Hurling 2024

[johnnycool]

they were always decent at u21 too. Not a new problem for  them.

Been over 12 years since they won last so transition from minor to the next level seems lately to be the problem for Galway

Jeffrey Lynskey pointed that out during his tenure as Galway minor manager and he went onto manage their U20's but even in a really good minor team you'd be doing well to get 3 lads to intercounty senior.

Cork might find that out as well.

Heck, even the great Kilkenny era is littered with fantastic minor hurlers who never made it to senior, it's not specific to one county.

[imtommygunn]

It always seems more of a problem in Galway though.

[Saffrongael]

It always seems more of a problem in Galway though.

The problem with Galway as used to be the case with the seniors is they were walking through to an AI semi final in all age groups until that was changed, so you were judging players on a very small sample size of games.

Now they will have a much better idea of what a player has with the number of games the minors and U-20s are getting in Leinster, and beyond if they get out of Leinster

[seafoid]

I wouldn't begrudge  Clare. They were very good yesterday.
Galway  won All-Ireland minor titles in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Clare have a total of 2.
The priority for Galway now is fixing the minor to senior transition mechanism.

But that's the reason for the under 20 level, that step up to senior is there, but a small enough percentage of that Galway team will progress to senior. Galway traditionally very strong at minor, what's their record at the old under21 or recent under 20?

The last u21 all Ireland was in 2011-That team was the chassis of the 2017 all Ireland.
Anthony Cunningham dumped the 2011 seniors when he took over and built the team around the 2011 u21s because they had a culture of winning.
Galway hurling got serious then and since then u20 and club titles , which used to be very frequent, have fallen off the wagon.

[manfromdelmonte]

Galway need to change their club competition structures
They are a joke

[Bord na Mona man]

Clare got the better of Galway in the minor hurling final in what was a surprise to many including all 3 tg4 pundits who backed Galway. Clare enjoyed a big lead before conceding 2 late goals to still win by 5.

In the ongoing under 20 final Cork are pulling away after getting away with a lot of fouling going largely unpunished. 10 points up with 10 minutes to play.

Cork, physically further on than the Offaly lads, some of the tackles were borderline and I'm being kind here, one looked like a shoulder, elbow to the head, umpires had the better view of that one. Offaly have some fine stickmen in there, the defender with the green and black helmet being one of them but it may take some time for them to make the difference at senior.  They'll need even more underage teams to make the step up to being truly competitive in Leinster and beyond.
Big Eoin Downey patting Screeney on the top of the helmet wasn't a good look, we'll see how many lads be pats on the head like that come senior.

Cork certainly lowered the blades and some of it was unpleasant.
https://twitter.com/buff_egan/status/1665372458352885762?s=08

Weighing it all up, Cork were going to win this game anyway with their older and highly talented team.
I've read lots of comments from Cork lads patting themselves on the back for by winning by showing an 'edge'. This may not be as clever as they think.

Imagine if a less generous ref showed red to Kingston. When Richie Hogan cost Kilkenny any chance in the 2019 All Ireland by doing something similar, the Kilkenny people weren't thanking him for showing an edge, laying down a marker, showing Tipp who the men were.

Cork had a physical advantage which the correctly used, but there was some cheap stuff mixed in too that is the opposite of good hard hurling.

[seafoid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLS3utYEhFc

[clonadmad]

Galway need to change their club competition structures
They are a joke

What's wrong with the club hurling championships in Galway

[seafoid]

Galway need to change their club competition structures
They are a joke

What's wrong with the club hurling championships in Galway

It was felt it was time to give clubs in other counties a chance.

[seafoid]

Taggy Fogarty on Kilkenny's weaknesses
Galway have to lob the ball in all day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEK4e7IRWiY&t=2250s

[johnnycool]

Taggy Fogarty on Kilkenny's weaknesses
Galway have to lob the ball in all day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEK4e7IRWiY&t=2250s

Not on top of Lawlor though, I'd agree with that.

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2023/06/09/clare-name-injury-doubt-conor-cleary-in-starting-team-for-munster-hurling-final/

Clare name injury doubt Conor Cleary in starting team for Munster hurling final
Adrian Mullen misses Kilkenny's Leinster final against Galway at Croke Park


Clare have named Conor Cleary at full back for the Munster hurling final this weekend. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Seán Moran
Fri Jun 9 2023 - 13:50

Conor Cleary has been named to start in the Clare team for Sunday's Munster hurling final in the TUS Gaelic Grounds. The full back had to leave the field against Cork after sustaining an arm or shoulder injury and there were fears that he faced a lengthy lay-off.

Manager Brian Lohan names an unchanged team for the weekend but has tended to make changes before the throw-in and if Cleary is deemed not fit to start, the options are Séadna Morey, who replaced him against Cork and All Star nominee Paul Flanagan.

Limerick name the same side that defeated Cork in the last round-robin match. Twice Hurler of the Year Cian Lynch is once again listed on the bench. Having sustained a hamstring injury he didn't start against Cork and appeared for only a few minutes at the end.

He may however be alright to start on Sunday in a reprise of last year's epic final, won by Limerick in extra time.

R
Adrian Mullen misses Kilkenny's Leinster final against Galway at Croke Park, having sustained a thumb fracture against Wexford. He is one of three listed changes from that match. Also out are Pádraig Walsh and Walter Walsh, who revert to the bench.

In comes Mikey Carey, who only recently returned home after a sojourn in Australia but whose pace was a big asset to the team that reached last year's All-Ireland final and two All Star nominees, Richie Reid and Paddy Deegan, have both recovered from injury.

Learn more

Galway list Cathal Mannion among the subs but he is considered unlikely to make an appearance. There are two announced changes with TJ Brennan replaced at corner back by Darren Morrissey and Declan McLoughlin making way for the fit again Brian Concannon.

CLARE: Éibhear Quilligan; Adam Hogan, Conor Cleary, Rory Hayes; Diarmuid Ryan, John Conlon, David McInerney; David Fitzgerald, Cathal Malone; Peter Duggan, Tony Kelly, Aidan McCarthy; Ryan Taylor, Shane O'Donnell, Mark Rodgers.

Subs: Eamonn Foudy, Cian Nolan, Ian Galvin, Shane Meehan, Aron Shanagher, Aaron Fitzgerald, Robin Mounsey, Paul Flanagan, Cian Galvin, Keith Smyth, Séadna Morey.

LIMERICK: Nickie Quaid; Mike Casey, Dan Morrisey, Barry Nash; Diarmaid Byrnes, Declan Hannon (capt), Kyle Hayes; Darragh O'Donovan, Will O'Donoghue; Gearóid Hegarty, Cathal O'Neill, Tom Morrissey; Aaron Gillane, Séamus Flanagan, Peter Casey

Subs: David McCarthy, Conor Boylan, Ronan Connolly, Aaron Costello, Colin Coughlan, Adam English, Richie English, Cian Lynch, Graeme Mulcahy, Oisín O'Reilly, David Reidy.

GALWAY: Éanna Murphy; Jack Grealish, Gearóid McInerney, Darren Morrissey; Pádraic Mannion, Daithi Burke, Fintan Burke; Joseph Cooney, Ronan Glennon; Tom Monaghan, Conor Cooney, Kevin Cooney; Conor Whelan, Brian Concannon, Evan Niland.

[seafoid]

This is a fantastic article

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2023/06/10/banner-passion-for-the-munster-championship-an-undying-flame/

Why Clare's passion for the Munster championship burns like an undying flame
It's 1998 since Brian Lohan was a central figure on the last Clare team that won the province and now, as manager, his team are intent on bridging that long gap


Denis Walsh
Sat Jun 10 2023 - 04:15

Johnny Callinan was just 17 years old when he was sent into the smouldering remains of the 1972 Munster final.

By his reckoning, Clare were trailing Cork by 32 points, numbed to the humiliation. Haulie Daly, Anthony's uncle, was one of the selectors and they were both Clarecastle men. In the meltdown it dawned on Haulie that he could salvage something imperishable. Just a trinket to take home.

"'Young Callinan, go in there,' Haulie says to me. The secretary wrote out the slip. 'Where am I going on?' I said. 'It doesn't matter – it doesn't matter. Just go on.' His reasoning was that Jimmy Smyth [one of Clare's greatest ever players] had played minor, junior and senior in the same year and Haulie wanted me to play minor, U-21 and senior in the same year. We were only beaten by 22 points in the end."

For generations, Clare's relationship with the Munster final was full of unrequited feelings. They weren't part of its rampant mythology, and they scarcely figured on its roll of honour.



The Munster final had imposed a limit on everything: their ambition, their status, their horizon; glory. In their experience so much about it was oppressive, and yet it was a boundless source of wishful thinking. They were infatuated by it, and inflamed by it, along with everyone else.

Callinan remembers being brought to Munster finals by his father in the early 1960s, lifted over the turnstile in Thurles or Limerick. When he died his Dad's friends continued to take him, faithfully observing the midsummer ritual.


"We were all caught up in it. Even though Clare hadn't won one in living memory, I was brought up completely on the Munster championship. It was the only game in town."

After Clare beat Limerick in the round robin game at the end of April, Brian Lohan immediately framed the outcome in that context.

"The Munster championship is just such a massive competition for us – and historically it's such a big competition for us."

The feeling Lohan described was impervious to the pain that had been handed down through the decades. Between 1932 and 1995 Clare had contested 11 Munster finals, and lost them all. The 22-point beating in 1972 wasn't even a record defeat; they had conceded 11 goals to Limerick in 1918 on the way to a 31-point annihilation. Yet it was rooted in their collective psyche.

"When I was growing up I never even dreamt of an All-Ireland," says Seanie McMahon. "It was something that wasn't even for us. It was nearly like a different game because we were never there. The Munster final was the one. That's where the heartbreak was. That's why winning it was so special. For me, that was the game."

They processed the heartbreak in different ways, on a case-by-case basis. In his long and brilliant career Callinan was involved in six finals, the last of them in Killarney in 1986 when Cork beat them by just three points.

Leaving the field in Fitzgerald Stadium a Clare supporter called him over.

"Give me the hurley," he said, "you won't be needing it again." Callinan flicked the hurley, shaking the wire in front of the pup's face.


"After the match I eventually had to go to a pub with only Cork people in it," says Callinan. "All the Clare people were delighted, they were having a great weekend in Killarney and we were after going close. I knew the end was nigh for me – getting beaten again.

"It's not a game that we left after us, or anything like that. The 1981 final against Limerick, that would be the one that I would be sorest over. We beat Cork [for the first time in 40 years, in the semi-final] and then Joe McKenna ran riot in the final [for Limerick]. There's no good memories out of defeats."

In his autobiography, Anthony Daly writes about coming back to Clarecastle after calamitous Munster final defeats. In 1994 they had been beaten badly for the second year in a row and landed back in the Coach House Inn.

"My sister-in-law Anne started clapping in a genuine show of affection or appreciation," wrote Daly. "Nobody joined her. They were looking at her as if to say, 'What are you applauding those chokers for? They're after sh**ting themselves again.'


"They were only thinking what everyone else was saying behind our backs. It was that kind of sombre mood that prompted the late Michael 'Nuggy' Nihill, who was a great Clare supporter, to ask on Clare FM the Monday after the 1994 final, 'When are Clare going to stop ruining the Munster final?' . . . In 1993 and 1994 some of our people felt we had denigrated the entire history and culture of Clare hurling."

Callinan couldn't see any good in all this torment. Around that time, and for years before, he had been a vocal advocate of dismantling the provincial system and replacing it with an open draw. In his 17-year career he had played just 27 championship matches. Like others, Clare laboured under the twin yokes of history and colonial neighbours.


Clare captain Anthony Daly with the trophy after his side's 1995 Munster final win over Limerick. Tom Honan/Inpho
"I'm a bit of a contrarian here," says Callinan. "I don't give a s**t about the Munster championship. I honestly don't. The Munster championship was a sacred cow, and it was overblown. I've never been a supporter of the provincial championships. In my naivety, when the back door came in, I thought the Munster and Leinster championships would be done away with.

"Now, maybe I'm peeved as well. I togged out in five Munster finals and missed another through injury in '74, and was beaten in all of them. When Clare won the Munster final in 1995 they stopped in Clarecastle with the cup and I must admit I did say to [Ger] Loughnane, 'We can die happy now.'"

Loughnane and Callinan both played in the 1978 Munster final, one of bitterest in their history. Clare had won back-to-back National Leagues and Cork had won back-to-back All-Irelands, and if they weren't the top two teams in the country they were both in the top three. Clare played against the wind in the first half and trailed by just two points at the break; at the end of a low-scoring game, Clare were still two behind. Broken.

RTÉ filmed an atmospheric eight-minute piece about Munster final day in Thurles, without dwelling on the play. Afterwards the RTÉ crew intruded gently on a grieving Clare dressing room, full of people standing around and shuffling in loaded silence. Seamus Durack, Clare's All-Star goalie, said that he had cried after a match for only the second time in his life.

Then they interviewed Loughnane, standing bare-chested, his mop of sandy hair tossed like a salad.

"When we started out three or four years ago our aim was to win an All-Ireland," Loughnane said. "You might think, inside in this dressing room, that aim has been forgotten. I can tell you, it's not forgotten. We were beaten before. I can tell you, we're going to be back again."

It took 17 years for Loughane's prophesy to come true. More than anybody else, he burst the dam in the Clare players' minds. A couple of days after the 1995 Munster final he reflected on a life's work.

"I had firmly made up my mind that I wasn't going to get out of hurling until I won a Munster championship," he said.

"That was my 13th Munster final [with Clare and St Flannan's] I'd lost fecking 12. It became a total and utter obsession. You've no idea how much of an obsession it was. When it was over it was just relief. I know people were euphoric, but I didn't have that feeling of euphoria. Just relief that something that had been a total obsession had been realised."

Under Loughnane they won three Munster titles in four years but have won none since. In the last 25 years Clare have contested just five Munster finals, and lost them all.


Davy Fitzgerald led them to an All-Ireland and a National League, but during his six years as manager they won just one match in Munster. Between 1999 and 2017 Clare reached just one Munster final. On that front, on those bare numbers, it was as bad as their worst days.

"It is a big thing for us still," says Fergie Tuohy, who played on the 90s team, and was a selector on the Clare team that reached the 2008 Munster final.

"The more you go without something, the more you crave for it. Because it's within your province, it gives you a standing.

"Lohan is of the 90s mindset. Playing the Munster final in Limerick was his decision at the end of the day, with the management. I'd say in the back of his mind he was thinking of 1996 – when we were All-Ireland champions and Limerick turned us over in the Gaelic Grounds. He wouldn't be saying it publicly, but in the back of his mind I'd say he'd just like to set the record straight. 'Now ye're the champions, and we'll take ye at home.'"

Under Lohan, Clare have gone baldheaded to win the Munster title. Last year, they gave a performance that would win nine Munster finals out of ten. Over the following month, though, they never fully recovered and in Croke Park they paid a heavy price.

"I think what killed us last year was the extra time," says Callinan. "It absolutely flattened us. Limerick got the Munster championship, but they also got a four week break. The four week break is a huge prize – bigger than winning the Munster championship, in my view."

Callinan has been involved in fundraising for Clare teams since the 1990s and is heavily involved in Club Clare now. He has no quarrel with Lohan's unyielding passion for this championship: Munster first, then the world. He still believes that the provincial system will be torn down one day, though he's not holding his breath. The provincial councils now, he says, are like "little empires".

"It reminds me of that phrase they used during the banking crisis, it [the Munster championship] has gone too big to fail."

Once more. With feeling.

[seafoid]

https://twitter.com/TheSundayGame/status/1667869196867313665

[Milltown Row2]

Clare going toe to toe with Limerick, must be some heat on the pitch today