The same boy had Joyce waltzing into the Limerick first 15 over the winter ahead of Dan Morrissey with All-Stars at fullback and wingback and medals out the door. Some lads just don’t get it.
In fairness Hannon was 25 or 26 before he went centre back for Limerick. Conlon must have been in his 30s.
Imo Joyce is seriously impressive for his age and considering the muck around him I think he’s one of the best in the country to break through post Covid.
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When Dan Morrissey was Ciaran Joyce’s age he was getting booed and jeered by his own supporters after getting his hole opened by the great Seamus Callanan in Thurles in 2016.
It’s easy blame the lack of class on the new supporters @gilgamboa
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Your last point is very interesting.
That never happened.
Gimme a list of names there and I’ll sort it.
I don’t know if the point has been made but I only think a top 2 team in Munster will compete for an All Ireland.
The 3rd place will be wrecked and have no break. The have a preliminary QF vs a Joe Mc finalist. Get over that and you have a beaten Leinster finalist either Galway/KK. Get over that and it’s up against a rested Munster champion in a SF
The Munster loser will play a Joe Mc finalist or Wex/Dublin which should be straightforward. Then it’s on to a Leinster champion who probably will only have had one tough game. Tipp took this route in 19 and won it out.
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They can rest their entire team v a Joe Mc Donagh finalist.
Would anyone be able to throw up PM o Sullivan’s article from the examiner?
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PM O’Sullivan: Munster triumphalism travels as poorly across the Shannon as across the Nore
A prominent opinion got taken for a walk by Clare and pushed over the Cliffs of Moher (aka TUS Gaelic Grounds).
SHAKE ON IT: Former colleagues now touchline rivals, Henry Shefflin and Derek Lyng after Sunday’s game at Nowlan Park.
MON, 01 MAY, 2023 - 12:11
GOOD weekend for the hurling championship, less assuring couple of days for certain commentators.
A prominent opinion got taken for a walk by Clare and pushed over the Cliffs of Moher (aka TUS Gaelic Grounds).
There was this idea abroad about the game’s main question: whether 2024 would see Limerick win five Senior titles in a row. This perspective, not a niche one, shrugged at the coming weeks of 2023. We would see a Sahara of inevitabilities as the Limerick caravan laid waste to all comers.
Perhaps the current champions, come July, will take a 12th Senior title. Perhaps they will. But there is no going back. This weekend saw hurling’s present story swallow some of its tellers. That desert found a measure of fog.
The manner in which exuberance fostered by Waterford’s 2022 NHL Final success shrivelled in championship heat simply got forgotten. A fortnight ago, Ballybrown’s Tom Ryan, former Limerick player and manager, went full bite. He chewed up all but one prospect: “I am not writing that to brag as a son of this county on the contrary, it depresses me.
It’s not that I don’t want them to win but the outcome of the Championship should never be reduced to an inevitability. Not only is this the greatest team to ever emerge from our county, they are the greatest team to come out of any county.”
We shall see. But the prize of equalling or surpassing 21 unbeaten championship games, Kilkenny’s record, fell into the sea. James Skehill, former Galway goalkeeper turned pundit, disguised not his delight in tweeting this reality. Munster triumphalism travels as poorly across the Shannon as across the Nore.
Consider further. If Limerick retain, next season’s motivation gleams. What could be more invigorating than thoughts of becoming the first five in a row team?
Another scenario might also apply. Yes, in one sense, not a lot would change. Even if Limerick do not retain, the county still possesses a powerful pool of talent. Face value says they stay there or thereabouts into the late 2020s.
Think further. Limerick, in this context, are not going to win four in a row between 2024 and 2027. That dream would die. If 2023 does not result in retention, would John Kiely and Paul Kinnerk remain in place?
This facet seems overlooked. Most everything, in another sense, could change. Coaching, management and talent are always in a triangular relationship. Lose one part of the equation and you no longer have the beautiful triangle.
Which or whether, Saturday evening’s tumultuous victory italicized Sunday afternoon’s action. If Limerick falter, the new champion will come from a Venn diagram that adds to Clare the names of Cork, Galway, Kilkenny and Tipperary. The first three of that quartet continued their campaign, with Cork burnishing credentials via a nine-point win over Waterford.
Note this margin was seven points better than Limerick’s margin over the same opposition the previous weekend. That factor could count heavily if you have, at round robin’s end, a three-way tie on four points and scoring difference is the determinant for progress.
Kilkenny and Galway finished even in UPMC Nowlan Park. Easy summary? This meeting was shadowboxing for a Leinster final encounter in six weeks’ time. These two counties look a fair bit ahead of Dublin and Wexford.
Such a summary might be a touch blasé. Sunday afternoon, Kilkenny blew a winning position. Adrian Mullen established a five-point lead in the 56th minute, 0-26 to 1-18. As matters transpired, there were over 20 minutes to run, given the seven-plus minutes of added time. Kilkenny raised but two more white flags. No championship knife should ever go untwisted.
Henry Shefflin will be delighted that Liam Collins and Declan McLoughlin got blooded in productive fashion. The nagging difficulty is that both of these tyros are more akin to Evan Niland than to Conor Whelan. Their opponents ran up a six-point lead in the game’s third quarter mainly because the Kilkenny defence, harried little, was allowed ping score-making balls to their attack.
Derek Lyng will frown at losing control of a winning position. But he can be pleased with the tempo of his side’s hurling during that third quarter. He also made positive alterations. Darragh Corcoran went well when moved to wing back from midfield (I would have tried the same man at centre back during the league, with Richie Reid at wing back).
Adrian Mullen switched to midfield, which might be his best position at the moment (especially in Paddy Deegan’s injury-dictated absence). Conor Fogarty, honest and diligent, is admirable out. But he remains uncertain when the ball is on the ground and quite often fumbles a key possession, as when TJ Reid played him in on goal in 2020’s All Ireland semi-final against Waterford.
Fogarty fluffed that pick. He also botched a goal chance on Sunday when played in, just before halftime, by John Donnelly. Spurning those opportunities is a no-no.
MORE IN THIS SECTION
S Brian Gavin: Limerick-Clare gave me a pang of hunger for the whistle
S Éamonn Fitzmaurice: How Gallagher and Derry have blended block defence with all-out attack
S Anthony Daly: Clare can feast on any natural Limerick slippage
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Fine margins would be my impression having watched it back this evening, I don’t think we were comprehensively outplayed or anything, probably a bit more desire from Clare and a touch of sloppiness from ourselves, but overall the gap was never more than four points and that gap squeezed and stretched as the game ebbed and flowed.
There was a patch I think between 45 & 55 mins where we must have hit four or five wides in a row, that did us damage as the sides were level going into it and level coming out, whereas really I feel we should have gone a few points up. There were a couple of crucial scores for Clare (Duggan’s goal and one of TK’s points I think to put them two up near the end) where there were incidents in thr build up that could well have been frees to us another night. Fine margins. In the end all that was in it was a point, this time last year it was a draw game - twice.
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Yes. The much maligned Derek McGrath over achieved with Wahurfurd. They’ve hardly won a game of consequence since he left.
Pretty sure Conlon was oldest player on the pitch at 34 years of age and he got MOTM
80% of ambulance calls are joke ones. I’ve heard that from any paramedic I’ve spoke to. Lads with head colds, or abdomen pain for six months calling 999, that’s what the ambulances are tied up with, instead of being freed up to deal with actual emergencies. All paid for by the PAYE worker of course. There’s no call-out fee for a yellow taxi.
Thanks very much 
I’d well imagine, they should be triaged by call takers and told to go to doctors, or ambulances should be free to leave on the spot when it becomes apparent its bullshit. The same complainers clog every A and E in the country.
But this was a high profile event with 30K attending. there should be a seperate first aid team at hand, surely the insurers would demand this
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Irrelevant.
Ambulance should be on standby at ground?
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I’d have thought fairly strict rules around that stuff when you have a crowd
Surely there was a private ambulance there. Are they no use in this situation? Order of Malta or whatever
Well they should have been available to do the CPR at minimum and not rely on the crowd to do it. Someone mentioned earlier it’s surprising this doesn’t happen more often at local games where there definitely wouldn’t be an ambulance