Latest news with #CrokeCup
Irish Examiner
a day ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Favourites Cork set for rematch with in-form Clare in All-Ireland minor semi-final
The Cork minor hurlers will come out of cold storage on Sunday to meet a Clare side catching fire. Fergal McCormack's troops earned a month of preparation time for this All-Ireland semi-final by dint of their Munster triumph against Waterford. In that time, Clare have skated through the backdoor with victories over Dublin and Galway. They arrive quietly confident for their fourth consecutive semi-final appearance. The Rebels remain favourites for the rematch at FBD Semple Stadium (1pm throw-in), yet much has changed since their 3-24 to 3-17 round-robin success. Callum Coffey bagged a hat-trick that day, only to suffer an injury during the provincial final. Clare centre-back Dara Kennedy was absent in Tulla and may well take on the task of tagging Cormac Deane. Back then, converted goalkeeper Leon Talty was making his second-ever appearance between the sticks. He has been gaining experience all the while and saved a penalty against Galway. Ger O'Connell has revamped his full-back and half-forward lines since then, while Mark Rodgers and Liam Murphy have been building form and fitness. The Banner endured a mixed Munster campaign, but Rodgers has hit double digits on his last four outings. Murphy, meanwhile, has found the net in back-to-back games to bring his total to 10 goals across the past two seasons. Their defence held the Tribesmen to a single point in the closing 29 minutes of their quarter-final. Cork will be harder to stop, though, as they hunt a first Irish Press Cup since 2021. Wing-backs Michael Brosnan and Colm Garde have been outstanding on either side of captain Bobby Carroll. Midfielder Tom A Walsh put in a man-of-the-match display in the Munster final. He will face off against Clare captain Graham Ball. With Coffey sidelined, Sam Ring has raised green flags in successive games. Deane has chipped in with 1-18, while Craig O'Sullivan's 0-47 tally includes 21 points from play. The other semi-final also promises a high-quality affair on Saturday evening at Chadwicks Wexford Park (7.35pm throw-in). Kilkenny call on eight returning starters from last year's All-Ireland final defeat to Tipperary. All six of their forwards featured on that occasion. They have carried that sharp attacking edge into this campaign, belting four goals past Dublin and Galway to secure the Leinster title. Jake Mullen has accumulated 4-35. Cian Byrne has netted four times in two knockout games. Ollie O'Donovan stitched five goals last year and continues to threaten further out the field, picking off 2-15 from centre-forward. Captain Larry Phelan and Oisín Henderson anchor a defence which held Galway to 1-8 in a washout Leinster final. Croke Cup winner with Thurles CBS Darragh Hickey joins that full-back line in place of David McGee. That's Niall Bergin's sole change, while Waterford boss James O'Connor names a new midfield pairing in Éanna McHugh and Gearóid O'Shea. O'Connor has identified the Déise's scoring spread for improvement. Cormac Spain's remarkable 6-58 haul accounts for 60% of their total scores. Jack Power's aerial ability can trouble the Cats, while captain James Comerford will hope to maintain his streak of key saves. They recovered from Munster final disappointment to defeat Limerick by four points. Still, the former Ballyhale boss reckons his side have been playing at just 70% of their capability.
Irish Examiner
03-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Over a century on, Clare will hope history repeats itself in Munster final
In a series of feature articles carried in the Clare Journal newspaper in 1907, Clare football was painted in a very poor light. Losing was a habit but results were irrelevant in the eyes of the authors. The crude methods Clare had adopted to playing the game by 'going for the man' were a black stain on the county's footballing culture. 'What have we gained from our unmanliness?' the question was asked in one of those articles. 'Nothing. We have lost everything. Whether we are to go on losing or not depends on ourselves. If we are to field better teams than Clare has done hitherto, we just devote more of our time to science than to brute force.' The articles touched a nerve. Something had to change. It did. Within five years Clare had made great strides when reaching their first Munster final. Two late and controversial refereeing decisions denied Clare a famous win as Kerry beat them by two points. Not long afterwards, Clare reached a national final but lost the Croke Cup decider to Dublin. 'Clare football is going places,' noted The Saturday Record in 1913. Four years later, Clare finally travelled to where nobody thought was possible during the early part of the century. After beating Cork to win a first Munster title, Clare overcame Galway in the All-Ireland semi-final before narrowly losing the final to an iconic Wexford team that won the three in-a-row en route to completing the four in-a-row. That Clare team was a seasoned outfit by then as it was their third successive appearance in a Munster final, having lost the 1915 decider to Kerry before going down to Cork a year later by one point. By 1917, Clare were more than ready to make up that ground. The most goals any team had scored in any of the previous Munster finals was four, which Kerry managed just once, but Clare drilled five past Cork at the Tipperary Sportsground. The final margin of victory was 18 points. Clare had moulded a hardened and experienced team together by then, with many of those players also featuring in the 1919 final against Kerry. Clare were well beaten in Cusack Park but that generation had firmly established a successful football tradition in the province. In the 1920s, Clare reached four Munster finals, with three of those appearances coming in four years between 1924-'27, losing finals in 1924, 1925 and 1926 to Kerry. The closest Clare came to Kerry in that period was the 1926 quarter-final, which they lost by two points in Milltown-Malbay to a Kerry side that went on to defeat Kildare in the All-Ireland final after a replay. In the decades that followed, Clare were only in a position to reach three successive Munster finals on one other occasion - 1938. Having lost the 1936 and 1937 finals to Kerry, Clare's hopes were ended again by Kerry in the 1938 quarter-final in Cusack Park. Clare had become accustomed to losing Munster finals to Kerry anytime they got that far. By the time they played Kerry again in the 1941 decider, it was their tenth defeat to Kerry in a provincial final. The counties didn't meet again in another Munster final until 1992. The wait was more than worthwhile for Clare as John Maughan's side recorded a memorable and historic victory by four points. The defeat cut so deep in Kerry that their tradition demanded that it wouldn't happen again. Still, when Clare and Kerry next met in the championship, the 1997 Munster final, Kerry were still carrying traces of that traumatic defeat from five years earlier. Kerry only finally broke free in a taut tense game after a superb Pa Laide goal. Kerry won by five points and went on to win the All-Ireland. Sunday represents Clare's 20th appearance in a Munster final, a 16th against Kerry. 113 years since that first final meeting, seven of those 14 finals in the intervening years took place at the Gaelic Grounds, a trend that began in 1936 with the Limerick venue hosting all of the following deciders between the counties until last year. With the Gaelic Grounds unavailable on this weekend last May, Clare decided to toss for the venue, which resulted in Cusack Park hosting its first Munster final since 1919. Sunday's decider is the first Clare-Kerry Munster final in Killarney since 1929, a game that was played in the Killarney Sportsfield. This is also the first time since 1917 that Clare have reached three Munster finals in-a-row. After losing the two previous finals back then, Clare put those lessons to good use a third time around. Over a century on, Clare will hope that history can repeat itself again now.
