Yes you did. I also posted this on The Score. I had to delete a little from it on there as it was too long for their comments section.
Limerick were 2 points down at half time due to turning over possession looking for short puckouts (conceded 2 clear points) and looking for ridiculous short balls (conceded 2 clear points). The switch of Colin Ryan to wing back won the game, Waterford were getting massive joy down that side and when Ryan went in the supply down that side more or less dried up. It is a good sign of this team that neither of the Lynchâs were at their dominant best and they still had enough to go an win a Munster final against a very decent Waterford side. Switching Tom Morrissey out to Centre Forward proved useful too, he got on some lovely ball and took important scores. Flanagan is a fine player too, but could do with striking the ball a bit earlier into the forwards, Barry Nash looked frustrated at times, but is a massive goal threat with his direct running. Peter Casey shipped an awful belt (accidental) from the keeper and a few heavy challenges from his marker (no.2 was lucky not to get a second yellow) and still showed and ran at his man. Fair play to management who made positive switches on the day, roll on the semi-final now, this group should have an AI in them.
Super win for the minors. Wasnât able to get to Thurles but was listening in on 95fm, battery in my phone died 5 mins from the end but luckily there was no late upset this time. This is a super group of players. One or two players off a minor group progressing to senior might be the usual and easy to get carried away but there are a rake of players off this team and a few from last year with serious chances of going on to be future senior hurlers. As said above, our best players on the day werenât our two marquee stars, nice to see others step up and the team win without reliance in the Lynches.
Got a little closer to figuring out our best team as the game wore on too.
Waterford were only given 1 free in the whole second half last night while lynch had a field day off frees, tells itâs own story, but Iâd bet Waterford would settle for the same outcome this year as last year
Magnificently disciplined defending from Limerick 
Cian Lynch is the type of player our seniors are crying out for⌠composed and a great link man⌠His vision is top class.
Great win last night. Heard on the pitch that Colin Ryanâs best friend was killed earlier in the day and he still managed a massive game.
His switch from corner forward to wing back was the winning of the game.
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CURVA SUD[/B]
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of last Sundayâs Munster Senior Hurling final â the last trip to PĂĄirc UĂ Chaoimh in its current guise. What a day. What an atmosphere! And what a lovely way to sample it â free from the nerves and the pressure. I could soak it all up.
The minor game had started once I got to the end of the Marina and trotted towards the Leeside bowl. The place was already heaving, like Romeâs Colosseum in ancient times. PĂĄirc UĂ Chaoimh was bouncing to the beat of a pulsating minor final and I thought to myself: âImagine what the senior game will be like?â I was on duty for RTĂ Radio and took my position in the gantry of the covered stand, carefully observing the signs urging me to âmind your head.â
Now, the pitch in PĂĄirc UĂ Chaoimh is the best surface I have ever played on and it looked like it had been laid by the Gods for one last battle. As the teams started to march behind the Artane Band, the Limerick supporters, in full voice from the start of warm-up, finally released the green flares, with smoke engulfing the City End terrace.
You would be forgiven for thinking that you had arrived at a Serie A game in Italy, with the âUltrasâ doing their thing before kick-off. But this is Ireland, this is Cork, this is the Munster hurling final. This is our game. The match itself never reached the expected heights, unfortunately, and Limerickâs poor decision-making, coupled with Corkâs more sensible use of possession up front, brought a fitting end to proceedings with a sea of red invading the pitch one last time. Not quite âthe famine is overâ speech made famous by our own Richie Stakelum in Killarney in 1987 but chatting to Cork supporters on the way back to the car, I detected a feeling that Jimmy Barry-Murphy and his players had taken a giant step forward. A step closer to the Promised Land and Septemberâs Holy Grail. They can sit back and watch now, awaiting their All-Ireland semi-final opponents.
And next weekend, two more pretenders to Clareâs throne will fall. The Road to Croker is fraught with danger and when the dust settles on next Sundayâs quarter-finals in Thurles, a sombre finality will greet the losers. It will almost jeer and mock them. âYou werenât good enough.â Itâs a reality they wonât have planned for and nothing can prepare them for it.
http://www.gaa.ie/gaa-news-and-videos/daily-news/1/2207141058-brendan-cummins-on-hurling/
Team and scorers from last night:
McNamara
Finn OâLoughlin Porter
Lyons LTC Byrnes
Hanley C Lynch
Flanagan Nash R Lynch
Casey Morrissey Ryan
R Lynch 0-10, 6f, 2 65
Morrissey 0-4
Casey 0-3
Nash 0-3
Ryan 0-2
Flanagan 0-1
Hanley 0-1
On the frees - 4 in first half, 2 in second
Only 5 or 6 wides in total
Referee was of the Brian Gavin mentality.
Colin Ryan went to left half back on 37m and mopped up everything along that side of the pitch.
They finished well from there, going from 0-17 to 0-15 down to finish 0-24 to 0-18 ahead
Morrissey moving out in second half brought him into the game as he was starved of supply til then
Waterford persisted with a sweeper in behind the half backs all game, and brought on Eddie Meaney at ht who looked a handful both for his team and ours.
Casey is a live wire, very much in the Graeme Mulcahy mould.
Lots of good support play, you can see the Jerry Wallace influence on the players, with off-the-ball runners and players on the shoulder of the man in possession.
Waterford keeper, designated centre back and full forward all look to have huge potential.
A hugely enjoyable display, plenty to work on as some players still tend to take the wrong option and look a bit one-sided, all fixable. Itâs nothing a few years of Fitzgibbon hurling wonât fix. Hereâs hoping they go a step further this year and keep the wheels of the conveyor belt moving.
Brian Ryan getâs a lot of stick in certain quarters but credit where itâs due those switches won that match for Limerick.2 munster titles in a row is not a bad statistic eh Batt.
Wouldnât entirely disagree with you. Kip obviously got a fright on the first day.
Well done Joe Quaid, Anthony Carmody and Shane Fitzgibbon for preparing this team so that Kip could take the glory.
You are correct, as he lives in Clare, but plays for Na Piarsaigh. His parents are both Limerick.
Ronan is too proficient at scoring to be put in the backs. Cian unfortunately isnât great at winning ball. Midfield is a compromise for both, and sure somebody has to play there.
Na Piarsaighâs conveyor belt of talented players rolls on.
Agree on the first part, not on the second, Cian is well able to win a ball I think. One at midfield and one at half forward is right though (I suggested ALTC to 6 in place of Ronan a while back), Iâd have Ronan at mid.
I cant agree with that. CL is a ball winner
Mate not having a pop but Cian Lynch must have won 15-20 clean balls in the last four games, he is the best fielder we have by a mile.
Cian Lynch is not great at winning ball??? Its probably his greatest strength ffs.
Iâll relish this as Limerick smash the wexicans, never knew they were such mouthy bastards, 250 supporters in ennis and all of a sudden they are bringing 40,000 to Croke Park
Good night at the races in limerick, great turnout, quiet confidence.
Poor racing but who cares.
Iâve been away the last few weeks so I never got a chance to give my thoughts on the Cork match which Iâm sure greatly disappointed many on here.
Anyway here goes I may be forgetting some stuff;
Quaid; Solid throughout. We win zero puckouts, which doesnât seem to be his fault but we have to improve in this area. 7/10
Hickey; Superb at corner back and was using the ball brilliantly, I was delighted to see him go out half where he subsequently lost the plot. Inspite of that I think he needs to start at half back, he has too much hurling to be stuck in the corner and is also prone to doing stupid shit which is a terrible trait for a corner back. 7/10
Richie; Outstanding had Cronin beat up a stick. Fb line was all at sea at for ten mins after Hickey moved out but he wasnât at fault from what I could tell. 9/10
Condon; Started brilliant and I thought he was going to obliterate Cadogan. He beat him to the first three and then Cadogan beat him for one and absolutely skinned him for pace, after that Condon tried to play him from behind :oops: which isnât his natural game and only left Cadogan into it. Held up okay, but probably should have been switched off him. Cadogan looks to be a serious hurler though and Tom will hardly have a tougher job all year. 6/10
OâBrien; A very poor day for OâBrien well beaten throughout, marginally better than Gavin. 5/10
Wayne; Thought he did very well, held the middle well and scored a monster point 8/10
Gav; Very poor. Hasnât played brilliantly this year but was absolutely roasted. Iâd drop him at this stage. 4/10
Ryan & Browne; Tough day at the office they were probably shaded in their battle but both worked themselves into the ground and were certainly not helped by the two hbs or the half forwards. 7/10
Breen; Iâve been very critical of Breen in the past and after the first 20 mins I thought I was going to be eating my words. Started off great and broke a load of ball (though I still think he doesnât win near enough ball cleanly for a man his size) before fading out of the game somewhat. In fairness he remained the best of a bad lot when it came to contesting puckouts in the second half. I think Limerick deployed him to good use for a change and it was by far and away his best Limerick performance. They should have hit more ball on top of him. Very limited on the ball. I hope @glasagusban gave him a special reward after 8/10
Dodge; Always good to pick off his scores but wins very little ball himself in a half forward line that badly needs a ball winner. 7/10
Hannon; Terrible, seems to have no confidence in himself. Doesnât ever win his own ball. One lovely score just shows what he is capable of. Should be tried in the backs but its probably too late for this year. Could and should be dropped the next day. 4/10
Mulcahy; Best game for us in a long time. The ball into him was brutal but he made the most of it. If we could utilise him properly heâd destroy anyone. 8/10
Dowling: Always dangerous rarely used. Another day heâd have had a couple of goals. Leave him at full now going forward and let the fucking thing into him. Missed a few scorable frees early on but bounced back well, has a great temperament. 8/10
Downes; Another frustrating day for Downes, trying to do too much at times. Iâll repeat again though that the ball in is terrible. If they arenât going to utilise him properly in the ff line may aswell play him centre and land the puckouts on his head.
Teege: Team lacking in a plan and changes very slow to be made 6/10
Overall I was happy enough, would have been nice to do two in a row but the lack of games last year killed us. This should stop the hype going into overdrive now as well. You only ever really learn things about yourself when you lose and I think we learned that:
We canât win a puck out
We have weaknesses at half back
We are under utilising our FF line.
Saying all that we werenât far off Cork at all. Hopefully we get another crack off them.
My major concern is that we donât have a lot coming in off the bench or knocking down the door to start.
Iâd like to see Hannon & Gavin swapped, but thatâs a reasonably high risk move so its unlikely.
Iâd go with
Quaid
Walsh McCarthy Condon
OâBrien Wayne Hickey
Jimbob Browne
Breen Downes OâGrady
Mulcahy Dowling Moran
Happy for Breen to start again the next day if only for the comedy element of himself and that other bean pole Shore wrestling with each other.
Wexford look a decent side but we should have too much scoring power for them. Theyâll be a tough nut to crack after their run of games but Iâd expect to run out 5 point winners after find our scores easier to get.