Fuck Tipp
1 Like
Soft Cork Cunts
1 Like
A great one to win, no doubt about that. It was some occasion, a full house from both sides packed into the Gaelic Grounds. The match itself wasnât quite as good as last yearâs classic but it was still a serious contest and the overall occasion around the city was unbelievable.
For me, it was almost a complete reversal of the round robin game. In that, we didnât work hard enough, we were outplayed but managed to only lose by a point (and maybe could have scraped something). Yesterday, I thought we were definitely the better team. Clare were the side who didnât really hit the levels they would expect but hung in there enough to only lose by a point (and obviously could have had a chance to level it). But it was a much-improved performance from Limerick, we controlled things for long periods in the second half but never killed them off, which would be the slight worry. A bit similar to the Cork game tbh.
So, definitely stuff to work on, we had a number of opportunities to push the lead back out to three in the final 10 minutes and didnât take any of them. Any time they did get it to 1, we pushed it back to 2 but were a bit casual with a few chances: Hegarty had a lazy wide from the right wing (which then allowed them pick out a man in space with a quick puckout), Adam got a great score when he came on but then showed a lack of composure hitting a wide & getting blocked down. CON hit a bad wide with his first shot, then hit two great scores afterwards. WOD had a bad miss at the very end before the pitch invasion, with English inside him. Byrnes overran the ball with men in space, Kyle did similar with Gillane in loads of space inside. Decisions that youâd normally expect us to make to close out a game, we just got slightly wrong and left Clare in it. Now Clare hit a bunch of bad misses themselves in the final 10, but some of their big men never fired at all.
Tactically, we did what it was obvious we should have done the first day. Let the ball into Gillane, he is the best inside forward in the country by a mile. The ball yesterday was good, but with the space in front, it didnât even need to be. Rather than running into multiple bodies, we let the ball do the work and Gillane & Flanagan ran their socks off. Conlon was trying to push up and then the minute the ball went over his head was sprinting back to cover. He did get on a good bit of ball but he couldnât nullify the threat from his starting position and then Reidy asked him serious questions in the pocket aswell. Reidyâs movement and link play was excellent throughout; he delivered some great ball in the first half, picked off some fine scores in the second and also a sensational ball for the goal (just after a bad wide). His movement on the puckouts was also unbelievable, an absolute nightmare to mark. Man of the match other than Gillane; a brilliant performance and a great call by Kiely & the management.
Iâve also seen people say that Flanagan was poor. That is just not true. You could say he was quiet, for sure, but to say he was poor, is a gross misunderstanding of what he was asked to do yesterday. Every ball was delivered to Gillane. Flanaganâs job was to either to pull Clareâs supporting defenders the other way, or to just get in around a break to allow Gillane sweep up. He ran his socks off and that vacated space for Gillane allowed him to run riot. A couple of huge interventions from Flanagan, a superb groundstroke under pressure to assist Tom Morrissey when, if he went down to pick, would have been bottled up. And also, just watch his run across for Gillaneâs goal. The two of them go opposite directions which means Rory Hayes ends up blocking Cian Nolanâs run and gives Gillane that extra bit of space to pick his spot for the goal.
But also tactically, I felt Clare didnât really run at us from deep like they have in the past. A couple of times SOD went through, Taylor once or twice in the first half. But Fitzgerald never really got going, think Kyle firmly had the better of that battle. Tony Kelly got 0-4 from play but probably as quiet as heâs ever been against Limerick, some uncharacteristic misses too. Having said that, SOD was very good, won some amount of dirty ball he had no right to win.
But then Clare also just lumped a lot of ball in on Duggan. He won a few frees early on⌠they probably were frees but in reality, they were softish, and I wouldnât have thought that was enough to justify it as a tactic for 70 minutes. Rodgers looked really sharp but got no ball similar to what Gillane was getting. So he was feeding off scraps and generally, Limerick defended all that stuff well enough. Vulnerable to a couple of shots from out the field when we were slow to get to breaks, but anything inside, we dealt with fairly well. The goal itself⌠not much you can do really. Rodgers reacted quickest, the bounce went his way and a very good finish. But it wasnât like they carved us open through attacking play and when they did create sniffs of goal chances, we generally snuffed them out. Barry Nash made a few big interventions, Quaid stood tall from Rodgersâ chance at the end of the first half. Dan, Casey, Nash were all really solid and Kyle was superb defensively, his two blocks on TK were phenomenal.
We had two other goal chances, I think, one when Hegarty was fouled by Diarmuid Ryan and Gordon didnât play advantage. That was our one opportunity in the first half, it was the only time we looked like opening them up (Nolan dragged down Gillane another time, I suppose). Ryan was desperately lucky not to get a yellow for that considering the yellows that had been handed out to Casey & Nolan. And Hegartyâs yellow was an absolute joke⌠I donât know what the umpire thought he saw but thatâs criminal. Gillane had a second goal chance in the second half which he should have buried, had to go low. Diarmuid Ryan did brilliantly to cover back to get a hook in as he was shooting though.
We probably struggled a bit with Clareâs puckouts in the first half, at times they were winning breaks too easily but we put the squeeze on more in the second half. I thought Quaidâs decisions on where to put the puckouts was superb and we generally moved well. Reidy particularly, but Tom & Hego worked well together too, DOD & WOD were hovering around. I thought DOD had a quietish first half by his standards but grew into the game, while WOD was at his terrier-like best, covering huge ground. Tom wasnât quite as dominant as heâs been all year but I still thought taking him off was a bit strange; he was still winning the hard ball and some of the other legs were flagging. Mul, much like Flanagan, sacrificed himself for the role. Created some amount of space inside, pulled Hogan way out the field and then just battered into the Clare half-back line and won a couple of big frees. Byrnes & Hannon werenât quite at their best, Byrnes ended up having to mark Kelly for long periods and was tighter on him than you would expect while Hannon rolled his ankle and was a loss when he went off even if he hadnât hurled huge amounts of ball.
Maybe Peter Casey didnât get as much shooting opportunities as youâd like when he came on, worked hard and won one big free from a puckout. Tough for Adam after a family bereavement, making his Championship debut: a lovely score but also showed where he needs to learn with a couple of bad decisions. Disappointed no ball was delivered in front of him though. Cathal obviously got two of the last three scores when he game was in melting pot and Iâd say he won two puckouts too, some going. Both Richie & Coughlan contributed defensively, although Richie gave away the ball with his first two touches before settling down, Coughlan also conceded possession towards the end when we had dropped way too deep.
I wouldnât be surprised if Clare and Limerick were to meet in a final again. The month off before a semi-final will do Limerick good. A nice few injuries and knocks in the panel now, a month will hopefully get most of them right. And we didnât power home in the last 10 minutes like you might expect. And I donât think Clare really upped the tempo or anything, we just seemed to make a couple of poor decisions and allowed them stay in the game. We also didnât deliver any ball into Gillane or English in the last 10 minutes. I donât care if he was fucked, we should still have put the ball in front of him, they would have been so wary of him at that stage that heâd always have a chance of a free at least, and English was only looking for a reason to go for a run.
Clare got a lot of shots off, hit a lot of wides, like we did the first day. Theyâll surely be better the next day they play and if they get over Dublin, theyâll be very conscious of not having a repeat of last yearâs semi-final. Cleary would have done a better job than Nolan but I donât think anyone would have handled Gillane today with the space in front of him. I think Nolan did as much as he could, but obviously should have been switched off when on a yellow. Or else Conlon should have dropped off. But theyâll surely have to look at how they feed their inside line. Lashing the ball on top of Duggan just doesnât seem like the best use of their resources; Rodgers is so much better than Duggan and youâre not trying to help him at all.
Finally, Liam Gordon is a poor ref, I thought he was really inconsistent. He reffed the first half completely different to the second half. Not an unmitigated disaster but Iâm not really sure how heâs managed to get a game like this when heâs way down the pecking order in terms of quality.
24 Likes
Congrats to Mala 
3 Likes
I maybe wrong but on the hego one were they not already playing advantage? You canât play another I thought then when there was a second foul.
I also was critical when they were moving Dan Morrissey out of 3 to replace Hannon. So you had two changes in your key defensive positions.
When they moved Kyler to six and brought in Coughlan the ball into gillane completely dried up.
When an Aggressive Foul is committed, the Referee may allow the play to continue if he considers it to be to the advantage of the offended team. He shall signal that advantage by raising an arm upright and shall allow the advantage to run by maintaining his arm in the upright position for up to five seconds after the foul or for less time if it becomes clear that no advantage has accrued. If he deems no advantage to have accrued, he may subsequently award a free for the foul from where it occured, except as provided under Exceptions (v) and (vi) of Rule 2.2. He shall apply any relevant disciplinary action.
I donât see anything there that would suggest that he canât play another advantage. My understanding is that the player has used up the first advantage and if heâs fouled again, thatâs a separate incident.
Now obviously if Hego blatantly overstepped, heâs right to call it back but I thought he blew very very quickly. And then didnât book Ryan for a very cynical foul because of the furore with Hogan falling over.
I had in my head if it was a different foul he couldnât play another advantage. I could be wrong though.
He brought it back to where hegarty was initially fouled too didnât he?
Yeah I actually think he blew just as Hegarty had broken free of Ryan, Hego didnât hear the whistle.
Gillane was out on his feet at that stage
What was the song at the end of the match after dreams yesterday lads? Main lyrics was something like âso what ya gonna do?â.
David Fitzgerald also seemed to thunder into it around this point.
Bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they Hego you
4 Likes
Hands like shovels
Probably part of the reason heâs so good in the air.
The funniest part about TKâs no free - if he hadnât acted the fool at the end of the cork game after rubbing off TOM, then maybe he wouldâve been given the free yesterday.
The boy who cried wolf
Iâm very surprised it wasnât given after the shit show off the pitch invasion.
You can be sure if there was a replay at stake it would have been a free.
3 Likes
It was unbelieveable, I was watching this closely throughout and he had Conlon at sixes and sevens. Conlon obviously still got on and cleared a fair bit of ball, but for a centre-back to be dealing with that kind of twisting and turning, on a day with the heat of yesterday, must have been hellish. Reidy didnât let up for the 70 mins and the explosiveness of that movement didnât wane either. Apart from that some of the ball he fed in was exquisite as well.
8 Likes
That ball in for the goal was perfection. One bounce perfectly into Gillaneâs paw. He just popped it without looking too - unbelievable skill. There was a 10 minute period in 3rd quarter where the quality of ball in paired with how lethal Gillane was, it was Limerick at their imperious best.
On that note, Flanagan got a bit of stick over his performance but once again his movement to create space for Gillane was unreal again. It seems so easy but he is such an intelligent player
4 Likes