Indo Sport Podcast – Hurling: Tipp and Kilkenny return to top table, Dublin did Cork a favour?
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RTÉ News
27 minutes ago
- RTÉ News
Ex-Louth manager Colin Kelly shocked by Ger Brennan's departure
Former Louth manager Colin Kelly says shock was the over-riding sentiment he felt in the wake of Ger Brennan bringing an end to his two years in charge of the county's senior footballers. A two-time former All-Ireland winner with Dublin, Brennan, confirmed his decision to step away on Tuesday at the end of a season when he had helped deliver Louth's first Leinster SFC title in 68 years. Speaking to RTÉ's Gaelic Games correspondent Marty Morrissey, Kelly offered his reaction to the development. "I suppose overall, it's shock really. It happened so suddenly," he said. "It went out on social media (on Tuesday) afternoon. All of a sudden now, you're in a situation where you've no manager, and I suppose it's deja vu really because we've been through this with Mickey Harte [leaving] a couple of years ago. "So it's probably shock when you think of Leinster champions and a couple of weeks later now, you're looking for a new manager." Brennan's decision to leave his role with Louth, two years into his three-year term, came three days after a vacancy opened up with his native Dublin following Dessie Farrell's decision to step away. However, Kelly is not convinced that Brennan is leaving to succeed Farrell. "I don't really think that the Dublin manager's job would have a part to play in it," he said. "From our point of view, we probably wouldn't have been expecting it so the process starts now to look for someone knew." As for who might step into the role as successor to Brennan, Louth could look to high-profile names from outside the county or internally, with Kelly feeling that some potential candidates from within Louth have built up strong credentials. "Fergal Reel has done a hell of a job with the U20s, got to a first All-Ireland final, the minor management team have played in a Leinster final and Gavin Devlin is now working within the county. "[Ex Sligo boss] Tony McEntee, Oisin McConville [whose term with Wicklow is up], there's a lot of guys out there now in close proximity to the Louth team and who knows at this stage. It's early days."
Irish Examiner
28 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
Craig Morgan: 'I'm a teacher - kids are the most honest out there when it comes to Tipp performances'
Out of the mouth of babes (not Babs), Craig Morgan has heard it all about his and Tipperary's performances in recent times. Teaching third and fourth class in the Kilruane National School he himself attended, he wasn't able to avoid the post-mortems of disappointing seasons like 2024. "I'm a primary school teacher and I suppose children are probably the most honest people out there. They'll tell you on a Monday morning how you went on a Sunday. There's no filter there. They'll ask you why didn't you do this or why did you do that. You'd be thinking about it yourself after." As Mr Morgan, he is acutely aware of the example he has to set. As a representative of the county's hurlers, that responsibility is acuter. 'They look at a lot of the guys as role models and that's where they want to be. 'That grounds me back to where I am. It brings me back to being that age and thinking that I am where I am now and I need to enjoy that as well. There are going to be lows but you need to take them and learn from them. 'It's things you dream of doing so you need to just enjoy it when you're there. The kids are good to remind you of that. It's something they're looking forward to in life and that's their dream as well, so you're living their dream, really." In his sixth senior season, Sunday is unchartered territory on a couple of counts for Morgan and so many of this Tipperary group. Not only have they not faced Kilkenny in championship action at any level before, Sunday will mark their first appearance in Croke Park too. Of the team that started against Galway last Saturday week, just four played in the 2019 All-Ireland final win while another pair, Willie Connors and Jake Morris, came off the bench that day against The Cats. 'When you're growing up, you're dreaming of playing in Croke Park so it's exciting,' he says. 'Every game, you have to approach it the same way, that it's do-or-die, so you have to give everything for it. Morgan attempts to steal the sliotar from Galway's Colm Molloy in the quarter-final. File picture: Tom O'Hanlon/Inpho 'We're going to approach this weekend the same way. It's just another game. It doesn't matter where it is. We're just going out with the same mentality as we have for all the previous games to date.' So much of Morgan's formative years was coloured by the Tipperary-Kilkenny rivalry. Between the ages of 11 and 18, they faced each other in four finals excluding a replay. 'It reminds me of going into school. Those young lads now are going up to experience that, which is huge for them. They are memories, I suppose, they'll never forget either. It's great. It's important to the people of Tipperary. But we're only focused on going up and getting a performance in another game. That's all we're worried about.' In Croke Park last Saturday, Dillon Quirke's father Dan spoke passionately on the pitch about how the spirit of his late son inspires him to expand The Dillon Quirke Foundation's cardiac screening. By the end of this year, 20,000 children and young adults will have been tested via the charity. Morgan was alongside his friend Dillon when the young Clonoulty-Rossmore man collapsed in their respective clubs's championship game in Thurles in August 2022. He senses the presence of his county team-mate all the time. 'He's still there in his dressing room. He's still running out the tunnel with us. I know he'll be there next Sunday as well. 'Obviously, he's in our minds every time we take the field. It's a privilege to go out and still wear the jersey. And to still play for him. I know even the last day, I was wearing the No5 jersey with him as well. It's nice to bring it back to earth, I suppose. That he's there with you. He definitely is. He's still a huge part for us on this journey. 'You'd like to imagine him there being as involved as much as we are. He's still part of that (All-Ireland winning) team we had at U21. He was there when the lows were there as well. We don't forget that either. Dillon was there when we weren't winning matches, so he's definitely there with us when we're heading up to Croke Park.'
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Seán Moran: 25 years since tyranny of sudden death ended in championship football
This is the 25th championship since the tyranny of sudden death was ended in championship football – allowing that its brief reinstatement was one of many unhelpful consequences of the pandemic in 2020 and '21. The new qualifiers coincided with the introduction of a calendar-year league, compressing the intercounty season into something resembling a coherent schedule. There was immediate impact on the championship. Galway , All-Ireland finalists from the previous year, had fizzled out in a Connacht semi-final in June. They would go on to become the first 'qualifier' All-Ireland winners in the new system's inaugural year, 2001. Hurling had already taken that plunge and Offaly three years previously became its first champions to have lost a match along the way – the 1998 Leinster final against Kilkenny. READ MORE [ Kerry blitz Armagh and again prove masters at confounding expectation Opens in new window ] The significance in football was that counties coul now resurrect an apparently failed campaign. It worked best for teams who already had an All-Ireland and knew the ropes but it was now possible to apply the hard-learned diagnostic of defeat in the same season. In the format's first 10 years, the majority of All-Ireland champions would travel that route. That changed in the last decade, largely because of Dublin's unbeaten progress to seven All-Ireland titles but also the provincial supremacy of other champions, Donegal and Kerry . The pace of change has quickened since 2010 with the introduction of round-robin fixtures as part of the Sam Maguire structure. Teams are now getting used to losing along the way – to the extent that going into last weekend's quarter-finals, all eight counties had already been beaten. So evenly matched have most of the teams been that it was well on the cards one might make a decisive move and by consensus that was Kerry. Post-match reaction was full of references to the county's previous experiences of processing defeat and rebounding: literally, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. [ Turnstiles click for a game transformed and the most open championship in decades Opens in new window ] The great Down team of the early 1990s won two Sam Maguires. The second in 1994 was a case study with contemporary relevance. As 1991 champions, Down had two terrible seasons living up to this ground-breaking status (they had been the first winners from outside Munster and Leinster in 23 years). Eventually, manager Peter McGrath reconfigured the team: Conor Deegan from full back to centrefield, Barry Breen from centrefield to centre back, James McCartan from corner forward to wing forward et cetera. The varied responsibilities helped to reignite their challenge. Down Football 1994 Manager Peter McGrath. Photograph: Lorraine O'Sullivan/Inpho But it needed a significant test, a stone to whet the knife. That came in the first match in Ulster, against then All-Ireland champions Derry, who had beaten them with increasing severity in the previous two years. That provincial quarter-final draw hung over Down like a memento mori from the moment it was made in the autumn of 1993. In the event, they survived a dressingroom bust-up, the departure and return of players to win one of the great matches of the decade. As soon as Down had done that, they were again All-Ireland contenders and duly won the title the following September. Compare that with Galway in 2001, who made similar switches to shake up the team: Michael Donnellan from half forward to centrefield, Tomás Mannion from corner back to centre back and Joe Bergin from centrefield to wing forward. The difference in the strategies was that the late John O'Mahony was able to execute his in one season. Galway's whetting stone was the third-round qualifier against Armagh, who had taken champions Kerry to a replay in the previous year's All-Ireland semi-final. It was a terrific contest, won after an Armagh comeback that threatened to derail their opponents, when Donnellan blocked a kick, raced forward and laid it off to Paul Clancy, who pointed the winner with 35 seconds remaining. Four matches later, they had regained the All-Ireland. Kerry's point of reference at the weekend was the 2009 quarter-final against Dublin by which stage they had lost in Munster to Cork and suffered a near-death experience in Tralee when only a missed penalty by Sligo saved the home side from defeat. Then they were losing to Antrim at half-time in the next round and just level with an hour gone before winning by a goal. Jack O'Connor, who had dropped Colm Cooper and Tomás Ó Se that week, was dismissive of media speculation about the disciplinary measure and compared to last weekend, relatively Zen about the coverage. 'It actually wasn't a worry, believe it or not. The only thing I was worried about was that the squad would stick together. That's all that matters, really. The stuff that you fellas write doesn't affect us as much as you think it does.' Dublin proved Kerry's whetting stone 16 years ago just as Armagh did on Sunday. The 17-point defeat, characterised by Pat Gilroy's description of his team as 'startled earwigs' provide blast-off for Kerry's All-Ireland and a productive rethink for the Dubs. Of course, this season is not over yet. Kerry's delivery of a masterclass on Sunday may have made them favourites but no verdict on the 2025 championship can be made until the end of July. We don't yet know for certain where the Kerry resurgence will lead. In the semi-final, they face Tyrone, a county that has twice won the All-Ireland by beating Dublin in the quarter-finals, as they did on Saturday, and subsequently, Kerry. As Kieran McGeeney prophetically replied when asked were Armagh better than last year after they had beaten Dublin: 'As you know, it's like everything else, all the writing's done at the end. No matter what I say now, no matter what you say, it doesn't make any difference. It's always the final chapter when it comes to sport that determines the content of the book.' Now, read on.
