The Guinness Summer 2009 campaign for the All Ireland Hurling Championship was officially launched yesterday with Joe Canning, Henry Shefflin, Shane McGrath and Ollie Moran on hand for the media duties.
With a tagline of “Get ‘Inside Hurling’ this Summer with Guinness” they have plenty of events planned with one big one being Exclusive Supporters Nights where fans get a chance to meet with a panel of experts at various locations around the main hurling counties.
Westmeath were hammered by Mayo in round 2 of the Christy Ring and as a result are out of the main competition and into a relegation battle. Who would have predicted that? Winners 2 years ago, runner-up last year, coming off some good showings in the league and now they’re out of the running. Must have been because I picked them to win it out!
Mayo obviously turned in a great performance to beat them, final score was 2-20 to 0-15. On their day Mayo seem to be able to beat anyone at this grade, they just lack consistency. Great to see one of the best dual players in the game, Keith Higgins, still going strong, as he powers the Mayo team from midfield with his brother Pierse. Just shows that there is still room for the dual player in today’s game, just needs the managers to be accommodating and cut out their greedy all or nothing habits.
Elsewhere Down beat Kerry by 3-11 to 2-10 in Tralee, Carlow beat Kildare by 1-16 to 1-13 in Newbridge and Derry beat Wicklow 2-15 to 0-9 in Swatragh.
All those results mean Wicklow and Westmeath will play in a relegation play off. Carlow and Down are into the semi finals and Kerry, Kildare, Mayo and Derry will play 2 quarter finals.
Kerry 3-11 Mayo 1-16
Down 3-20 Derry 1-22
Kildare 3-19 Westmeath 2-21 (AET)
Carlow 4-16 Wicklow 3-9
Some cracking games and an upset as favourites Westmeath were beaten by Kildare. 3 of the 4 games were really close which shows how close the teams are at this grade and how hard they’re working to improve.
Shame on Clare and Wexford for their recent comments about not wanting to play these teams in Division 2 of the league. Selfish little people with no vision for the game.
I hadn’t realised there’s
a new format this year for the Christy Ring, it’s knockout with a losers round as opposed to groups. So Westmeath get a second chance after I put the kaibosh on them by predicting they’d win the cup outright.
May 30: Offaly v Wexford, 7pm
May 31: Tipperary v Cork, 4pm
June 14: Limerick v Waterford, 4pm
June 20: Leinster SHC semi-final, 7pm
July 12: Munster SHC final, 4pm
July 26: All-Ireland SHC quarter-finals
Aug 9: All-Ireland SHC & MHC semi-finals
Aug 16: All-Ireland SHC & MHC semi-finals
Sept 6 All-Ireland SHC & MHC finals
I assume TV3 are showing the Leinster Final again. Went to look on their website for details but their new site is so crazy I gave up after barely a minute.
UPDATE May 8th: Found TV3’s games courtesy of
the Irish Independent. They have a Munster Semi Final on June 21st, Clare v Cork/Tipperary and the Leinster Final on July 5th.
The league is done and dusted and it’s time for the major business of the year. Championship action is just around the corner. We get under way this weekend with round 1 of the Ulster championship and Christy Ring Cup.
Ulster had a very successful competition last year with all 9 counties plus London competing. It’s great for the game to have that level of interest. Hopefully this years campaign is just as exciting.
The Christy Ring cup could be very competitive this year. With Carlow the holders, Westmeath the previous year’s champions, Kildare and Meath after showing strong league form, Down always a contender and Mayo and Kerry always capable of springing a surprise. Carlow are away to Wicklow in a tricky opening of their defense, while there’s an all Ulster clash with Down at home to Derry. Westmeath v Kildare and Kerry v Mayo completes the line up.
Should be some good games and hopefully they’ll get a bit more coverage in the press and on tv highlights. I’d much rather watch an exciting Christy Ring cup game than an overly physical, lacking in any skill, low scoring game of football that RTE love to overdose us with from the football championship.
A Christy Ring prediction, I think Westmeath will regain their crown probably against Carlow again in the final.
Brilliant game of hurling in Thurles. Tipperary showed great passion and determination but just ran out of steam at the end of extra time.
Richie Hogan and Eddie Brennan seemed like they could run all day at the end, although how Brennan was still on the field I don’t know after he charged with the elbow into Paul Curran’s face. Curran got up quickly which misled the referee, it was still a red card offence. The ref seemed very flaky all through, letting lots of dodgy tackles go then blowing for silly offences near the end.
It’s another title for the cats but at least Tipperary redeemed themselves from the hammering in the previous encounter and offered us some hope that there might be some challenge to the Kilkenny 4 in a row quest come championship time.
Well the Cork gang are back and they got live coverage on TG4 and produced a win when it seemed they were outplayed for most of the game. I was hoping Clare would win, really dislike the rebels after all the trouble they caused, but it wasn’t to be, 2 poor goals blew away Clare’s good points scoring work.
Kilkenny’s first half performance against Tipperary was amazing. Tipperary looked like they had lead in their boots but some of the cats play was top drawer. Got a couple of great goals. The TJ Reid double on the Richie Power handpass and the Martin Comerford flick up over Brendan Cummins in particular.
Dublin keep on surprising, taking advantage of poor Waterford shooting. They should certainly be safe now in Division 1. Expectations will be rising rapidly for the Leinster Championship, Anthony Daly will want to keep their feet on the ground.
Division 2 has turned out a lot more competitive than expected. Antrim completely screwed up, having done the hard work of beating Wexford they went and drew with Westmeath and then lost to Carlow. Go figure! Offaly have been setting the pace although they still have to play Wexford, Antrim and neighbours Laois which are probably the 3 hardest games.
Gerald McCarthy has finally given in to the pressure and resigned but it’s hard to know where it leaves the situation in Cork with the old guard in the county board still in charge and unlikely to change their processes. Frank Murphy and the county board have always been the real problem but they’re hardly going to resign now are they!
Loading ...
