Lee Costello: How one major difference has taken Armagh from All-Ireland contenders to title favourites
Before a ball was kicked in 2025, I confidently stated that Donegal would win the All-Ireland, which is an outrageous statement to make when you really think about it.
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RTÉ News
2 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Hurling Nation: Head and heart conflicted for Munster final
Good morning Hurling Nation. A big weekend with three important games. The Munster final throws in tomorrow. Yes, a Munster final, at tea-time on a Saturday evening in early June. That will always feel unnatural. Anyway, and luckily, Cork and Limerick are a good story. The Treaty host the Rebels at the same venue they beat them by 16 points only 21 days ago. Some have gone from wondering if Cork would canter to an All-Ireland, to now writing them off. Pat Ryan knows how quickly the mood changes, and often, He also knows that things aren't as dark as they are painted. For some reason, Cork were loose and disorganised three weeks ago in Limerick. At times they gave away space without Limerick having to demand it. Five points down in three minutes, 15 points down by half-time, Limerick playing to settle the score after two losses to Cork last year and knowing a win would put Clare in deep trouble. Desire isn't always evenly shared, on that day it wasn't even close. To win tomorrow, Cork need to find energy and aggression from the throw-in. Marking cannot be Covid-style social distancing. Cian Lynch can't be allowed conduct the orchestra. There must be a way around the state-of-the-art surveillance and response unit that has Kyle Hayes at number six. The Cork full-forward line needs to show. The middle third has to be a battlefield with fire coming from both trenches this time. Cork could do all that and still lose. What's been most impressive about Limerick this year is their contunied growth. Thay have the experience. They have embedded new faces who have been on the panel for two or three years been readied for this. They have the most comprehensive team of substitutes that we can remember a top team having and they have two brains working in one with Kiely and Kinnerk. A good fight, Cork to narrow the gap. The heart even says Cork might eliminate that gap, but the head says, a storied seven in a row for Limerick. Sunday's Leinster final doesn't carry the same weight, but still, could be a serious contest. After the limp showing against Kilkenny in the first round, Galway have grown into the championship since. They weren't bothered much by Offaly, Wexford and Antrim, and then went on to Parnell Park and beat Dublin convincingly, scoring 29 points into the bargain. While Micheál Donoghue used 37 players in the national league, Kilkenny are more settled. A win on Sunday will give them a six-peat in Leinster, but won't cut too much mustard in Kilkenny. Derek Lyng knows an All-Ireland is the minimum requirement, but to be fair, he hasn't the luxury of the raw materials that his predecessor had. With an eye to the All-Ireland series, both sides would be as concerned with performance levels as much as winning the silver. The stripey ones, narrowly. Before the Leinster final, we have the Joe McDonagh Cup, a pairing that could only be more novel if the GAA had chosen to shoehorn New York hurlers in, like they diod the Lory Meagher. A few weeks back, Laois would have been the favourites here, but Kildare's progress has been rapid. After a narrow first-round loss to Kerry, they beat the big guns of Carlow and Laois to get here. The McDonagh Cup finals are invariably entertaining games. Hard to call this one, but we'll go for the cup to be passing through curragh of Kildare on Sunday evening. Sin é a chairde. Two big days, enjoy them. The feast will finish soon enough.
Irish Examiner
2 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Éamonn Cregan: Playing Cork twice is bad enough... now you have to beat them again and again
For a man who stresses he has no social media presence, Éamonn Cregan was surprised by how many people knew he turned 80 last month. But having contributed to plenty of pen pics down through the years, it wasn't going to be a secret for long just as it wasn't for his old colleague Richie Bennis when he hit the milestone last February or Tom Ryan last August. Saturday's Munster final fills him with excitement but, like Babs Keating who became an octogenarian in April of last year, he thinks it comes too soon. 'They'd want to put on their thinking caps now above in Croke Park and in the Munster Council for this to change. You can no longer have teams going out of the championship before the summer months. It's wrong. The club doesn't attract the same crowds.' Cregan is no curmudgeon. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would live to see Limerick's current riches. Over a 10-season period, he won four Munster medals. For the county to be on the cusp of a seventh in as many years, well it's just utopian, he says. 'Many of this crowd lost a minor All-Ireland final (in 2014) and that was the best thing that happened to them because it showed that they weren't as good as they thought they might be. Then they progressed, and then suddenly 21s, two 21s, and then an All-Ireland. 'I was asked to speak to them after they lost that minor All-Ireland and my last sentence was to them, 'You might think this is the end, but this is only the beginning.' Now, I said that just to cheer them up because they lost an All-Ireland final. I didn't think it would come so fast. But it's a dream come true, I'm in heaven. 'I don't know whether people could understand 45 years of being in the desert, and I'm going to look back over it, and I'm saying to myself, 'Jesus, what things were done wrong in that 45 years, and what things were done right.'' It's 50 years since Cregan lined out injured against Cork in a Munster final. 'I pulled a hamstring in 1975 outside training, and I didn't even know what a hamstring was. I was being treated with vinegar and poitín. I asked, 'Will it be alright for the Munster final?' 'Ah, you will, of course, of course.' Ten minutes in, Willie Walsh turned me, and I wasn't taken off even though I told him I couldn't move. I wasn't taken off.' As someone who in championship lost to Cork (six times) more often than beat them (twice, one draw), Cregan is naturally wary of a Cork backlash after Limerick's 16-point win last month. 'They (Cork) didn't expect to be beaten the last day, and I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. A friend of mine has a bet with three Cork fellas and it was they who suggested the All-Ireland final will be Limerick and Cork. I wouldn't even think of going that far. 'We would have expected Cork to be in the Munster final as much as Limerick played so well in the first half the last day. But playing Cork twice is bad enough. In our day if you beat them, you beat them and that was enough for you. Now you have to beat them again and again.' John Kiely's unprecedented success with Limerick might suggest they will never look outside their county for a manager again. In 12 years, they had four Cork men at the helm. Kiely himself was a selector to one of them – John Allen – but Cregan is not so sure that Limerick have reached the point of self-sufficiency. 'Not necessarily. It depends on the people being put forward. We have an exceptional group at the moment, and we were very lucky to get them. John had the background experience of being a principal in a school, plus he had been involved in teams way before. During the time of the strike, the Limerick strike. John was in charge of that second (intermediate) team and I have tremendous respect for him because of that. He took over, he knew what he had, and he went on. 'John has an exceptional group, there's no doubt, and it's a combination of all the small parts, plus good leadership. It's a very high standard, and for anybody to get to that level. Like, I was there three times, and I failed three times. It's tough going.'
The Irish Sun
2 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
John Kiely springs Limerick surprise for Munster hurling final while Pat Ryan & Cork's hands are tied
AIDAN O'CONNOR of Limerick and Cork's Diarmuid Healy have both been handed their first Championship starts for the Munster SHC final. Limerick, bidding for a SEVENTH provincial title on the spin tomorrow, bring in O'Connor after dropping Shane O'Brien to the bench for the visit of an injury-hit Cork side. 2 It would appear to be advantage Limerick upon seeing the starting teams 2 Less than three weeks ago Cork lost to Limerick at the same venue by 16 points Declan Dalton, Niall O'Leary and skipper Rob Downey are all missing from Pat Ryan's starting team for the decider at the TUS Gaelic Grounds. O'Leary and Downey have been named on the bench but Dalton misses out entirely after being forced off with a hamstring injury just seven minutes into the recent heavy round-robin defeat to the Treaty. A groin injury sustained in the same fixture sidelined O'Leary for the clash with Waterford last time out. Downey was absent with a hamstring issue. Read More On GAA Ger Millerick, the most likely replacement for corner-back O'Leary, That has paved the way for veteran defender Damien Cahalane, 32, to start a Championship fixture for the first time since the April 2024 defeat to Waterford — a game in which he was red-carded. The surprise inclusion of O'Connor instead of O'Brien in the Limerick attack is the only change to John Kiely's side from their last encounter with the Rebels. Cork's team shows four changes from the one on the end of Most read in GAA Hurling With Séamus Harnedy, Patrick Horgan and Conor Lehane, Cahalane will be one of four Cork stalwarts bidding to win their fourth Munster medal. Healy, who comes in at the expense of Brian Roche, gets the nod after impressing off the bench as Ryan's side held off the challenge of Waterford to reach a first provincial final since 2018. Tipperary GAA star 'had to do live apology on RTE' the day after cursing during All-Ireland interview - A star of the Cork Under-20 team who claimed All-Ireland honours in 2023, the Lisgoold half-forward marked his full senior debut by bagging 1-5 in a man-of-the-match display in the National League victory against Kilkenny in March. The Cork side includes six survivors — Cahalane, Horgan, Harnedy, Seán O'Donoghue, Mark Coleman and Darragh Fitzgibbon — from the team that started their most recent Munster final triumph. Subs Lehane, Luke Meade, Shane Kingston and Robbie O'Flynn also played a part in that two-point win over Clare in Thurles seven years ago. The Kilkenny and Galway sides for LIMERICK (SHC v Cork): N Quaid; S Finn, D Morrissey, M Casey; D Byrnes, K Hayes, B Nash; A English, W O'Donoghue; G Hegarty, C Lynch, T Morrissey; A Gillane, A O'Connor, D Reidy. Subs: S Dowling, P Casey, C Coughlan, S Flanagan, D Hannon, B Murphy, S O'Brien, D Ó Dálaigh, D O'Donovan, P O'Donovan, C O'Neill. CORK: P Collins; D Cahalane, E Downey, S O'Donoghue; C O'Brien, C Joyce, M Coleman; T O'Mahony, D Fitzgibbon; D Healy, S Barrett, S Harnedy; P Horgan, A Connolly, B Hayes. Subs: B Saunderson, N O'Leary, R Downey, T O'Connell, E Twomey, L Meade, C Lehane, S Kingston, J O'Connor, R O'Flynn, B Roche.
