Christy Ring

[neilthemac]

Westmeath should win it

Down and Kerry to give them a good run

Roscommon and London for the drop

[thejuice]

Well we took care of Mayo today, Niall Hackett racking up 9 points in a 16 to 12 win. Perhaps not looking like title contenders yet but I reckon we'll be there or there abouts. Roll on Kerry.

[HurlingBlog]

Westmeath are obviously raging hot favourites. Impressive start from them yesterday.
But Carlow, Down, Meath and Kildare could all challenge to some degree.
Andy Comerford looks to have Kildare going well.

[slow corner back]

Good win for Kildare alright, I thought Derry were a bit better than that, obviously not.

[HurlingBlog]

Looks like most of the big guns have the bye this weekend
Derry should beat armagh
Down get under way against london and should win easily
mayo v kerry and roscommon v wicklow might be two tights ones

[Lecale2]

Looks like most of the big guns have the bye this weekend
Derry should beat armagh
Down get under way against london and should win easily
mayo v kerry and roscommon v wicklow might be two tights ones

London can be tricky at home but I expect Down to win by 2 or 3. If they don't they are in big trouble.

[nrico2006]

I fear Armagh will take an awful hammering against a Derry side out to make up for last weekends humiliation.  Armagh are missing 4 players from the London game and two of them are their best - Coulter and McCormack

[HurlingBlog]

Yeah Coulter (Declan is it?) is the one Armagh hurling name you'd recognise, he always puts up great scores.

I guess he's another of those star guys from the weaker counties that'd make a kilkenny or cork team any time.

[Bacon]

Result: London 2-08 1-25 Down.

[mannix]

Mayo beat kerry, and  Keith Higgins scored a free from 100 yards out, i seen tony browne do it in a munster championship game once against clare and was astounded. How do you do that, drive it that far and that accurately.
Some of these lads would be stars in the usa where catching a ball in a big glove is heroic and driving it over a wall 80 metres away is unreal.
Instead Higgins walks into a sandwich shop in Castlebar and nobody looks twice.

[theskull1]

Yeah....it would be great PR for the game if great players from the traditionally weak counties got more exposure

[neilthemac]

feck thats a huge win for Mayo

[Red Hurley]

Any reports from the Derry v Armagh game? Seemed close enough game looking at the scoreline

[stevecw]

Result: London 2-08 1-25 Down.

Nice win by Down. Impressive to do that in Ruislip.
So sets up big game on Sat in Newry (i think?)
Down v Carlow are probably 2 of the most evenly matched teams around.
Never much in it whether in Carlow or as the games seem to be most of the time in Down! Even the league game in Down was a draw. Only pt Carlow dropped in Div 2 & Down came up with us.
So hard one to call this wkend. Down had good Ulster championship.
At the same time Carlow lost Div 2 final badly to Westmeath by 6 pts & then the Kehoe cup final to Meath by 7 points.
So ok the win v London (by 18 pts) was good, but as we stand right now we have no idea what we are like. This weekend wlll tell Carlow so much.
Winning this game & topping the group means so much...it gives the winner a home qf. The league game was a draw  id love the same result again as our +18 v + 14 would give us 1st!!
Looking forward to a cracker between 2 of the best sides at this level.

[Lecale2]

Down v Carlow is the big one this week. There's still a chance the game will be moved to Ballycran apparently. The winner of this one should be able to go on to the final.