Limerick GAA 2023-2024.... 5 in a row is not here

Sport
3892

Just back from balmy, beautiful Ballyagran.

IHC Group 1 Round 3 RESULT.

Croagh/Kilfinny 2-23 Hospital/Herbertstown 0-12.

After the heartache of back-to-back county final defeats, bookies’ favourites Croagh’s bid for redemption continues apace as they recorded a facile match win over a game but limited Hospital side.

Ref Mike Moloney got proceedings under way a little after 2pm and he might aswell have blown for full time 10 mins later by which time Croagh had raced into a 1-07 to 0-01 lead. The goal came after a short puck out calamity, James Lanigan with the turnover before Brian Hannon blasted home.

Led by Conor O’Grady, Hospital rallied but having only two scorers in the entire game tells its own story.

The Croagh half backline was the launching pad for their dominance. Tom McMahon lorded it as the spare man while either side of him the Lenihans (Seamie and Jack) hurled a world of ball. Jack sauntered up in the second half for a cracking score to round off a terrific individual display.

Joint captain Josh O’Connor was excellent at midfield, chipping in with four from play as both he and Adam Shanagher ruled the roost around midfield.

The mercurial Cian O’Carroll was quieter than usual but still had moments of class, he set up Hannon for his second goal as the game descended into a challenge match feel for the last 20 minutes, Croagh hitting a few sloppy wides. Three wins from three now ahead of a table topper decider against Bruree next Sunday afternoon. Both have a 100% record so something has to give.

The Croagh men sent an ominous signal to all the other contenders that they are the team to beat. Very well drilled with an excellent age profile.

For Hospital, well things look ominous for TJ Ryan’s men. They have to beat Kilmallock 2 to avoid a relegation final berth.

Brian Hannan 2-02
Cian O’Carroll 0-07 (0-04 frees, 0-01 65’s)
Josh O’Connor 0-04
Seamus Hickey 0-03
Eoin Barry 0-02
Jack Lenihan, Adam Shanagher, Bryan Flynn, James O’Brien and Gearoid ‘Skinny’ Lenihan - all 0-01

Conor O’Grady 0-07 (0-05 frees)
Harry Fox 0-05 (0-03 frees)

Just the four Lenihans starting for Croagh, with another four on the bench.

In the other group battling St Kieran’s shocked Feohanagh by a point in a gruelling west derby, 1-10 to 0-12 the final score. A very damaging blow to Feohanagh’s chances of making the knock out stages while the Saints secure safety and now have a shot at a quarter final spot. What drama.

5 Likes
3893

All well and good but you couldn’t see NaP or the Balbec beaten by that Doon, regardless of how serious the game was. And they weren’t.

3894

You wouldn’t see nap bate by the well and they were. They wont have much bearing on the semi finals

3895

Au contraire, I definitely fancied The Well to beat NaP.

1 Like
3896

Nap are by a distance is the best team in it imo.

Only hope for pwell is gillane, lynch and byrnes missed a lot of Limerick games between them and might be a lot fresher than usual.

3897

Kilmallock are the only team with a snowballs chance of beating NAP

3898

Is Feohanagh Castlemahon the one club/parish?

3899

Yes. Same parish just the one school in Castlemahon.

1 Like
3900

Great post, well said Was always a huge fan of hickey. Didn’t get the credit for how good a hurler he was and seems an absolute gent. Good pundit too.

3901

Blackrock 0-17 Na Piarsaigh 0-14

Blackrock lead throughout until NaP drew level with five minutes to go before they responded with the final three scores of the game.

Blackrock were well on top in the first half but only went in two points up, 0-8 to 0-6.

Richie McCarthy won pretty much every single ball that went near him at full back and Liam Walsh at centre back distributed very well. Blackrock’s forwards overworked it a bit at times and hit 12 wides in total.

They should have had two goals in the first half including from a penalty early on. Dylan Lynch also had a shot blocked from a tight angle in the first half though.

NaP conceded an awful lot of frees, 12 of which were pointed, and I’d say maybe picked up four yellows, which was costly as they outscored Blackrock from play by a couple of points despite playing some poor ball into the forwards.

David Sheppard came on in the second half presumably to look for a goal but they weren’t able to find him enough.

NaP lost John Fitzgerald to the seniors last night so are down a few now but are still looking reasonably competitive.

Effin, Bruff, Blackrock - 6
D/A, NCW, NaP - 4
Glenroe - 2
Cappamore - 0

7 Likes
3902

Excellent reportage dodgy :+1:

3903

Look, couldn’t fault the effort and work rate of our lads but couldn’t be happy with the final result either. Kilmallock were off-the-boil, they weren’t at the pitch of the game in the first half and yet we somehow went in behind at the break.

I say ‘somehow’, we just didn’t create enough chances across the 60 minutes but I did think we played very well in the first 35-40 minutes but probably left a few chances behind us. A scandalously soft goal conceded, he literally didn’t even mean to score which is frustrating. But we responded well to that and worked our way back into the game. And when Ciarán McMahon levelled it with a great score at the start of the second half, you thought we might have a chance. But we fell away after that, lost structure and just didn’t create enough. Kyle had a sniff of a goal chance but was brilliantly robbed when he was about to bury it.

I’ll hold my hands up and take a fair chunk of the blame for us falling away in the second half, we just didn’t have enough variety in our attacking play. We were a bit slow to respond to Kilmallock’s own response to our puckouts and they ate us alive with the swarm tackles in the second half. Serious physicality that some of our young fellas are still not able for, we conceded too many easy turnovers. Now, we could have adapted a little better to give ourselves more of an outball and that’s something that I’ll have regrets over.

As it was, Kilmallock were below-par, especially in the first half and were probably there for the taking, they weren’t tuned-in. But we just didn’t create enough scoring opportunities to win any game, in the end. And while we missed a good few placed balls, Houla had a nightmare of his own, the ones he missed were even worse. But then Chan threw over a few lineballs which was frustrating.

Shane O’Brien a huge threat for Kilmallock, Robbie Egan good in the air as always. O’Reilly had flashes but was generally fairly well-held. The likes of KOD, POL & Joy were very strong in the tackle.

For us, Barry was prominent in the first half, thought CiarĂĄn McMahon was excellent and CiarĂĄn Barry kept Houla very quiet. Kyle, Darren & Staff worked hard. Odd sort of game though, lots of contested ball, a lot of big hits in tight spaces.

Best wishes to Phelim O’Reilly in his recovery, nobody wants to see that sort of injury; awful pity for him as he was going well this year.

8 Likes
3904

Ciaran McMahon is a very good prospect.

What does the under 19 county panel play in? Would they train much throughout the year?

3905

He’s a serious hurler; he possibly needs to work on his longer striking and being more comfortable on his weaker side but he’s a very intelligent hurler, really good first touch and generally makes decisions.

Obviously not the biggest but takes the hits well. This year has been a huge learning curve for all our players but the younger fellas particularly will benefit massively.

My understanding is that the 19s panel is purely developmental to keep people tiding over, particularly on S&C when you are finished with 17s but if you’re not quite ready for 20s. I’m sure they play a few challenges but I’ve never actually heard of them playing a match.

1 Like
3906

The goal was very soft, probably ye needed it more than us to set the game up. It was very similar to the Ahane game in that we just eased away in the second half. Our backs are very sticky but fouled way too much in the first half. Thought Aaron Costello and Dan Joy were very good. Houla misses quite a few frees from the right hand side. Chanley a good back up though.

3907

Funny how their footballers just go as ‘Castlemahon’ though. You’ll never see ‘Feohanagh-Castlemahon’ mentioned in a big ball game.

3908

St Kieran’s beat F/C yesterday by a point in a dramatic but bad game of hurling. Seamus was playing sweeper and cleaned up a nice amount of ball - possibly due to his hamstring not being 100%. F/C were the better side until Sean Flanagan came off injured (ACL, his second time doing it I believe). After that Kieran’s were able to work the ball out further and beat the sweeper for the last 10/15 minutes and got a scrappy late goal - which was arguably a square ball. F/C pulled back to within a point when Seamus went in deep and was looking dangerous until he got called for a square ball - wrongly so in my opinion. Kieran’s dragged F/C down to their level and their hard work won them the game but both teams seriously lacked scorers in the forwards.

6 Likes
3909

Heard Sean got injured alright, didn’t know the extent of it. Terrible luck for him.

Kieran’s have serious grit. They just love grinding teams down into a battle. They’ve beaten Croom and Feohanagh now, scoring a measly enough 2-10 and 1-10 respectively in both those wins I think.

Beat G/B on Saturday night and they’ll go joint top!

3910

G/b should win that handy especially if the weather stays good for the week… too many hurlers Kieran’s I’d say haven’t got more than 8 scores from play in about 3 years but do make the max out of what they have… all but finished football too so could be a tricky qf if they qualify

3911

Some going to stay up anyway