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Irish Examiner
6 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Fluid and polished Charleville in control throughout in 11-point victory over Newcestown
Cork Premier SHC: Charleville 2-23 Newcestown 0-18 This had the feel of a decisive two points banked by Charleville. The opening weekend though it is, Group B has already taken shape and doesn't look for bending. Charleville were in control of this fixture from the seventh minute. They finished 11 in front. They move on to the North Cork derby with Newtownshandrum in a fortnight's time full of confidence and assured in the knowledge that if they bank another two points there, they'll reach a first quarter-final since 2023 with a round to spare. For Newcestown, their championship appears over no sooner than it threw in. Their next assignment is Midleton. Failing a sizable shock there, they'll require Newtown to better Charleville before they themselves must better Newtown on the final day. And even at that, their score difference, currently at -11, would likely come against them. In sum, Newcestown are in trouble. Newcestown were in trouble turning around. They had the breeze behind them in the opening half. But the interval scoreline showed them 1-11 to 0-9 behind. They'd registered seven first half wides and had a pair of green flag opportunities, struck by Seamus O'Sullivan and Colm Dinneen, saved and repelled by Charleville goalkeeper Conor Reynolds. Gearóid O'Donovan's touch-tight marking job on Darragh Fitzgibbon had kept the Cork senior to one first-half point from play, even if the All-Star did win a free and smartly linked the play at other times. Newcestown's difficulties were elsewhere. And they were many. The movement of the Charleville players, especially from the half-forward line, consistently saw lines broken and overlaps created. Sean Bresnan, in particular, was so effective in this regard, as was Jack Callaghan surging from midfield. Their opening goal seven minutes in stemmed from one such running play. Darragh Fitzgibbon played through Callaghan who played through Daniel O'Flynn. This sequence of passes was reversed for a Fitzgibbon white flag immediately after. A third consecutive Callaghan assist, this time for Sean Bresnan, surged Charleville 1-3 to 0-2 clear on 11 minutes. Charleville's Daniel O'FLynn celebrates his goal. Picture: David Keane Newcestown never came closer than a goal. Reynolds denied them the green flag comeback momentum they so desperately craved. Luke Meade was pushed from centre-back to midfield to increase his involvement and increase their middle third creativity. Two Richard O'Sullivan frees once again brought Newcestown within three at the beginning of the second period. Darren Butler cleared a Luke Meade looping effort off the line. Newcestown just couldn't find a straight road back into proper contention. Darragh Fitzgibbon then began to roam and Charleville began to slowly edge into a space where their into-the-elements opponents could not reach them. Fitzgibbon forcing a turnover led to their opening point of the second period. His second from play of the second period was a down the sideline strike that shoved the difference out to seven, 1-18 to 0-14, on 52 minutes. Where Newcestown relied far too heavily on the placed-ball work of Richard O'Sullivan for scores, Charleville got 1-3 from their bench. Tim Hawe, set up by fellow sub Darren Casey, goaled on 59 minutes. Another replacement Conor Buckley raised three white flags upon his introduction, the last of which was a sublime piece of skill off the hurl. Not even a Fitzgibbon penalty saved by Cathal Wilson at the death could take any of the shine off a terribly fluid and polished Charleville start. Scorers for Charleville: D Fitzgibbon (0-11, 0-6 frees, 0-1' 65); D O'Flynn (1-2); C Buckley (0-3); T Hawe (1-0); Z Biggane, S Bresnan (0-2 each); R Carroll (free), J Callaghan, G Kelleher (0-1 each). Scorers for Newcestown: R O'Sullivan (0-10, 0-7 frees, 0-2 '65); S O'Sullivan, D Buckley (0-2 each); L Meade (free), E Kenneally, C Dinneen, C Hurley (0-1 each). CHARLEVILLE: C Reynolds; D Butler, J Meade, A Dennehy; F Cagney, J Buckley, R Carroll; C O'Carroll, J Callaghan; Z Biggane, S Bresnan, D Fitzgibbon; D Forde, D O'Flynn, G Kelleher. Subs: T Hawe for O'Flynn (43); C Buckley for Kelleher (46); A Cagney for Forde (50); D Casey for Bresnan (51); O O'Connell for O'Carroll (55). NEWCESTOWN: C Wilson; M McSweeney, E Collins, J Kelleher; Colm O'Donovan, L Meade, G O'Donovan; C O'Sullivan, R O'Sullivan; S O'Sullivan, J Meade, C Dinneen; D Buckley, E Kenneally, S O'Donovan. Subs: C O'Neill for McSweeney (38); C Hurley for S O'Sullivan (46, inj); Ciarán O'Donovan for S O'Donovan (54, inj). Referee: W King.
Times
19-07-2025
- Sport
- Times
How U12 rivalry helped forge one of the great Cork partnerships
O n a June evening in 2009 the Newtownshandrum under-12s came to the field in Milford to meet Sean Clárachs, Charleville hurling's youth wing, two parishes stuck together like the houses on Coronation Street, families and lives all mingled up together. But distinct and different, too. Charleville was the big town hard on the Limerick border without any significant hurling tradition. Out the road, Newtown were the tiny village citadel of Ben and Jerry O'Connor, winners of county titles and an All-Ireland, crafting new ways of hurling that would change the game itself. These were two places that usually hurled on different plains. Usually. Newtown had Tim O'Mahony, brother of Gerdy who won an All-Ireland minor medal with Cork and a cousin of the O'Connors, already tall and rakey and running the show. The Charleville under-12s were hunting their second successive league title. Darragh Fitzgibbon was their star, all skill and no size. Not yet.
Irish Times
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Joe Canning: Tipperary need a performance for the ages to have any chance of stopping Cork juggernaut
Teams play so many matches now that when you get to the All-Ireland final , the last two teams standing can't have any secrets left. Cork and Tipperary have met three times already this year and have been exposed under pressure by other teams along the way. They know each other inside out. Everything has been analysed to death. So, does that mean you do all the things that got you to the final in the first place or do you try to come up with something that will catch the other crowd by surprise? That's a bigger question for Tipperary. They have a decision to make: do they enter into a shoot-out with Cork and go bald-headed for goals, like they did against Kilkenny , or do they try to make it a physical battle with no space in their half of the field? There won't be any repeat of what happened in the first minute of the championship match in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, when there were flare-ups all over the field. But that was a clear indication of how Tipp were thinking: they were going to bring serious aggression. READ MORE The worry for Tipperary is leaving space in their half of the field. If they go man-on-man in defence, Cork's running game will burn them. Tipp's defence has been vulnerable to pace all year, but nobody has more pace than Cork, not just in their attack, but from Darragh Fitzgibbon at centre field and Mark Coleman at wing-back. The option they have is to bring their half-forward line back the field, drop their centre fielders deep and allow Cork to hit puck-outs to their full-back line. When Cork go short to their corner backs, they tend to hit it down the wings rather than try to work the ball through the lines out of defence, but by crowding the space in their own half Tipp will be asking a different question of Cork. When Dublin lost to Cork, manager Niall Ó Ceallacháin was asked why he didn't set up more defensively. He said that would have only kept the score down. Their intention was to win. Can Tipp win by setting up defensively? Maybe not. Can they beat Cork in a shoot-out? Probably not. The match-ups will be fascinating. Ronan Maher went back on TJ Reid in the semi-final to counteract him in the air and I can see Tipp trying Maher on Brian Hayes. His threat, though, is not only in the air; he's happy to take the ball any way it comes. He'll lay it off, he'll take his own score, he'll run at defenders. Cork's Patrick Horgan and Brian Hayes celebrate after beating Dublin in the All-Ireland SHC semi-final at Croke Park. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho In league and championship, Cork have scored 35 goals this year; Hayes has scored 10 of them and played the final pass for 10 others. Going into the final, he's my idea of the Hurler of the Year. If Tipp can stop him, they're in business. That's probably only happened once this year, against Limerick in the round-robin game, when none of the Cork players performed. Tipp will be desperate to stop Cork from scoring goals, but they will have to surrender something to do that But they can't just man-mark Hayes. I can see Craig Morgan picking up Shane Barrett and Michael Breen tagging Alan Connolly, with Eoghan Connolly on Declan Dalton. Bryan O'Mara will probably mark Diarmuid Healy, but I can see Sam O'Farrell dropping back into that zone so that O'Mara can tuck in and sweep up around the half-back line. He was on a world of ball against Kilkenny and Tipp will want a similar outcome on Sunday. [ Tipperary focusing on the little things to solve Cork conundrum Opens in new window ] But if Tipp play like that, Cork will have plenty of space in their own half and they'll have no problem creating shooting chances from outside. That's the trade-off. Tipp will be desperate to stop Cork from scoring goals, but they will have to surrender something to do that. Dalton, Fitzgibbon and Tim O'Mahony will all be happy to shoot from distance. The alternative is a shoot-out. Tipp created plenty of goal chances against Kilkenny and they will be encouraged by how many goal chances Dublin created in the first 20 minutes against Cork. But an open, high-scoring game is exactly what Cork will want. I can't see Tipp agreeing to that, at least not from the start. Kilkenny's Eoin Cody and Stephen Donnelly close in on Bryan O'Mara of Tipperary during the All-Ireland SHC semi-final. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho Tipp have made tactical adjustments during the year, according to the opposition. Cork haven't changed much, if anything, along the way. They will still play three in their full-forward line and they'll be happy to go man-on-man at the back. All of their defenders are happy to attack the ball and take the odd risk. Fitzgibbon is back in his best position at centre field and Shane Barrett's pace and directness at 11 is going to be a threat to Tipp. This will be the case regardless of who lines up at centre back and how Tipp set up in general. Cork have weapons all over their attack. If Tipp are going to try to shut down space in the middle third and in their defence, that is going to take a massive effort. Can they sustain that for 70 minutes? Can they bring enough threat at the other end in that set-up? I don't think so. [ Ciarán Murphy: At 42 I took up hurling, the world's most frustrating and beautiful sport Opens in new window ] This will be a mental challenge for Cork, who don't need to be reminded that they haven't won an All-Ireland in 20 years. They've been favourites all year and nearly won the final 12 months ago. Manager Pat Ryan spoke about embracing the hype and the build-up and if that has been the message for the last two weeks, I think that's a good thing. Nobody predicted that Tipp would get this far. Their improvement over the last 12 months has been staggering. There is no pressure on them and they could just cut loose. But Cork are at a different stage in their development and I think their time has come.
Irish Times
13-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Joe Canning: The place where top hurlers want to be can feel like the worst place in the world
The strangest thing. When Darragh Fitzgibbon was standing over the 65 to draw the Munster final in the last minute of extra time, I felt nervous for him. I was sitting on the couch at home watching it on television and I texted a friend of mine saying that I hope he gets it. I don't know Darragh, and I wasn't rooting for Cork or Limerick , but I know what that situation is like. There's a contradiction at the heart of this. As a sportsperson you want to be in pressure situations and you want to take responsibility, but when you're there it can feel like the worst place in the world. In my playing career I had a couple of last-minute frees to draw All-Ireland finals. In 2018 against Limerick, it was a long shot, and it dropped short. Against Kilkenny in 2012, though, all kinds of crazy stuff was running through my head as I stood over the ball. The free to draw the match was a tricky one from under the Hogan Stand, but a couple of minutes earlier I had missed an easier free to put us a point up. Then Kilkenny scored and there was a gun to my head. I was literally thinking: 'If I miss this, I'm f**ked. I'll never live this down. I'll always be remembered for this.' Maybe if I had scored the free a couple of minutes earlier different thoughts would have been running through my mind, but that was the pressure I was feeling. Around that time people would have written things doubting me and doubting us as a team and that stuff was hanging in the air as well. READ MORE I don't know what Fitzgibbon was thinking. When the camera zoomed in on his face you could see him take a deep breath. For his sake, I was delighted it went over. You don't want to be living with the other outcome. I've taken plenty of penalties over the years, but I've never been in a penalty shoot-out. The psychology of it, though, has changed a little since it became a one-on-one shot. The pressure is on the penalty-taker because they're not expected to miss. When there were three players on the goal line the emphasis for the penalty taker was on power. You were still picking a spot in the goal, but you weren't aiming for corners. With just the goalie on the line, it's more about precision now. The natural shot for any hurler is to swing the hurley across your body and that's where you will generate the most power. Of the five penalties that were scored the other night, though, only Conor Lehane hit the ball that way. His shot was well placed but it was the pace of the shot that beat Nickie Quaid. Aaron Gillane, Diarmaid Byrnes, Shane Kingston and Alan Connolly all hit the ball the opposite way, looking for precision rather than power. The only chance the goalie has is to guess right. I took a penalty for Portumna in a club league game a couple of weeks ago and it was saved. I know what it's like to miss. All the players who stood up in the Gaelic Grounds deserve our respect. Even watching on television, you could tell the atmosphere at the Munster final was electric. I was in Croke Park a day later and it was completely the opposite. The quality of the game didn't help, but even if the game had been better the atmosphere in a half-empty Croke Park is always going to be a problem. I've been convinced for a couple of years that the Leinster hurling final needs to move to a smaller ground. They gave out 20,000 free tickets to juveniles last weekend – which was a great initiative – but it still only increased the attendance on the previous year by about 2,000. I'd hate to think what the crowd would have been if the free tickets weren't given out. In Munster, Thurles is a perfect neutral venue, with a big capacity right in the centre of the province. But teams also have home and away arrangements for Munster finals, and I think that is the road Leinster must go down. Get Leinster finals into Nowlan Park, or Wexford Park or Pearse Stadium or Tullamore or wherever. Make sure the place is full. [ Nicky English: Weary-looking Limerick's errors allowed Cork confidence to flourish Opens in new window ] Over the last three years Cork and Clare have both played Munster finals in the Gaelic Grounds against Limerick – even though Clare don't have an option of playing a Munster final in Ennis. Cork and Tipperary have played Munster finals home and away for as long as I can remember. Cork and Kerry do it in football. Clare and Kerry have done it in football in recent years too. It happens in Connacht football. The Leinster hurling final needs to get away from Croke Park. You often hear players talking about blocking out the noise of the crowd, but the reality is that players thrive on an atmosphere. The best atmosphere I ever played in was the 2018 All-Ireland semi-final replay against Clare in Thurles. The crowd in Semple Stadium wouldn't have filled Croke Park, but because Thurles was packed to the rafters the atmosphere was incredible. We played Kilkenny in a Leinster final replay in Thurles the same year and the atmosphere was terrific as well. What would be wrong with playing Leinster finals in Thurles every so often, just to shake it up? Being compared with the Munster final is tough for the Leinster final but they shouldn't be thinking about it in those terms. The Leinster final needs to have its own identity and stand on its own two feet. To do that the Leinster Council needs to start thinking outside the box. What we witnessed last Sunday can't continue.
Extra.ie
10-06-2025
- Sport
- Extra.ie
Complaints over Munster final shootout brilliantly shut down
A Wexford fan has taken to social media to shut down the countless complaints about how the Munster final was decided on Saturday night. After Cork and Limerick could not be separated after extra time, an epic Munster final was decided by penalties. After a 16-point beating at the hands of Limerick only last month, the Rebels were victorious on Saturday, winning the shootout 3-2 to be crowned Munster Champions. 7 June 2025; Darragh Fitzgibbon of Cork is tackled by Michael Casey and William O'Donoghue of Limerick during the Munster final between Limerick and Cork at LIT Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile Although countless fans were jubilant after the dramatic end to such an unforgettable encounter, there were others who bemoaned how the game was decided. Kilkenny boss Derek Lyng has come out and stated that a 'replay would have been more fair' to the players. 'I know we have a new system in place and we're kind of caught for time but I just think we're a bit too caught at the minute,' he added, questioning the new season format. Sportswriter Tommy Conlon also spoke out strongly after the game, stating: 'Penalties are cheap drama. They demean the players who have to take them. They turn spectators into voyeurs. Penalties are cheap drama. They demean the players who have to take them. They turn spectators into voyeurs. Y'day they diminished e'thing that had gone before, all that competitive authenticity cheapened by this tacky contrivance to produce a winner & move onto the next fixture. — Tommy Conlon (@TConlonthecouch) June 8, 2025 'Yesterday they diminished everything that had gone before, all that competitive authenticity cheapened by this tacky contrivance to produce a winner & move onto the next fixture.' Another fan took to social media, writing: 'For Limerick to only be denied the seven-in-a-row on penalties is a tribute to them. Let's hope penalties never settles a SHC game again.' Patrick Collins of Cork saves a penalty in the Munster final. However, with countless other fans swept away by the epic final, and the manner in which it was decided, one neutral supporter has brilliantly shut down the apparent debate. Taking to social media on Sunday night after the Nations League final, which was also decided by a penalty shootout after Portugal and Spain couldn't be separated in extra time, one fan hilariously wrote: 'Ridiculous way to finish a Nations League Final on penalties. 'This should be a replay in Thurles next Sunday evening. Another victim of the condensed GAA season.' Ridiculous way to finish a Nations League Final on penalties This should be a replay in Thurles next Sunday evening Another victim of the condensed GAA season 🙄
