a day ago
Dublin v Limerick LIVE coverage of All-Ireland SHC quarter-final from Croke Park
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Dublin v Limerick in the All-Ireland senior hurling championship quarter-final at Croke Park, which is the opening game of a double-header at GAA HQ - with the SFC preliminary quarter-final between Dublin and Cork to follow.
Niall O'Ceallachain's Dubs go into this last eight tie on the back of a victory - last Saturday's preliminary quarter-final demolition of Kildare - but that will count for very little going into the battle with the country's best team of the last eight years.
Limerick will be out for a statement performance on the back of the heartbreaking loss on penalties to Cork in the Munster final, after an impressive campaign in the provincial championship.
Dublin, on the other hand, looked the part in their win over Wexford in Leinster, and with their second half comeback against Kilkenny in Leinster, but they looked well off the pace in the first half against the Cats and then against Galway, a defeat that cost them a place in the provincial final.
As expected, they made short shrift of the Lilywhites last weekend, who were barely over their Joe McDonagh Cup celebrations, and O'Ceallachain will know that his side will have to go up several levels in terms of performance to live with Limerick.
Treaty boss John Kiely will look for the right reaction from his players after their Munster disappointment but if Dublin can stay with Limerick, they could sew some seeds of doubt heading down the stretch. Throw in is at 4pm at Croker.
There may be changes before the throw-in but here are the teams as announced late in the have two changes from the Kildare game, with Andy Dunphy in for Paddy Dunleavy at wing-back and Conor Burke return for full-forward targetman John Hetherton; Limerick are unchanged.
LIMERICK: Nickie Quaid; Sean Finn, Dan Morrissey, Mike Casey; Diarmaid Byrnes, Kyle Hayes, Barry Nash; Adam English, William O'Donoghue; Gearoid Hegarty, Cian Lynch, Tom Morrissey; Aaron Gillane, Aidan O'Connor, David Reidy.
Subs: Shane Dowling, Peter Casey, Colin Coughlan, Seamus Flanagan, Declan Hannon, Barry Murphy, Fergal O'Connor, Donnacha O Dalaigh, Darragh O'Donovan, Paddy O'Donovan, Cathal O'Neill.
DUBLIN: Sean Brennan; John Bellew, Paddy Smyth, Conor McHugh; Paddy Doyle, Chris Crummey, Andrew Dunphy; Conor Burke, Brian Hayes; Rian McBride, Fergal Whitely, Cian O'Sullivan; Sean Currie, Ronan Hayes, Diarmaid O Dulaing.
Subs: Eddie Gibbons, Donal Burke, Colin Currie, Paddy Dunleavy, Daire Gray, John Hetherton, Andrew Jamieson Murphy, David Lucey, James Madden, Paul O'Dea, Darragh Power.