John Kiely and Limerick eye seventh successive Munster crown

Irish Times

a day ago

There was, of course, no end of disappointment in the Limerick camp when Cork ended their 'drive for five' last summer in the All-Ireland semi-finals, but manager John Kiely felt some relief too. Even when he went to Mass, there was no escaping the county's fixation with it. '
We'll pray for the five-in-a-row
and we'll move on down to the more important matters of life and death,' people would say to him. 'It's definitely no harm that it's finished with,' he tells Seán Moran.
Mind you, the focus now is on seven Munster titles in a row, Cork their opponents in Saturday's final. Gordon Manning looks at
the contrasting manner in which the two teams go about racking up their scores
, 'Cork largely dealing in the currency of goals, Limerick profiting from their long-range shooting'.
After last month's 16-point trouncing by Limerick, Ciarán Murphy has a notion that
Cork would settle for 'a defeat by three points or less'
on Saturday and aim to build on the performance as they enter the quarter-final route in the championship. 'Lose the battle, win the war.'
In rugby, 11 uncapped players have been named in the 32-man
Irish squad for next month's games against Georgia and Portugal
, Johnny Watterson hearing from interim head coach Paul O'Connell about his selection. And Johnny also has news that
the Sharks are unlikely to face any sanctions
for their jiggery-pokery during that shoot-out against Munster, URC chief executive Martin Anayi pointing to 'what he saw as the positive aspects as the matter', namely social media interest and the game being 'the most viewed highlights on YouTube we've ever had'.
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In golf, how annoyed was Rory McIlroy when his driver was deemed non-conforming at the US PGA Championship last month? Very. 'Pissed off,' in fact, Philip Reid bringing news from
McIlroy's pre-Canadian Open press conference
when he broke his recent media black-out.
James McDermott, meanwhile, has a look at
the talent that Senegal will bring to Dublin
for tomorrow's friendly against the Republic of Ireland, their squad containing a fair helping of players who finished their club seasons with medals draped around their necks.
In his America at Large column, Dave Hannigan brings us the story of
the Massapequa Soccer Shop in Long Island
which, for five decades, catered for local devotees of the game. It is now closing its doors, though.
And after Irish Times readers were invited recently to nominate Ireland's greatest Irish sportsperson of all time, Paul Doyle was left scratching his head. 'Everyone overlooked the right answer,' he writes, '
it is remarkable that not one person nominated this Dubliner
'. Who? Eoin Morgan. 'Do we deny Morgan his Irishness because he played most of his career with England,' he asks.
TV Watch
: There's no end of golf on your screens today, with plenty of Irish in action. Conor Purcell is in the field for the KLM Open in Amsterdam (Sky Golf, from noon), Lauren Walsh, Anna Foster, Annabel Wilson, Sara Byrne and Canice Screene will be in action at the Tenerife Open (Sky Sports+, from 12.30), and Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry and Séamus Power will be on duty at the Canadian Open (Sky Golf, from 5pm). And this evening, Spain meet France in the Nations League semi-finals (Virgin Media Two, 8.0), Portugal already through to the final after beating Germany last night.