All Ireland S.H.C Semi-Finals

[lilpaulie85]

So we find ourselves at this stage of the year again, four left each with different motivating factors, Kilkenny aiming to achieve immortality, Cork trying to prove they still have the pedigree and the legs, Tipp looking to prove last year was no flash in the pan and that they truely are team to take kilkennys plint and Waterford seeking to end a 51 year famine with some of the old heads who so many people would not begrudge a celtic cross for the entertainment they have provided since the breakthrough year for them in 1998, also looking to put the disaster of the 2008 final to bed.

Cork vs Kilkenny,
The one thing about Cork is that they fear noone it's bred into them down leeside, They feel it is their god given right to be making their way to Croke Park in September, however attitude alone will not be enough you would say against these opponents. The Cats although not looking as impressive this year (in my opinion) as they have done in years previous are still odds on favorites for the championship and with good cause. This team oozes class from every line on the pitch including the sideline. I can't see Cork overcoming this one, however if they can perform at the pace they did for the tipp game i think kilkenny will be pushed close.  my prediction kilkenny by 5 points.

Waterford vs Tipp,
Waterford play a completely different style of hurling this year than we have come to expect of them, gone is the wreckless abandon with which they played for the past ten years or so, in place they now have a very formidable defence built on work ethic and commitment. With The Brick at half back they have a linch pin which holds it altogether with dogged determination. They also now have a much stronger bench than i can remember them having ever, with impact subs like shanahan and mcgrath waiting in the wings. Tipp will be in no doubt they will get nothing easy having watched tapes of the munster finals, but they know what they have to do, i think alot will depend on the eoin kelly and eoin murphy tussle as it has in these games over the last few years, if kelly is on form and wins a couple of early balls to boost confidence murphy could be in for a tough days work. however the same could be said for mullane and which ever tipp back is charged with curtailling him. my prediction is Waterford by 2 points

[deiseach]

my prediction is Waterford by 2 points

*shits self*

[lilpaulie85]

lol getting nervous are we

[deiseach]

lol getting nervous are we

Just a little.

On a less flippant note, it's interesting how different a beast Waterford are this year. Davy Fitz really has put his stamp on the team and it does give reason for confidence in the sense that at least we'll be trying something different to what we tried in 2009. And 2007, 2006, 2004, 2002 . . . whether that will be enough, we'll see. Eoin Kelly doesn't look like the player he was and Stephen Molumphy hasn't progressed from the clever-but-raw player we first saw in 2007. We have no idea who should be played at full-forward and I'm not convinced our bench is all it's cracked up to be either, Dan has lost it and Ken McGrath is held together with Band-Aids. On a more positive note, Clinton Hennessy is in the form of his life, Liam Lawlor could be the full back we've been yearning for since Sean Cullinane retired and Shane O'Sullivan and Riche Foley no longer look like souped-up winter hurlers. Onwards and upwards!

[AZOffaly]

It's nice this year that I can really be happy for most of the potential winners. I'm living in Newport, so I'd like to see Conor O'Mahoney getting to bring Liam back to Ryans. It'd make some night.

I'm a big admirer of Kilkenny and would like to see them get their due reward of the 5 in a row. (And then bugger off for 10 years!).

Waterford is a county I've had a soft spot for (some relations down there) and their holy grail quest was great in the last 10 years, and it would be sweet for them to win it on the basis that everyone thought they'd shot their bolt in 2008.

[imtommygunn]

AZ you only seem to have mentioned 3 from 4 

[AZOffaly]

It's nice this year that I can really be happy for most of the potential winners. I'm living in Newport, so I'd like to see Conor O'Mahoney getting to bring Liam back to Ryans. It'd make some night.

I'm a big admirer of Kilkenny and would like to see them get their due reward of the 5 in a row. (And then bugger off for 10 years!).

Waterford is a county I've had a soft spot for (some relations down there) and their holy grail quest was great in the last 10 years, and it would be sweet for them to win it on the basis that everyone thought they'd shot their bolt in 2008.

In all seriousness, I do have respect for Cork and what they have done over the years, and their pig headed determination to f*ck the begrudgers. I have a lot more time for Donal Óg after reading his book, but I just can't warm to them as a team at all.

[lilpaulie85]

lol getting nervous are we

Eoin Kelly doesn't look like the player he was and Stephen Molumphy hasn't progressed from the clever-but-raw player we first saw in 2007.

i dont think kelly is being given as much freedom as he was under the old system and as for molumpy i think the hard graft he does is admirable, he also has a knack off getting the ball into his hand in very tight situations which has been good for waterford under the breaking balls.

[Reillers]

It's nice this year that I can really be happy for most of the potential winners. I'm living in Newport, so I'd like to see Conor O'Mahoney getting to bring Liam back to Ryans. It'd make some night.

I'm a big admirer of Kilkenny and would like to see them get their due reward of the 5 in a row. (And then bugger off for 10 years!).

Waterford is a county I've had a soft spot for (some relations down there) and their holy grail quest was great in the last 10 years, and it would be sweet for them to win it on the basis that everyone thought they'd shot their bolt in 2008.

In all seriousness, I do have respect for Cork and what they have done over the years, and their pig headed determination to f*ck the begrudgers. I have a lot more time for Donal Óg after reading his book, but I just can't warm to them as a team at all.

Hopefully that's the plan against Kilkenny, one of many many things to put on the dressing room wall. Take all that pain, all that resentment and all our frustrations and throw it at them, along with the kitchen sink. We need just about everything we can find to help us.
Our pure screw what everyone else thinks, Cork attitude, the refs against us, the media's against us, they're all against us, we're written off, this is it, this is our last chance..etc. well it worked in the past, it worked against Galway a few years ago, it worked against Tipp.
We need to do something though, something unpredicatable that will work for us..something..anything. Just the thought of Aisake starting against Kilkenny makes me want to scream, Hickey will be just so delighted if he's to mark him.
We need something original, not to play straight into Kilkenny's hands.

And on another note, I know a few people who've totally changed their mind about Donal Og after reading his book. Not a bad read at all.

[bottlethrower7]

speaking of books, remember this?

Corcoran joins 'trash talkers'

ONE of the most appealing features of the GAA has always been the obvious respect the players have for each other. No matter how hard the game is or how fierce the rivalry, hurlers and footballers have nothing but praise for each other when they leave the pitch.

Football and hurling have been spared the tabloid-driven bad-mouthing culture of soccer. The habit is so prevalent in American sport they even have a name for it, 'Trash Talk.' That's why the recent macho media posturing of the Australian Rules players struck such a false note. Whatever their other faults, GAA players don't go in for that kind of useless chat.

Or at least they didn't. Not till the release of Brian Corcoran's autobiography in which the Cork player decides to dispense with the good manners which up till now have been central to relations between teams.

Corcoran reveals that in the run-up to Cork's All-Ireland hurling semi-final against Waterford, the Rebels had two posters made up, entitled, 'Our World,' and 'Their World.' Our World contained a list of the many positive qualities possessed by Cork. Their World listed the qualities the Corkmen thought were typical of Waterford, including, "Losing. Fighting Among Themselves. Playing for oneself, not the team. Relying on luck. Bringing others down to their level."

There you have it. Cork's opinion of Waterford, not merely used in the build-up to the game but proudly repeated in print by Corcoran. You can't finesse this one or minimise it. According to Cork, Waterford's players fight among themselves, play for themselves rather than the team, rely on luck and bring others down to their level. It is probably the most insulting thing to be written about one group of hurlers by another.

Elsewhere Corcoran accuses Waterford of being a group of individuals rather than a team, claims that Tony Browne gave up in the 2005 All-Ireland quarter-final, something which a Cork player would never do, and notes that Waterford clubs seem to be perpetually fighting each other in the latter stages of their county championship.

To top it all, he notes that the big difference between the current Cork and Waterford teams is that, "they are playing for greatness within their own county but we are playing for greatness in the history of hurling."

These insults would be bad enough if they were true. But they are actually a distortion of reality which gravely traduce a team which has given much to hurling over the last decade.

Take that line about, "bringing others down to their level." Well, the best game of hurling in recent years was the 2004 Munster final when Waterford actually brought hurling up to a level that Cork could not match.

I have not noticed the likes of Paul Flynn, Ken McGrath, Tony Browne and Dan Shanahan playing for themselves and not the team either. And I'm not convinced that Eoin Kelly, John Mullane and Dave Bennett rely on luck rather than skill.

This idea that Cork do everything right and Waterford do everything wrong is bizarre in the extreme. Cork have enormous resources of population to call on, much greater than that of any other hurling county. Their current team includes players with All-Ireland under-21 and minor medals. Waterford, by contrast, have had little success at under-age level and have nothing like Cork's pick. In the circumstances Justin McCarthy's two Munster titles may be just as impressive a feat as the two All-Irelands Donal O'Grady and John Allen steered Cork to.

(It goes without saying, of course, that Cork's caricature of Waterford is two fingers to McCarthy who is being portrayed as a manager who'd put up with this kind of rubbish from his team.)

So what's going on? Why has Corcoran opted to break with tradition and stick the boot into the Decies? He's not the kind of guy you'd have expected to come out with something like this after a long career during which he always played the game in an exemplary spirit. Having interviewed him, I'd have to say that he struck me as a modest man and most unlikely trash talker.

Perhaps the problem is that the Erin's Own man has become affected by the prevailing philosophy of a Cork side which, in recent years, became the most self-aggrandising outfit in the history of Gaelic games. He probably didn't have anything against Waterford, they just happened to sustain collateral damage as Cork rained down missiles of praise upon themselves.

This idea that Cork do everything right and Waterford do everything wrong is bizarre in the extreme

For example, in the same chapter where he disses the Decies, Corcoran describes a speech he gave to his team-mates outside the Burlington on the morning of that semi-final where he went on, at surprising length for a rainy day, about the parallels between Cork and Tiger Woods (they are Tiger to Waterford's Sergio Garcia, was the jist of it.)

But the unpalatable truth for Corcoran and his team-mates is that they inhabit a completely different universe from Tiger Woods and invoking his example, as though they were his equals, is deluded in the extreme. It's like a man who's just built six houses in Glanmire invoking the example of Donald Trump. Or a lad who plays the casio organ in the corner of the pub of a Saturday night telling you he understands Michael Jackson's paranoia because that's how it goes when you're a pop star.

Tiger has to take on the best in the world, the pick of every country where they play golf. Every failure of nerve or technique has the potential to cost him vast sums of money. Brian Corcoran has to take on opponents from a handful of counties on a small island. And he'll still get paid at the end of the week no matter how he does.

This is not to belittle hurling, just to put it into perspective. You don't love your wife any the less because she's not Eva Herzigova just as she's forgiven you for not being Brad Pitt. But it's this notion that Gaelic games should ape professional sport which is at the heart of Corcoran's witless words on Waterford. The whole book is obviously inspired by books on American sports where this kind of nonsense is a lingua franca.

Seeing it applied to our own games is an unpleasant experience. It's like wandering into an old beloved GAA bar, the type that used to have Carrolls All-Stars posters on the wall and a man who knew Mick Mackey in the corner, and finding it's been transformed into Big Tex's All-American Sports Bar And Grill.

The last laugh, of course, is on the author. Because after all the huffing and putting Cork didn't even win the All-Ireland. And though Corcoran claims that, "no other team has been as professional as us, no other team has our team spirit, no other team has made the sacrifices we have," it is Kilkenny who have been the best team of the contemporary era.

Judging by the book, Cork are fond of their stats. So here's a stat: Five All-Irelands, Kilkenny 3 Cork 2.

Without (one suspects) Brian Cody having recourse to posters denigrating the opposition, the Cats have done just fine.

as a little bored at work exercise, perhaps we could fill in separate 'Our World', 'Their World' venn diagrams for this years semi. Would be interesting for sure!

[Reillers]

speaking of books, remember this?

Corcoran joins 'trash talkers'

ONE of the most appealing features of the GAA has always been the obvious respect the players have for each other. No matter how hard the game is or how fierce the rivalry, hurlers and footballers have nothing but praise for each other when they leave the pitch.

Football and hurling have been spared the tabloid-driven bad-mouthing culture of soccer. The habit is so prevalent in American sport they even have a name for it, 'Trash Talk.' That's why the recent macho media posturing of the Australian Rules players struck such a false note. Whatever their other faults, GAA players don't go in for that kind of useless chat.

Or at least they didn't. Not till the release of Brian Corcoran's autobiography in which the Cork player decides to dispense with the good manners which up till now have been central to relations between teams.

Corcoran reveals that in the run-up to Cork's All-Ireland hurling semi-final against Waterford, the Rebels had two posters made up, entitled, 'Our World,' and 'Their World.' Our World contained a list of the many positive qualities possessed by Cork. Their World listed the qualities the Corkmen thought were typical of Waterford, including, "Losing. Fighting Among Themselves. Playing for oneself, not the team. Relying on luck. Bringing others down to their level."

There you have it. Cork's opinion of Waterford, not merely used in the build-up to the game but proudly repeated in print by Corcoran. You can't finesse this one or minimise it. According to Cork, Waterford's players fight among themselves, play for themselves rather than the team, rely on luck and bring others down to their level. It is probably the most insulting thing to be written about one group of hurlers by another.

Elsewhere Corcoran accuses Waterford of being a group of individuals rather than a team, claims that Tony Browne gave up in the 2005 All-Ireland quarter-final, something which a Cork player would never do, and notes that Waterford clubs seem to be perpetually fighting each other in the latter stages of their county championship.

To top it all, he notes that the big difference between the current Cork and Waterford teams is that, "they are playing for greatness within their own county but we are playing for greatness in the history of hurling."

These insults would be bad enough if they were true. But they are actually a distortion of reality which gravely traduce a team which has given much to hurling over the last decade.

Take that line about, "bringing others down to their level." Well, the best game of hurling in recent years was the 2004 Munster final when Waterford actually brought hurling up to a level that Cork could not match.

I have not noticed the likes of Paul Flynn, Ken McGrath, Tony Browne and Dan Shanahan playing for themselves and not the team either. And I'm not convinced that Eoin Kelly, John Mullane and Dave Bennett rely on luck rather than skill.

This idea that Cork do everything right and Waterford do everything wrong is bizarre in the extreme. Cork have enormous resources of population to call on, much greater than that of any other hurling county. Their current team includes players with All-Ireland under-21 and minor medals. Waterford, by contrast, have had little success at under-age level and have nothing like Cork's pick. In the circumstances Justin McCarthy's two Munster titles may be just as impressive a feat as the two All-Irelands Donal O'Grady and John Allen steered Cork to.

(It goes without saying, of course, that Cork's caricature of Waterford is two fingers to McCarthy who is being portrayed as a manager who'd put up with this kind of rubbish from his team.)

So what's going on? Why has Corcoran opted to break with tradition and stick the boot into the Decies? He's not the kind of guy you'd have expected to come out with something like this after a long career during which he always played the game in an exemplary spirit. Having interviewed him, I'd have to say that he struck me as a modest man and most unlikely trash talker.

Perhaps the problem is that the Erin's Own man has become affected by the prevailing philosophy of a Cork side which, in recent years, became the most self-aggrandising outfit in the history of Gaelic games. He probably didn't have anything against Waterford, they just happened to sustain collateral damage as Cork rained down missiles of praise upon themselves.

This idea that Cork do everything right and Waterford do everything wrong is bizarre in the extreme

For example, in the same chapter where he disses the Decies, Corcoran describes a speech he gave to his team-mates outside the Burlington on the morning of that semi-final where he went on, at surprising length for a rainy day, about the parallels between Cork and Tiger Woods (they are Tiger to Waterford's Sergio Garcia, was the jist of it.)

But the unpalatable truth for Corcoran and his team-mates is that they inhabit a completely different universe from Tiger Woods and invoking his example, as though they were his equals, is deluded in the extreme. It's like a man who's just built six houses in Glanmire invoking the example of Donald Trump. Or a lad who plays the casio organ in the corner of the pub of a Saturday night telling you he understands Michael Jackson's paranoia because that's how it goes when you're a pop star.

Tiger has to take on the best in the world, the pick of every country where they play golf. Every failure of nerve or technique has the potential to cost him vast sums of money. Brian Corcoran has to take on opponents from a handful of counties on a small island. And he'll still get paid at the end of the week no matter how he does.

This is not to belittle hurling, just to put it into perspective. You don't love your wife any the less because she's not Eva Herzigova just as she's forgiven you for not being Brad Pitt. But it's this notion that Gaelic games should ape professional sport which is at the heart of Corcoran's witless words on Waterford. The whole book is obviously inspired by books on American sports where this kind of nonsense is a lingua franca.

Seeing it applied to our own games is an unpleasant experience. It's like wandering into an old beloved GAA bar, the type that used to have Carrolls All-Stars posters on the wall and a man who knew Mick Mackey in the corner, and finding it's been transformed into Big Tex's All-American Sports Bar And Grill.

The last laugh, of course, is on the author. Because after all the huffing and putting Cork didn't even win the All-Ireland. And though Corcoran claims that, "no other team has been as professional as us, no other team has our team spirit, no other team has made the sacrifices we have," it is Kilkenny who have been the best team of the contemporary era.

Judging by the book, Cork are fond of their stats. So here's a stat: Five All-Irelands, Kilkenny 3 Cork 2.

Without (one suspects) Brian Cody having recourse to posters denigrating the opposition, the Cats have done just fine.

as a little bored at work exercise, perhaps we could fill in separate 'Our World', 'Their World' venn diagrams for this years semi. Would be interesting for sure!

Slow day at the office? Haha.

Looking at that, I don't know where to begin to be fair. Your passage there is so outdated.

First off that quote at the time was true, a couple of years ago. But in 04/05 where he was talking about the Waterford dressing room that was largely true.
Things change, a lot has changed in 4 years. Bringing that up now, well it's irrelevant. It's outdated and really has nothing to do with anything today.
And Corcoran is so called having a go at Justin McCarthy, funny to see how much time has changed. Now, I'm pretty sure the Cork players have a lot more time for him as the Waterford players ever had.

Something that is never mentioned and is something that those with a selective memory choose to forget, do you not remember how the Waterford players treated Justin McCarthy?

As for your world their world idea, well I've no doubt the selective memory will kick in.

[lilpaulie85]

justin had taken them as far as he could and it was time for a change, at the time i didn't agree with it at all but looking back i think it was time for him to go. Davy altough a little boll**ks has a fighting spirit in the camp that justin never managed to invoke. justin and gerald mccarthy deserve a hell of alot of credit for pulling waterford back into contention for serious honors, however none managed to still have a team in the championship come september.

[Reillers]

justin had taken them as far as he could and it was time for a change, at the time i didn't agree with it at all but looking back i think it was time for him to go. Davy altough a little boll**ks has a fighting spirit in the camp that justin never managed to invoke. justin and gerald mccarthy deserve a hell of alot of credit for pulling waterford back into contention for serious honors, however none managed to still have a team in the championship come september.

Time for change, but the way they did it, amazing how people forget.

[lilpaulie85]

it was over with quickly unlike the drawn out saga that has been seen in limerick with justin. it let the team get on with things asap, alot to be said for the way they did it not best for justin granted but for the team i think so.

[Kerry Mike]

Just the thought of Aisake starting against Kilkenny makes me want to scream, Hickey will be just so delighted if he's to mark him.
We need something original, not to play straight into Kilkenny's hands.

Maybe Aisake could try and headbutt Hickey, now that would be original.