Clare V Waterford Munster hurling semi final

1

Can’t see anything other than a Waterford win to be honest…Something similar enough to the Galway Wexford game the other day where Clare will do alright for 50 odd minutes before Waterford pull away…

It will be a tough ask without O’Grady, Quinn and James Mac all missing, pretty much our three most robust defenders…We were pretty mcuh cleaned out at midfield in every league game and i cannot see this changing, Brian O’Connell is completely out of form and seems to be burdened by the captaincy…Our forward look paper thin too…

Hopefully we give a good account of ourselves and the younger lads hold their own, if we somehow managed to win the match there is a munster title there to be won as I have the feeling that yesterday could well have been Corks A/I final

2

Well after cork destroying tipp, anything is possible! Although to be fair waterford deffo look bankers here. surely they should win by 7 points plus?

3

Waterford to win but not by much, 4 points maybe. Clare are a good outfit, as good as Wexford and if Wexford were playing Waterford they would definately fancy their chances.

Just wondering what kind of a crowd will go to this game, around 20,000 I’d say.

4

i would say there will be less with it being on the monday, there won’t be too much of a clar crowd maybe 4 or 5 k from clare

5

It’s on up in the home of hurling yeah?

6

it is…should be a fairly young and inexperienced Clare side with probably 7 or 8 of last years 21s starting

7

I would be amazed if there was 20000 at this. The way I see it is kilkenny galway tipp and cork are the 4 best teams, waterford are next. and then its any of the rest dublin/wexford/clare/offaly.

8

You could be right though with waterford by 4 points as I reckon they wont want to win by too much as that will put added pressure on themselves in munster final

9

Couple of the Waterford lads I know are bleating on about the lack of a full back for the Deise. If they were to get past Clare they are fearing the worst against Cork. Think they should get past Clare first though, Banner boys waiting in the long grass

10

Waterford were fairly flat the first day out in the championship against Limerick last year as well so hopefully it happens again…If Clare get a decent start and a couple of early scores they have a great chance but if the opposite happens we could be looking as a hammering like 2004…Wouldn’t be surprised if Clare started with an extra man in the backs…

11

With the qualifiers, a Wexford mate of mine was saying that it is a round robin between them and Tippx3, Laois/Dublin and Antrim. Is this right? Don’t Carlow get another go too?

12

:rolleyes:

tell your friend to stick to strawberry picking…straight knock out in the qualifiers

13

The championship needs a shake up. Here’s how I see it, its been banded around before but better than the dated Munster and Leinster* championships

Get rid of both Munster and Leinster championships.

Seed the teams as follows
Pot 1
Tipp, KK, Galway, Cork
Pot 2
Waterford, Dublin, Offaly, Wexford
Pot 3
Clare , Laois, Limerick, Antrim

So say the groups would be:
Tipp, Wexford, Clare
KK, Waterford, Antrim
Galway, Dublin, Laois
Cork, Offaly, Limerick
2 teams go through from each group to the quarters, the last 4 play off for relegation. Everyone gets at least 3 games over the summer.

*Leinster have shaked it up a bit by bringing in Galway and Antrim

14

Yea good idea.

15

:o

The Munster championship is sacrosanct locke!

16

Cork would be way too strong for Clare in my opinion going on current form. I don’t think that was their All-Ireland at all. The run is set up with plenty of rest for Cork.

17

We should be beating Clare by 4+… Dont fear cork at all, they are not as good as they were 3 years ago and we could beat them then.

18

Sunday was the best performance since 2006 IMO. And thats not getting carried away, Tipp were poor and we still have areas to improve, but 2006 Munster championship was the last time this team was flying. Pure guts beat Galway in '08 and got a draw against Waterford in '07, but the hurling sunday was far superior to either.

19

After seeing Clare play Dublin the other night I’d be very worried facing into this game. We genuinely have only a few players who are proven at this level. Besides that, we have a whole raft of players who are making their debuts or who have featured very little in recent years. Were we competitive in Division One this wouldn’t be as big a deal but combined with Division Two hurling it’s something you’d have to be concerned about.

As has been said plenty of times, Waterford didn’t set the world alight early on last year and given their persistent weakness at full back we might well goal ourselves into contention. Waterford would still probably be capable of knocking over 17-18 points though and if there’s a matching score in us it’d be the first time we produced it. Should we make it a close run affair most Clare people would probably be reasonably satisfied. We could well be in for a hiding though.

20

but will cork play as well come the munster final, a lotof things fell into place for them last sunday, their half backline were never pressurised on the ball allowing them to play decent ball after decent ball into the forwards…Will Niall Mac, Naughton, Aikake, Jerry O’Conner play as well the next day…Granted Cork were excellent at times on Sunday but no way would Clare or Waterford(who will more than likely be in the final) giv them as much a free run as Tipp did

A Clare team with a similar age profile to this current Cork team went and rolled back the years against Tipp in PUC in 2003 and hammered them out the gate only to be hockeyed by Cork three weeks later…