with plenty of surprise results. No doubt about the big shock - Offaly hammering Limerick by 10 points. Limerick were the odds on favourites and on all the form should have won but Offaly got off to a great start from which they never let up and Limerick once again conceded a load of goals. Last year’s All Ireland champions dumped out in miserable fashion without winning a game. Just goes to prove what most people thought - Limerick were a bit lucky last year when things fell their way to reach the final. Offaly now face Waterford in the next phase.

Just to prove that Leinster hurling isn’t in such a bad state Dublin then pushed Cork all the way only losing by 5 points. Conceding a soft goal mid way through the second half proved the killer for Dublin. They really are getting closer to the big stage, surely some year soon they’re going to make the breakthrough! As for Cork - hard to know what to make of them. They’ve been far from impressive in their two outings but you never know when they’ll turn it on. Still, hard to see them beating Galway next weekend.

The final phase of Christy Ring games produced plenty of drama. Wicklow beat everyones favourites for the title Westmeath but the two of them progress to the quarter finals anyway. Down beat Carlow but both of them progress as well. Kerry stunned Meath with 7 goals to dump them out of the competition even though Meath had won their first game. Kildare had another big win. It’s all pointing to a really competetive knockout stages, with any number of teams in with a shot and not the walkover for Westmeath all pundits had predicted.

Tipperary and Clare have both named their teams and we’re all set for what should be another great Munster clash in the Gaelic grounds on Sunday.

Tipp still seem to have doubts about the fitness of their centre back Conor O’Mahony with former all-star Declan Fanning being touted as a possible replacement. O’Mahony has been playing brilliantly for Tipperary all year and has been knocking over a lot of long range frees so he’d be a major loss.

In the betting Tipperary are strong favourites on offer at around 4/9 on and Clare at 9/4 with the draw about 10/1.

Hard to know what the pitch will be like, it’s had loads of rain all week and Limerick and Offaly will be playing there on Saturday evening so it could be a bit of a mess although it looks like Sunday might actually stay dry and sunny (miracle of miracles).

You have to fancy Tipp based on their great form all year and the dismissal of Cork last day but then Clare have two very good high scoring perfomances behind them. Prediction? Tipperary to win, let’s say 3-17 to 2-14

Tipperary:
B Cummins;
E Buckley, P Curran, C O’Brien;
E Corcoran, C O’Mahony, S Maher;
J Woodlock, S McGrath;
P Kerwick, S Callinan, J O’Brien;
E Kelly, L Corbett, S Butler.

Clare:
P Brennan;
P Vaughan, F Lohan, G O’Grady;
G Quinn, C Plunkett, P Donnellan;
B O’Connell, C Lynch;
T Carmody, D McMahon, T Griffin;
J Clancy, N Gilligan, M Flaherty.

We’ve seen it all year with Antrim being treated like unwanted dirt by the GAA and now it’s Laois’ turn.

Laois wanted their relegation clash with Antrim put back 24 hours from Saturday 19th to Sunday 20th to avoid a clash with their footballers who are playing Longford in the qualifiers the same day. They have 3 dual players who recently rejoined their hurling panel and would be a big asset to the team in their survival battle. For some unknown reason the GAA in their wisdom refused the request.

Now that’s bad enough but then look at the case of the Kilkenny intermediate team. They were supposed to play the Leinster Intermediate final against Dublin last night but they got a postponement until Sunday week because - wait for it - some of their players are on the football panel which plays in the Tommy Murphy Cup on Saturday. Saturday! 3 days later, a second string team and they get a postponment but Laois don’t even though they have both senior teams playing on the one day.

It’s crazy, illogical and further proof of the bias towards the stronger counties. It’s no wonder the weaker teams can’t make progress when they’re being kicked in the face and spat upon by the GAA authorities every time they need some help.

As expected Kilkenny easily retained their Leinster crown beating Wexford by 5-21 to 0-17. The first half was a close exciting one but Kilkenny upped their game in the second half and got some early goals to help them pull away.

Couple of yellow card for the cats including a double for Martin Comerford and Richie Power when both high tackled Paul Roche and Tommy Walsh was lucky not to get a red for a wild swing across the legs of Diarmuid Lyng.

Eddie Brennan and Richie Power provided most of the firepower in the second half and Eoin Larkin got the TV3 man of the match after a good all action display.

Another decent show from TV3 although the commentator is a bit annoying.

As expected Galway and Waterford comfortably saw off Laois and Antrim. Nothing much to be learned for either manager.

The lwo losers will batttle for survivial in the top tier. They play each other and then the losers play the Christy Ring winners.

Waterford 6-18 Antrim 0-15
Galway 1-26 Laois 0-9

Davy Fitzgerald has picked his first Waterford team and it has the unusual sight of Ken McGrath at full back. It’s been a problem area for the Deise so Davy is hoping the skills of Ken can handle the position. It’s hard to imagine an open free flowing talismatic player like McGrath coping too well with the tight confines of full back and it’s hard to see Waterford doing too well without him driving forward from centre back. This Antrim game won’t tell us anything either. Waterford will cruise to an easy victory regardless of who plays where.

C Hennessy;
E Murphy, K McGrath, D Prendergast;
S O’Sullivan, T Browne, J Kennedy;
M Walsh, D Bennett;
E Kelly, G Hurney, S Molumphy;
E McGrath, D Shanahan, J Mullane

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