Hurling and Football League Games This Weekend

1

An altogether stronger looking Cork side announced for Sunday and it was to be expected because with Cork, Wexford, Waterford and Clare all on 4 points and with only 3 to go through there is no room for slip ups in the last 2 games. It’s likely to come down to scoring difference and though Wexford lag behind at the moment we finish at home to Down. That said we’ll be all but qualified if we can come back from Cork with a victory.

We haven’t named our side yet but Darren Stamp played the last 15 minutes on Sunday and John Meyler announced that Skippy Ruth is ready to feature again after hamstring trouble over the winter. Rory McCarthy was also fit enough to come off the bench the other day too so we’re nearing a full strength squad ourselves. If Skippy does come back in then I’d prefer to see Rossiter remain at centre back with Ruth on the wing. Stamp would merit a place in midfield alongside Gizzy Lyng and Rory Mc can play anywhere from 8 upwards so good to have these lads back.

Our footballers host Sligo on Sunday and a win would set them up nicely for the last 2 games against top 2, Meath and Cavan. I see in the local press that former Clare midfielder, Peter O’Dwyer, has joined the squad after transferring to Castletown in Wexford. He’s a brother of Odhran who played compromise rules a few years back and was midfield for Clare in last year’s championship. He also won a Munster club title with Kilmurray-Ibrickane in 2004 so sounds like a good cv.

Cork restore O’Sullivan to full-back
21/03/2007 - 11:21:59

Cloyne clubman Diarmuid O’Sullivan has been restored to his regular full-back position in the Cork team to face Wexford this Sunday.

O’Sullivan was tried out as a full-forward by Cork boss Gerald McCarthy in the Waterford Crystal Cup and the early part of the National League, but he will don the number 3 jersey for this weekend’s Division 1A clash.

Neil Ronan will line out at full-forward in a Cork side that is much changed from the one that struggled to beat Down 1-10 to 2-5 last weekend.

As well as O’Sullivan, goalkeeper Donal Og Cusack, defenders Brian Murphy and Cian O’Connor and forwards Kieran Murphy (Sarsfields) and Timmy McCarthy have been recalled by McCarthy.

Anthony Nash, Wayne Sherlock, Killian Cronin and Patrick Fitzgerald are the players to make way at the back, with Erin’s own clubman Peter Kelly also preferred to John Gardiner at left half-back.

Kelly’s club-mate Kieran Murphy, Cork’s captain this season, returns to midfield to partner Tom Kenny having lined out in the half-forward line against Down.

Mickey O’Connell, Kevin Canty and Jonathan O’Callaghan have dropped down to the bench to allow for Murphy’s switch and the inclusion of Kieran Murphy of Sarsfields and Timmy McCarthy.

Niall McCarthy required stitches on the gash above his eye he sustained against the Mourne men but he has been named at centre forward for Sunday’s encounter.

CORK (NHL v Wexford ) - D Og Cusack; B Murphy, D O’Sullivan, C O’Connor; K Hartnett, R Curran, P Kelly; K Murphy (Erin’s Own), T Kenny; P Cronin, N McCarthy, T McCarthy; K Murphy (Sarsfields), N Ronan, J Deane.

2

Heard a Dublin hurling fan remark that they seriously fancy their chances of beating Wexford in the first round of the championship

3

And so they should too.

We’ll not be taking the drug using, gangland killing, syringe yielding fookers for granted anyway.

4

Another super win for Dublin today, this time at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. Great to get a win on the road - I just hope our dropped point at home to Kilkenny doesn’t come back to haunt us at the end of this campaign. We should be cruising this division.

5

We went down 1-17 to 0-18 in Cork. Was some pissed off trying to listen to it online only for it to keep buffering and then having to give up. Always disappointing to lose but the first step is to make ourselves competitive against the top teams and that’s what we appear to be doing. When I gave up we were 0-08 to 0-03 down so we kept going all the way now. Clare drawing with Offaly is a good result for us too. If Cork beat them next week and we take Down then we’re through without having to rely on score difference. Great stuff by Dublin also.

The footballers beat Sligo 2-10 to 1-10 and with Meath and Cavan also wiinning it means we’re going to have to beat those 2 on consecutive weekends to come in the top 2. It’ll be ideal to have competitive games right up to the end of the league campaign anyway.

6

A good win for the Galway hurlers yesterday. Granted Tipperary are an average outfit and were hit with injuries/flu which limited Eoin Kellys influence and ruled out Lar Corbett and Darragh Egan but any performance where a team scores 26 points 17 from play is encouraging.

The most pleasing aspects were to read of John Lees commanding performance at centre back and Damien Hayess performance at midfield. Centre back has been a problem area for Galway for the last few years so hopefully Lee is the answer. Midfield has also been a major problem area for Galway in the recent past and the switching of Hayess there is very interesting. Maybe the management team are attempting to find the Galway version of the all action midfielder like Tom Kenny, Jerry OConnor or Cha Fitzpatrick. Hayes is not a ball winner but hes full of life, very strong and is an excellent distributor of the ball, qualities which the 3 mentioned above all have in abundance. Whether hell work at midfield though remains to be seen. Not sure if Brian Mahony has been invited into the panel after Paddys day but if he was available for next week itd be interesting to see how they teamed up at midfield.

On the negative side conceding 3 goals is worrying. Derek Hardiman is not a full back and David Collins is not a corner back. Both are way too loose to play in the full back line. Collins should start in his best position of wing back come the summer. The full back position is still a big problem but I think Damien Joyce and Greg Kennedy may well be the corner backs come championship. Either way theres a certain Portumna man whod walk straight into the number 4 jersey if he was still available.

Given Dublins wins over the last 2 weekends and a likely win over Antrim during the week which by my calculations will put them through it means we now have to beat Kilkenny next weekend to be guaranteed a place in the quarter finals. Its a tall order but its a challenge Loughnane will relish. Its a must win game and a win will lay down a marker for the championship, a loss will mean we could lie idle for about 10 weeks and miss out on the chance to cement our team further against the likes of Waterford, Cork or Clare.

Also its good to see the drug using, gangland killing, syringe yielding fookers do well this year too. Hurling needs more competitive counties and they should now be targeting a Leinster final appearance as the minimum return from their summer.

7

That should read ‘the likes of Waterford, Cork or Wexford’ given that we’ll batter Down at home next week and Cork will do a job on Clare at home.

Was watching the highlights last night and Galway got some class scores especially one Hayes set up for Richie Murray and Cyril Farrell said Hayes was excellent in midfield so it’ll be interesting to see if they continue that experiment in the next games. Apparently Kerins and himself destroyed the Tipp midfield and the young guy Tannion was meant to be very good. Mark Kerins also got some good long range points from centre forward.

Have heard a lot about John Lee over the last couple of years so looking forward to seeing what he’s like come championship time. Obvioulsy don’t know as much about Galway hurling as you jf but agree on Hardiman and Collins. The guy Kavanagh didn’t go well at full back against Dublin so they switched Hardiman in and he looked a bit lost there. Anyone else they can try there?

8

Just done my research on the permutations for the last round of hurling games:

If there’s a result one way or the other in the Cork/Clare match and we get our expected comfortable win over Down, we should be through. As things stand at the moment:

Team/Points/Scoring Difference

Waterford/6/+50
Cork/6/+7
Clare/5/+23
Wexford/4/-6
Offaly/3/+4
Down/0/minus a lot

Waterford, with such a huge points difference, should be through regardless of the outcome of their game against Offaly. Even if Offaly win we’ll finish ahead of them by beating Down so it comes down to Wexford finishing ahead of Clare or Cork.

If Cork beat Clare we’ll finish ahead of Clare. If Clare beat Cork, depending on their winning margin, we’ll have to beat Down by somewhere in the region of 13 points. A draw between Cork and Clare would be the outcome that would fook us up as we’d need to beat Down by 30 points to overhaul Clare on the points difference front.

All in all, there’s more of a possibility than not of us going through.

Wexford/Dublin in the Championship in Kilkenny on a Saturday night should be a cracking game and atmosphere given the resurgence of Dublin and the steady progress of Wexford. It’ll be great to see a competitive Leinster Championship again. I’m not saying either will beat KK this year but with the progress that’s being made by both counties in the league the WX/DUB game will generate much more interest than it would have done if they were drawn together last year.

9

Evidence of other sports’ customs having an effect on GAA (I blame opening up Croke Park myself):

Apparently at the Wexford game one of our players drilled a low ball into the forwards and it hit Paul Carley square in the nuts. He went down writhing around in agony and his marker, Brian Murphy, got possession and handpassed it to the Cork wing back, Peter Kelly. He had a quick look back at Carley on the floor and tapped the ball out over the line to allow the phsyio to come on.

After a brief stoppage Gizzy Lyng went over and tapped the line ball up the wing to the unmarked Kelly who gathered and launched the ball downfield for a Cork attack.

I don’t know if the crowd politely applauded or not.

10

My apologies Bandage. Hopefully Wexford do get through as there knocked out at the group stages of the league pretty much every year from what I can remember. Im sure youll correct me if Im wrong on this but its been a while since Wexford were involved in the knock out stages of the league isnt it?

As for full back, Im dont know why Diarmuid Cloonan hasnt been given a run out in the league. Hes solid enough and is surely a better option than Hardiman anyway. As far as I know hes still on the panel so maybe hell get a run on Sunday against Kilkenny. The other options are Tong Og Regan and the Loughrea full back Damien McClarnen. McClarnen isnt on the panel as yet but Id like to see how hed get on, similar to all the Loughrea full back line hes extremely tight and would be worth a run provided hes been invited onto the panel that is

11

The last year Wexford got to the knock out stages of the League was in 1996.

We won the All Ireland that year.

12

Typical Loughnane blackguarding already prevalent in Galway. Can’t wait to see his smug head when someone gives them a hiding in the championship. From today’s Independent:

Loughnane dismisses Keating’s talk of ‘nasty stuff’

GER LOUGHNANE admitted last night that he was mystified by ‘Babs’ Keating’s claim that his Galway hurling team had engaged in “nasty stuff, bordering on thuggery” in their National Hurling League match on Sunday.

Galway won an entertaining match at Pearse Stadium by four points and Keating had no issue about the way Tipp’s opponents had conducted themselves in the immediate aftermath when he met the press.

Conversely, he was quite upbeat about what his team and management could take from it.

But on Seamus Martin’s Tipp FM morning show yesterday Keating raised the issue of Galway’s approach and stressed he wouldn’t “stand idly by” despite the risk of censure from Croke Park over criticising referee Michael Wadding.

Keating specifically named three Tipperary players who he felt weren’t protected by the referee.

“I don’t think the officials did Tipperary any favours,” said Keating.

“Managers are curtailed by Croke Park from expressing views, but I’m not going to sit idly by and see what happened to Pa Bourke, Willie Ryan and Paul Kelly - there was bad temper displayed on those three.”

He added: "We’re asked to apply a lot of discipline in the spirit of the game, but that didn’t apply. I’m not going to blame Ger Loughnane or anybody, but Croke Park sent out six officials to look after the interests of the Tipperary players.

“As I say, I am curtailed and the penalty is on me, but I’m not going to sit idly by nasty stuff, bordering on thuggery.”

No “nasty” incidents that “bordered on thuggery” were immediately apparent during Sunday’s game which was played with a high level of ferocity and consequently only a handful of players were yellow carded.

Tipperary full-forward Danny O’Hanlon was taken off with an injured hand, but Keating didn’t specify that Galway ‘tactics’ were responsible for that.

In response, however, Loughnane failed to see where his opposite number on Sunday was coming from.

"For the life of me I don’t know what he is talking about. I thought it was a particularly good match with plenty of good hurling from both sides and I think it was of enormous benefit to ourselves and Tipperary.

"If anything it is Galway who should have a complaint over any refereeing decisions. Mark Kerins should have got a free when Tipp were awarded one instead and that led to their first goal.

"But I felt the players gave and took on both sides manfully. John Lee took a lot of heavy hits but I was delighted to see that. It was a proper test.

“The only incident I could see involved the yellow carding of David Forde and Paul Kelly for an incident and words that were exchanged between a Galway mentor and a Tipp defender.”

Loughnane said he wouldn’t be giving the comments by Keating on local radio another thought and re-iterated how much he was looking forward to visiting Nowlan Park on Sunday for a vital test against Kilkenny.

Tipp now need a favour from Galway to keep them in the hunt for a league quarter-final place on Sunday.

They must first beat Dublin (Dublin must also beat Antrim tomorrow night in Casement Park to keep their hopes alive) and then hope that Galway beat Kilkenny to knock the reigning league and All-Ireland champions out of the competition.

Colm Keys

13

Dublin beaten in Casement Park tonight. 1-13 to 12 points.

Poor result for Dublin but they’ll have been inspired by putting one over the Dubs. They could go down to Limerick now and send Limerick down a division.

14

Tipp-Dublin in Nenagh on Sunday is gonna be off the hook, off the chain. If I wasn’t watching Wexford-Down followed by Wrestlemania XXIII I’d get a bus down to watch it.

15

Can Tipp be relegated?

16

‘Division Two champions are to enter the promotion race. They will play the winners of the clash between fifth-placed in 1A and 1B for the right to be promoted. The bottom-placed teams in 1A and 1B will be relegated.’

I think this means that the top 4 in 1A and 1B stay in next year’s, 9 team, Division 1.

The bottom teams in 1A and 1B are relegated straight away. The two fifth place teams face each other and the loser is relegated. Then the winner of the fifth place battle plays the Division 2 winner and whoever comes out on top gets to play in the top flight next season.

Tipp have 4 points and Limerick and Antrim have 2. Limerick are playing Antrim so one of them will lhave 4 then (barring a draw). So if Tipp don’t get a result against Dublin it’ll come down to scoring difference as to whether they drop to fifth. Haven’t looked at scoring difference but Antrim have taken some beatings and I expect Tipp have a better points diif than Limerick also so unlikely they’ll be affected by relegation.