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96 hurling final, the last 10 minutes

87 Hurling semifinal Galway-Tipp

90 final

The hurling in the 06 final was magnificent

[Henry and Walter in the same forward division, sounds like a BB soccer team.Who gives a youngster a name like that nowadays?]

Henry and Walter in the same forward division, sounds like a BB soccer team.
Who gives a youngster a name like that nowadays?

Normans. Kilkenny are at least half Norman . Fitzes, Hennessys, and Delaneys. Listen to dose accents. Same thing with the way they pronounce r's
in Waterford. Straight out of French.  Guillaume became Willie. Henri became Henry.

There is also lots of English blood. Tennysons and Langtons and Rochfords. They didn't speak Irish in Kilkenny for a very long time.

Tipp are the hurling equivalent of France at the UN. Why does France still have a permanent security council seat?   Why do people talk about Tipp in the same breath as Cork and the cats ? Tipp stopped winning consistently shortly after De Gaulle died. I remember hoping they'd make the breakthrough back in the early 80s. In many ways I am still waiting. 

Are Meath de real Mick Lyons deal or alternatively up to the standard of the rest of Leinster?
Have the Celtic tiger years sapped the  Ur-Meath spirit or is it still there somewhere buried under the
concrete ? 

Fingers crossed for the Deise. Wouldn't a Waterford-Limerick final be marvellous ?

The priority has to be beating Kilkenny . I think Galway are better than the Deise. Less fragile. Sorry Deiseach.

Ah, the greater good. I agree Galway would have a better chance of beating Kilkenny than Waterford. But if Waterford winning were to increase the chances of a thousand year Kilkenny Reich, I'd still want Waterford to win. They're my priority.

That is the sort of attitude  many Austrians shared in 1938. By 1945 Vienna was in ruins, a bit like the state of offaly hurling today. You really need to think about what you want. Sometimes dreams come true. And then you can have Fianna fail in charge for 10 years. 

anyway the cork hurlers obviously need a few years to get a new team together. I see there are almost 500 pages on the strike. I suppose both sides were partly right. Who will buy donal og's book if there is no hurling in Cork and no telly exposure from the second half of July on ?   

McIntyre is very cute. He doesn't talk about galway in terms of "we". He says "they".
It is as if he is a passerby who just got involved by accident. He's from Tipp. He probably taunts them to get the right response.
It seems to work..

i hope mouview got the better of his nerves and managed to watch the full match. It's a pity the next match is against Waherford. I would love them to win the all-Ireland but the backs don't seem to be the best and if Joe Canning gets a few decent balls in..

The priority has to be beating Kilkenny . I think Galway are better than the Deise. Less fragile. Sorry Deiseach.

Liverpool should do well this season...

Ya, ya, ya. Galway have enough bad memories of Gardiner, O Connor x 2, Curran etc. to be taken in by chat like this! Galway are far from the finished article too you know and quite a few of the players have improved form to find.

Good man mo. Top expectation management there.

"Too nervous to predict any scoreline for this match."

Very understandable. 20 years

"Galway aren't without their own foibles, the main one of which is mental – it is still uncomfortably easy for their supporters to imagine them lapsing
into the listless apathy that Cork have a history of successfully sensing and exploiting." Nicky English

On the other hand there is "mol an oige agus tiocfaidh si"
Anois is  cosuil go bhfuil siad ag teacht. So the mental stuff doesn^t have to stick.   

The team were training up in Mallow tonight, and thankfully both Ben and Gardiner took part which is great to see. Hopefully both will be fully fit for the match.
No Cork team announced yet, it usually is by now, wonder what that's about. Anyway, hopefully it'll be the one most of us in Cork are hopeing for, not the one we all expect to see.

You are not an estate agent, by any chance, Reillers? You do that kind of a job on the Cork hurlers.  Marvellous and sought after hurling team, magificently finished, fully centrally heated throughout, delightful period goalkeeper, definitely a team of note for a quick sale you won't be disappointed.  

Any word on Galway's injury worries ??

I'd always be wary of predicting a Galway win against Cork especially in Thurles. Galway have always been able to put it up to Kilkenny and Tipp down through the years and beat them every now and then but we always seem to underperform badly against Cork. Galway have had better teams than Cork in the past and still managed to find a way to lose to them.

Overall though I think you would still have to make Cork favourites. Thurles is practically a home venue for them.

You might as well lose to Laois as to Cork. They aren't going to win anything this year. They are a team in transition. When Galway hurlers get to go to college and beat the Cork lads playing Sigerson or whatever there is no point in having any respect for the Cork jersey. The only reason Cork win more allIreland finals than they lose is because of attitude.  It's Mayo in reverse.  If McIntyre has the heads right they should beat Cork and go another step further. 

And if Galway can get that sorted out the teams will be more stable, there'll be less chopping and changing, there'll be more players getting the right exposure and you'll have more all-Irelands.   

I think the Cork-Galway match was arranged by the old firm. If Galway are to win the all-Ireland they will have to beat all 3 of them or something along those lines.   

Mouview


The memory must be going. Didn't they get beaten in Ennis back in 2007 early in July? Did that just put them in the path of the KK combine harvester? I remember the KK match in 2006. Jesus.


I was watching the RTE interview with McIntyre. He seems to be on the ball.
A nice change for a Galway hurling manager.  If Galway were to lose to Cork I think you would have to class it as a damp squib to what seems to be an encouraging bit of progress. I thought there would be a step up in approach in 2006 but instead there was a massacre and they lost their way more or less with Gerlock.

There seems to be a sense of smacht with the hurlers this year, more discipline, a bit of commitment. Less of the wishy washy traithiuil stuff.   

About Cork- i don't think the open era of second chances has enhanced their reputation. The jersey used to be mesmerising but they seem very mortal these days. The only jersey that to me seems to have retained the aura is the black and amber. 

 

Galway were dumped out the championship by 2 mediocre teams recently that weren't going anywhere - Clare in 2007 and Cork in 2008. Fair play to Cork for scoring a last minute point last year but I don't remember seeing them in the final.   

It's all a bit "shit or get off the pot" with cork. They still think they are entitled to keep the pot warm even though nothing appears to be coming.   

Cork may not be generous but they are a team in decline. They lost a big match in 2006 and that was it.  They seem to deploy their energy , what's left of it, off the pitch. Galway appear to be building up a nice bit of momentum too.   The O'Connors and Tom Kenny in their pomp buzzing around the pitch and popping points over from every angle and distance were a sight but that is going back some time now.