We can live in hope. 4 league defeats but all ended up as a 1 score game. Cork were 10 points up at one stage and probably switched off so it tightened up at the end.
I’ll reserve judgement until I see how we setup in the first 10 minutes Sunday. Surely to Christ he can’t persist with the 1 forward and taking potshots from the half back line / midfield strategy?
It’s soul destroying to watch and I can’t for the life of me imagine the players enjoy it.
Play a 3 man full forward line, keep them inside and withdraw the half forwards, if you want to crowd the middle, as is the new hurling gospel.
Or better still, just let them hurl. I know the game has moved on, but in truth my love of Waterford hurling is being chipped away at year on year.
I grew up in 80’s when we were proper shite, one day out a year job, but I enjoyed the games as spectacles. Maybe it was the innocence of youth. Beating Cork in 89 was something I’ll never forget. It was a genuine shared joy.
The 90’s were where we began to dream. 1992 was the beginning of a special period. Watching Paul Flynn tear Tipp to shreds on Munster Final day. Winning the replay the following Friday. Seeing Paddy O Donnell lifting the cup was Nirvana for a 12 year old who thought he’d never see Waterford win anything. Then rocking up to Thurles the following Wednesday and winning the U-21 against an exceptional Clare side. The trips to Dublin for both semifinals against Antrim, Minor in Croke Park and U-21 in Parnell Park. Three All Ireland finals in 4 weeks, Growlers hat trick in Nowlan Park, starting Flynn in the replay, coming back and beating an Offaly team for the ages after a John Troy wonder goal on the volley. What times they were.
We all know what followed in the 00’s, I’m obviously 100% biased but I feel they were the most enjoyable team to watch in that period and I looked forward to every game. The primary, if ultimately futile, if you score 4-24 we’ll score 4-25, gameplan was joyus to watch.
Now I’m struggling to even muster any sense of enthusiasm for Sunday.
But hope springs eternal. Get a win and who knows what the season ahead holds in store.
18 Likes
Would be great if teams were announced add to the build up a good bit
1 Like
Cork will get tucks of if this weekend
1 Like
A Tipp lad I know, who’s been living in Clare the last few years, text me this evening
"I’ve never seen a crowd get as carried with themselves. Hotels in Dublin booked already "
1 Like
He’s telling the truth. I couldn’t book one anywhere.
Great to see Lohan having ye two gaping fannies rattled.
What other tall tales do you have for us?
2 Likes
Davy still wants your support.
He doesn’t address the awful style of hurling but does address poor results by saying he was down starters and that he wants to be judged on the Munster Championship.
Did he mention the pit of despair the lads were in when he took them over and how he’s rebuilding them mentally and physically?
Cork team for Sunday
https://x.com/fotoole13/status/1781050564870070397?s=46&t=bi9TPLB4aIa07RQv_xWOxQ
Cork hurling team named to play Waterford:
Patrick Collins
Ger Millerick, Damien Cahalane, Sean O’Donoghue
Robert Downey, Ciaran Joyce, Mark Coleman
Tommy O’Connell, Darragh Fitzgibbon
Shane Barrett, Conor Lehane, Seamus Harnedy
Alan Connolly, Sean Twomey, Patrick Horgan
Was Lehane not supposedly injured?
Waterford will be looking to get on top of that half forward line.
Plenty impact of the bench though.
What did Eoin Downey and Niall O’Leary do wrong?
1 Like
Damien Cahalane full back 
Tom Ryan: Clare clash is biggest since Limerick began their domination
Limerick are on the brink of history but face a team that have cut them down twice in the Munster round-robin stages and whom they have yet to beat in Cusack Park.
With one hand, Tom Ryan is taking the call. With the other, he is ushering 20 whitehead calves out the field. “They’re pale and they’re rough,” he says. “It’s been a tough old year. So wet. But things are brightening up.”
The drying sod appeals to him in more way than one. Hurling, “real hurling” as he expects Ennis will provide on Sunday, brings with it the light and will continue to do in the his advancing years.
His old adversary Babs Keating turned 80 last Wednesday. Ryan reaches that mark in August. Neither man has lost any of their straight-shooting. Both have railed against the GAA’s cashless ticket policy, believing it to be ageist.
With Cusack Park’s capacity tipping just above 20,000, there will be several followers unhappy with being left out but for Ryan nothing can be as worse as being left behind.
“It’s a total disaster,” he says of the general refusal to take cash. “I’ve been opposed to it from day one. I think it’s a scandal. I’m okay because my niece Evelyn Adams is very good to get me tickets and the county board are very good to me. My relationship is all fixed there and Mike O’Riordan looks after me.
“But it’s a move away from the roots of the Association. It was a shocking decision made by bureaucrats who don’t give one rattling f*ck about the people who put the GAA in the position it’s in, especially the volunteer old-timers who have spent their lives preparing pitches and players.
“It’s an absolute disgrace and how far removed Croke Park are from the people. I’ve nothing against modern technology. Of course, online is there but there should be a facility for people who don’t have access and there are a lot of them. I can’t text, all I have is a phone. Why not have a stile there? Cash is legal tender. I’m shocked and annoyed and I’ll condemn it to the day I die.”
He won’t be in Ennis on Sunday because the early part of the Munster championship now clashes with calving season. But the latest rutting between the neighbours, 30 years on from when Ryan guided Limerick to a Munster final win against Clare, excite him greatly.
“There will always be a tradition between Limerick and Clare because we’re here stuck to one another, we’re arguing over boundaries and limits and roadways and railways. It’s a great rivalry but an awful bitterness as well, which only came to me in later years. It’s very deep, as the Bull McCabe said. Deeper than a rivalry and it applies across the board.”
In all three of Ryan’s full years in charge of Limerick, Clare came across his path in Munster. From Mike Galligan shooting seven points from play in the ‘94 final to Clare’s historic retribution in the following year’s decider to Ciarán Carey’s glorious semi-final winner on a day in the Gaelic Grounds describes as being played “in sunshine you could hardly dry your back”.
Twice, he shared a sideline with Ger Loughnane. The two never quarreled. It wasn’t Ryan’s thing. “I got criticised for the way I carried out my campaign on the sideline and my management system. I never interfered with players, managers, opponents.
“I came into it in an era where a lot of that was going on and one of my earlier instructions to the players was in the middle of the Gaelic Grounds. There had been a lot of sledging going on between Tipperary and Galway players and that sort of stuff. I said, ‘Whatever we do, and win, lose or draw, this is a sport and I won’t tolerate any dissent, any insults to players, managers of anybody as long as I’m in charge’.
“I’d great respect for my opponents. I’d be asked over the years if I’m friendly with them but I wouldn’t be a great mixer. I’d have huge respect for Loughnane and all those managers. The man had his own way and was himself and it worked for him and he won a couple of All-Irelands and you have to give him credit for that. Never had I a word with anyone in that regard and I didn’t have a player sent off in four years of knock-out hurling.
“It was a big part of my ethos that the game was to be enjoyed and respected. We were also the first team to be sponsored by the health board, sponsored by the state with the Drug Free – Cúl campaign, which the county board didn’t even want at the time. It’s all drugs now.” The sponsorship was one of several topics of disagreement Ryan had with the county board before and after he was removed soon following the 1997 Division 1 success, a third title in three seasons.
Another was his attempt to raise funds for charity by arranging a game against Clare. “I made a proposal we would play Clare in a game something like the Charity Shield in the UK. I could get no takers because it wasn’t for anyone, only charity. There were three hurling titles on both sides of the Shannon.”
Ryan anticipates Sunday being raw. Limerick are on the brink of history but face a team that have cut them down twice in the Munster round-robin stages and whom they have yet to beat in Cusack Park. Clare are in their lair and yet all their advances these past couple of seasons have been dwarfed by their neighbours’ brilliance.
“I firmly believe that this is the most important game for Limerick since they started their era of dominance,” reckons Ryan. “There is an awful lot hanging on this. Clare have the league behind them, have some very good hurlers and pushed Limerick the last three years. Limerick have had all the limelight.
“Limerick didn’t handle the league semi-final too well on or off the field and it will be interesting to see how their approach to keep players fresh over the winter turns out. They’re practically full strength but they’re missing their most important player. (Tony) Kelly won’t be playing for Clare but Darragh O’Donovan is important to Limerick as Kelly is to Clare. He is a wonderful player. He reminds me of the great Theo English from Tipperary and that’s a big loss.
“The year before last, they played Kilkenny in the final and I had a bit of a doubt in my mind about them. I have that doubt now creeping in again. Limerick have been functioning and winning but not at full speed. They can be casual at times then turn something into magic. (Cian) Lynch has been out with injury and the man is a genius as a player but he has to turn it on against Clare and I think he will.
“The psychology on Sunday will be back to basics and that will be the butt of the hurley. It will be back to hurling and Munster championship like it was played in my time and in the 90s.
“Caroline Currid is gone, there are no more tricks to be pulled out of the bag. It is going to be pure hurling because Clare are going to come at them and will attack them man-to-man. They won’t give them the space. As well as that, Clare have big men and physicality has been a major factor for Limerick. I fancy Limerick to shade it.”
10 Likes
“I wouldn’t be a great mixer” a great line.
1 Like
Tom echoing my own sentiments. This is a huge task on Sunday.
Clare Snr H
E Quilligan
A Hogan
C Cleary
C Leen
D Ryan
J Conlon
C Galvin
C Malone
D Lohan
D Fitzgerald
M Rodgers
P Duggan
A McCarthy
I Galvin
D Reidy
