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Cork beat Tipp in the minor this evening in front of official attendance of 8,142!!
That's a phenomenal crowd for a minor game on a Monday evening.
And word on the street is that Thurles will be full on Sunday with over 70% clad in the blood & bandages. Expectation is high down south.

afaik
Waterford v Clare/Limerick=Thurles
Clare v Cork=Thurles
Cork & Limerick have home/away agreement

Looks like Anthony Daly's team will include Brian Lohan & Tommy Dunne -looks like a nice setup.
Will be interesting to see who the u-21 guys will bring on board in their bid.

I'd love to see Galway get home/away matches.

Say they are playing Kilkenny in Leinster semi-final -you'd have a great atmosphere in Pearse park (or Nowlan park)

Not bad for our first day out!!!  Don't know how we won that, Dub very wasteful in normal time and we lost most of the physical battles, at least until Brannigan came on and made a bit of a difference.  Molloys free taking into the wind was superb and he really stood up as a leader there in ET. 

System needs to change though.  Rockin up for an AISF for your first game is pure stupidity, need to bring the underage teams into Leinster or just go to an open draw championship of 2 groups or something.

If ye want games, go into Munster

Okay!  So your solution is for our seniors to play in Leinster and the rest to play in Munster?!!  Brilliant!

May not be a bad idea, Leinster have said to no to your under age so why not ask Munster. At least it will force the Munster counties to give their opinion on the idea. If they also say no then there will be question marks over their commitment on allowing hurling to prosper outside their own borders.

On a seperate topic, if people want the GAA to go down the route of open draw or champions league formats, then the hurling u-21 is probably the most logical place to start this.

Pulling a face guard is indeed meant to be a straight red, but after Shane O'Donnell got one a few years back, no one has ever got once since, well not in any of the big counties.
Davy fitz rightly highlighted this fact, but IIRC he believed it was Clare being harshly treated.

It was Podge Collins who got sent off that time

Clare have a very strong midfield. Brennan is getting all the plaudits and while yes he is playing very well it is Cathal O'Connor who has been Clare's standout player in midfield this year.
Along with that Clare have some decent scoring forwards in Tubridy, Cleary, Malone & Sexton.
Their defence is a bit suspect and lacks physicality.
Unless the weather is terrible, I reckon it should be a high scoring game

Kilkenny will play winners of Waterford v Wexford
Tipperary will play winners of Clare v Galway

For me I'd rank the top 8 teams as follows:

1. Kilkenny/Tipp
2. Clare/Waterford
3. Dublin/Galway
4. Limerick/Cork

If Kilkenny have a full injury free panel to select from then I'd have them ahead of Tipp, otherwise I'd have Tipp at 1.

Clare need a fully fit John Conlon & David McInerney. If both of these return to full fitness then I'd push Clare into the top 2. Waterford need to improve their scoring from last year and a lot will depend on Shanahan & Mahony returning from injury and into some decent form.

Dublin disposed of a poor Wexford quite easily and they could be a potential banana skin for Kilkenny in Leinster semi-final. Galway are the eternal enigma -god only knows what shape they will be in later in year.

Limerick were average in division 1b and while they had a good win over Dublin, they looked mediocre against Waterford. Cork were shambolic against Tipp and can't be any worse -although I won't be putting any money on that.

You can add in Eddie Brennan to that list manfromdelmonte

Fair point Johnny, but the one think I'd say is that in last few years Clare have only spent 1 season down in division 1B while Limerick have been down there continuously.

It actually worked out quite nicely for Clare in that they were able to experiment a lot more in div 1B than they would have done had they been in 1A. Of course it's all well and good if you come straight back up, but for Limerick to be down there the past few years it has been a big hinderence.

Don't think he got one which was a big pity.
He left the footballers in 2010 and they won in 2011

Paudie maher pulls some dirty strokes sometimes.

Tipp were very fired up for that one and will be sore to lose it. Looked like they were going to run away with it on 25 odd minutes.

Interesting set of results with dublin winning. Thought them and cork were bottom two but maybe cork favourites now.

Clare got it tight enough but not sure they were full pelt from brief bit i saw. Is podge collins back?

Podge won't be back for another few months, but I'd be surprised if he plays any hurling for Clare this year.
He has stated himself that once recovered he is going to try play both football & hurling intercounty which to me is delusional especially so soon after a big injury like he has had.
Will be interesting to see how it pans out anyways for him.

I'm always surprised to see Colm Begley on this team every year as I think he is way over-rated. I get the feeling that he is seen as someone who knows the Aussie game/mindset and will be a good addition to the squad.
Maybe I'm being too harsh on him though.

They rotate it every year.

Originally this was done so due to cost, so for example this year there are 15 hurlers (+ partners) invited, while all the football nominees would be invited.
That was when they had a dinner/banquet but I'm not sure what the setup is now.
I think they have just kept with the format for the sake of it.