Lads the late, great @Joe_Player would love the scuttin this week. @Thomas_Brady he’d have you in knots and well you know it.
A titanic battle for the first 20 mins on Sunday awaits before the game will settle down. Keenan will need a cool head and a firm hand.
I think both sides will improve from what we saw in Ennis, Clare are certainly on an upward curve. Where that takes them Sunday and beyond, who knows. Like a title fight they’ll have to do more to take the belt, and I don’t think they’ll have enough. Outside of Ennis and having to deal with a savvier Limerick, Gillane included, will be a tough ask for them. For now.
Limerick will need more from Hayes if he starts up top. Flanagan hopefully will have sharpened up too. O’Neill will feature at some stage. DOD in from the start will be a big boost.
A great pity. Such a talented hurler. He was wasted by Clare post 2013. A real sniper in a Cooper helmet cc @peddlerscross. He did score a lovely goal in the Munster Final defeat to Cork in 2017 iirc. Started to lose his spot at that stage which I couldn’t understand as he was only about 26/27. I’d have second only to Tony Kelly in terms of pure talent in that Clare generation of U21 winners.
We’ll see where Galway are really at on Saturday night. Been going fine so far, probably should have beaten Kilkenny by more the first day. Comfortable against the weaker sides, including Dublin.
If they were to beat Kilkenny with a big performance, they’d probably move up into the most likely contenders unless Clare get a result.
Galway are very hard to get a read on so far. They won’t trouble Limerick on the basis of their performances against Wexford and Kilkenny but there’s a feeling that they haven’t left 3rd gear yet. You’d feel there’s more in them and Shefflin had a habit with Ballyhale of starting a year slowly and then building momentum. Think it was 2019 where they had to beat Clara to stay in the championship after the league section.
They’re one of the few teams without a major mental block against Limerick because although they’ve been beaten by them twice in 2018 and 2020, they haven’t shipped the type of hammerings that others have. Limerick were 6 or 7 points the better team in 18’ but only beat them by 1 and again never looked like losing in 2020 but iirc that game was level heading into injury time before Limerick struck three in succession? The early exits in 2019 and 21’ have added a bit of intrigue and unknown about their capabilities against the Green Machine.
A bunch of young fellas hurled the shit out of them in 2018 and they picked two sweepers to try and keep the score down in 2020. They’re as psychologically damaged as Cork are FFS.
Speaking of fun and perspective, my teenage son arrived home from school this week a little perplexed, even upset, at a video circulating online of yours truly outlining forcefully that the team that beats Waterford will win the All-Ireland.
Sport can make liars and fools of us all and social media has ensured the race to hate is more accelerated than ever.
To offer some “fun and perspective”, I informed Fionn that I was right anyway. A team that has beaten Waterford will win the All-Ireland, it will definitely be one of Limerick, Cork or Clare.
“will definitely be”…
What an utter self-obsessed thin skinned clown Derek McGrath is…
