With the senior All Ireland places decided action switches to the under 21s this weekend. Its Galway v Kilkenny and Tipperary v Derry.

The Galway Kilkenny game should be a cracker. It’s live on TG4 at 2.30 on Saturday. They’ve shared the last 5 titles between them and Galway are the defending champs. With the annual failure of their senior team they’ll be hoping for a Minor and Under 21 to pick them up.

Tipperary should be way too strong for Derry and it gives them a chance to lift spirits in the county after the defeat to Waterford. Great to see Derry in an All Ireland semi. Hopefully they can put up a decent show.

The B semi finals are on aswell. Carlow v Donegal and Kerry v Roscommon.

Saturday August 23rd
All Ireland Under 21 Semi Finals
Galway v Kilkenny (2.30pm, Thurles, Live on TG4)
Tipperary v Derry (2.30pm, Mullingar)

All Ireland Under 21 B Semi Finals
Carlow v Donegal
Kerry v Roscommon

Waterford are through to their first All Ireland final since 1963 after they beat Tipperary by 1-20 to 1-18. A powerful start and finish were they keys as they jumped out to a 6 points to nothing lead and then outscored Tipp 5 points to 1 in the closing minutes.

Tipp were probably rusty after their long lay off since the Munster final win and it took them a while to get up to speed. As Waterford have discovered what’s the point in winning a provincial final if it puts you at a disadvantage for the next game - time for an open draw system. Tipp were outstanding all year and just get pipped in one game and it’s over, Waterford have been very poor all year, got an easy draw in the qualifiers and now win one big game and suddenly they do what they failed to do for the last 45 years.

Davy Fitzgerald must be a happy man tonight, god knows what Justin McCarthy makes of it all. All the fuss about him being unfairly got rid of but now the players have responded by reaching the All-Ireland final.

Liam Sheedy can be happy with his first year. They’ve won plenty, have a young team, plenty of talented minors coming through and he looks like a great manager - so it all points to some great years ahead for Tipperary, not that that’s much consolation to them tonight.

The Deise march on to a mouth watering clash with Kilkenny. Should be a great first Sunday in September.

I fancy Tipperary to continue their unbeaten run and edge this one. That’s assuming they haven’t totally lost form in their long break between the Munster final and now. They have a solid team at the back, a commanding centre back and loads of pace from 8 to 15. Waterford have a lot of questions about their backs, their midfield is hit and miss but there’s no denying their full forward line is hot.

Waterford haven’t been overly impressive all year but they keep doing enough and putting up big scores. Tipp have been very impressive but you wonder how long they can sustain it?

All points to a high scoring game. As long as Tipp can keep some kind of rein on Eoin Kelly or John Mullane and don’t concede too many frees they should be able to score more than enough themselves.

Tipperary are the clear favourites with the bookies. It’s typically Tipp 4/9 and Waterford 9/4 with the draw at 10-1. The handicap is around 3 points. I was harping on last week about Cork being a value bet and the same applies to Waterford this week. That doesn’t mean I think they’ll win, but 9/4 in a close 2 horse race is pretty good.

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

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

Emphatic display by the defending champs as they brushed aside Cork with a great display of power and skill. Kilkenny won by 1-23 to 0-17 having led by 1-12 to 0-7 at the break.

Eoin Larkin got the goal around the half hour mark. That helped the cats jump out to a big lead. Cork had a fight back after the break but Kilkenny eventually got back in control once Henry Shefflin steadied them with a few frees.

James Cha Fitzpatrick was stretchered off near the end after being struck in the nads by the hurl of Tom Kenny. Dirty blow from the Cork man that the referee didn’t see.

Earlier in the day Kilkenny doubled up by winning the minor so they’ll be looking to win both All Irelands on the first Sunday of September.

Just looking at the betting on the Cork Kilkenny semi final and I can’t believe the odds. Cork seem to be way too big a price for what should be a close game.

Paddy Power have Cork at 9/4, they have the handicap at 3 points and you can still get Cork at 11/10 there.
Boylesports have Cork at 12/5.
I don’t know if it’s just me but that seems a big price in a 2 horse race. Time to put on a few bets!

Also just noticed it’s a similar story for Tipperary Waterford next week, with Tipp the odds on favourites and Waterford around 5/2.

Great result for Carlow hurling tonight, they beat Westmeath by 3-22 to 4-16 after extra time.

Brendan Cummins won the poc fada again. That’s three in a row for him now and 4 of the last 5. He had 2 pucks to spare over Derry’s Ruari Convey in second. He’s definitely one of the best ever at this competition and although he’s still a bit short of Ger Cunningham’s 7 titles he does have the course record.

The American entry Dan McAuliffe done pretty well for his first visit getting round in 10 pucks more than Cummins.

The officials are at it again. Last night in the Munster under 21 final they had to be escorted off the pitch after a ridiculous decision handed Tipperary the win. Deep in injury time Clare were awarded a close in free around the 21 which would probably have given them the win, but then the referee spotted one of his umpires at the other end, back he went and the umpire tells him the keeper stepped outside the small box when taking his puck out, referee then calls back the free and instead gives Tipp a 65, Pa Bourke points it for them and they win. Cue chaos as Clare fans go nuts and storm onto the pitch, ref and officials get a garda escort off and some of the fans have a sit down protest!

Unreal - where in the world would you get it except a GAA match in Ireland. The TV replays showed the keeper had put one foot outside the square - come on, ONE FOOT!, what was the umpire on? was he deliberately biased towards Tipperary? Still it is the letter of the law and the law says for that transgression a 65 is awarded so the ref followed the instructions.

Thing is though, watch any game of hurling over the rest of the year and look how many times keepers have a foot outside the square and how often it get’s penalised. Lots and never.

It’s a completely unsatisfactory way to end a game, particularly a final. Unfortunately it’s not uncommon, all round the country every weekend there’s probably a few games that are decided by a point that was or wasn’t or a debatable free. Hard to deal with really, the referees do the best they can in a thankless job and it’s the nature of a high scoring sport to have contentious endings.

It’s time for the Poc Fada in the Cooley mountains again. It’s on this Saturday, August 2nd and looks to have a great line up of players to do battle. There’s a nice big piece on the GAA website all about it and the history of the competition.

This year they have Brendan Cummins the reigning champ and record holder, Davy Fitzgerald, Damien Fitzhenry and others including a guy from Milwaukee in USA, Dan McAuliffe. Great to see an American over to have a try in such a famous old competition.

You imagine that Cummins will be the favourite given that he’s won 3 of the last 4 and that he has the record. Although no doubt Davy will be all out to get one up on Tipp before their All Ireland semi final clash!

The roll of honour for the compeition is:

2007 Brendan Cummins - Tipperary
2006 Brendan Cummins - Tipperary
2005 Albert Shanahan - Limerick
2004 Brendan Cummins - Tipperary
2003 Paul Dunne - Louth
2002 Davy Fitzgerald - Clare
2001 Albert Shanahan - Limerick
2000 Colin Byrne - Wicklow
1999 David Fitzgearld - Clare
1998 Albert Kelly - Offaly
1997 Colin Byrne - Wicklow
1996 Michael Shaughnessy - Galway
1995 Michael Shaughnessy - Galway
1994 Michael Shaughnessy - Galway
1993 Albert Kelly - Offaly
1992 Albert Kelly - Offaly
1991 Tommy Quaid - Limerick
1990 Ger Cunnigham - Cork
1989 Ger Cunningham - Cork
1988 Ger Cunningham - Cork
1987 Ger Cunningham - Cork
1986 Ger Cunningham - Cork
1985 Ger Cunningham - Cork
1984 Ger Cunningham - Cork
1983 Pat Hartigan - Limerick
1982 Gerry Goodwin - Tyrone
1981 Pat Hartigan - Limerick

1970 – 1980 Competition Suspended

1969 Liam Tobin - Waterford
1968 Fionbarr O Neill - Cork
1967 Fionnbar O Neill - Cork
1966 Fionbarr O Neill - Cork
1965 Dennis Murphy - Cork
1964 Oliver Goff - Kilkenny
1963 Ollie Walsh - Kilkenny & Tom Geary - Waterford & Dinny Donnelly - Meath
1962 Ollie Walsh - Kilkenny
1961 Vincent Godfrey - Limerick

The GAA have changed the Christy Ring final from the crazy time of Friday night at 7.30pm to Sunday at 6pm in Tullamore. It’s effectively acknowledging the huge mistake they made but of course they won’t put it that way. At least they had the common sense to change it anyway once the pressure came on - that’s the main thing. Nice to see they listen to the people involved occassionally!

Hopefully now the teams will get back to concentrating on the game and will actually deliver a high quality final.

The winners will battle Laois for the right to contest next year’s Liam McCarthy campaign.

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