All-Ireland SHC Semi-final

LIMERICK 2-24 GALWAY 1-18

By John Harrington at Croke Park

When Limerick trailed by six points after 25 minutes of this All-Ireland semi-final, you wondered were the three-in-a-row All-Ireland champions teetering.

They’d been out-hustled and out-thought by a Galway team bristling with energy, and struggled to muster their usual mixture of fluency with the ball and controlled aggression without it.

But then their defence with William O’Donoghue in an unfamiliar position of centre-back got to grips with the men they were marking, they began competing with their usual zeal for ball in the middle third, and they dominated the puck-out battle.

That gave them the platform to really get their forwards into the contest and they completely dominated the last 10 minutes of the first half and all of the second to eventually run out very comfortable victors.

Clearly the hunger of this Limerick team remains undiminished as they now advance to yet another All-Ireland Final, and bid to make it four titles in a row and five in six years.

The manner in which their challenge petered out after a very encouraging start will be hugely disappointing for the Galway players.

They had settled into the contest quickly, with points from Evan Niland (free) and Brian Concannon sandwiching an Aaron Gillane free for Limerick.

But then, somewhat against the run of play, Limerick landed the first heavy blow of the game when Gillane struck for a trademark goal.

He showed great strength to catch a Tom Morrissey pass above the head of Daithi Burke, and finished from close-range ruthlessly.

Galway hit back immediately with another Niland free which testified to the steely mental resolve they were bringing to bear on the contest.

Another Niland free brought them level and then Conor Whelan pushed them back into the lead when he won a ball ahead of Mike Casey, wriggled free from the Limerick defender, and lanced the sliotar over the bar.

Another Niland free quickly followed before Limerick levelled the game again – 1-3 to 0-6 – through points from Gillane (free) and Peter Casey.

Then came the best attacking play of the match so far when Kevin Cooney played in Cathal Mannion with a pass of real vision and the midfielder lashed the sliotar to the net from a tight angle.

Galway really had the bit between their teeth now and Concannon landed a very sweet point when he sidestepped beautifully past Kyle Hayes before driving it over the bar.

Concannon was causing Limerick big problems because he was drifting all over the pitch into pockets of space and both making himself available for passes and hitting some great diagonal ones himself into Conor Whelan from deep positions.

At the other end of the pitch Limerick’s shooting was uncharacteristically off-colour with seven different players hitting seven wides in the first half.

Galway were more clinical, both from play and placed balls, and by the 25th minute had moved 1-12 to 1-6 ahead.

A tricky situation for Limerick could have been much worse had Mike Casey not made a brilliant goal-line save from a Concannon ground-stroke that looked destined for the net.

As if energised by that near-miss, Limerick came to life in the final 10 minutes of the first-half.

Darragh O’Donovan deserves a lot of credit for their resurgence. He hit a great point from wide on the left and then set up two more for Aaron Gillane and Seamus Flanagan with beautifully weighted passes.

The reigning champions hit the last four points of the half to leave the scores reading 1-13 to 1-12 to Galway at the break, which must not have felt reflective of the huge effort the Tribesmen had produced.

Limerick have a well-earned reputation for putting their foot on the gas at the start of the second-half and they did it again in this match.

They out-scored Galway by four points to two in the first ten minutes of the half with the pick of the bunch an inspirational effort from Tom Morrissey.

Then came their second-goal, and it was one Galway will have nightmares about.

Cian Lynch put David Reidy through with a clever pass and when the wing-forward squared it to Aaron Gillane his initial batted effort struck the cross-bar.

Padraic Mannion attempted to flick the rebound clear, but instead he directed it straight into Gillane’s path again and this time the Patrickswell star finished ruthlessly as he lashed a ground-stroke to the net.

Now trailing by four points, Galway were in real trouble. They were struggling to get any sort of grip on the game because Limerick swallowed the ball up almost every time Éanna Murphy pucked it out.

And when they did manage to win possession in the middle third, they were under so much pressure from swarming Limerick tacklers they struggled to get decent passes into their starving inside forwards.

Points from Kyle Hayes, Gearoid Hegarty, Peter Casey, and David Reidy pushed a now very dominant Limerick team seven points clear by the 58th minute, and even by then a Galway comeback looked very unlikely.

Limerick had the luxury of running their bench, and won pulling up, with subs Graeme Mulcahy and Cathal O’Neill getting in on the act in the injury-time as they scored the final two points of the game.

And, so, Limerick march on to another All-Ireland Final where they will hope to ink another historic chapter in their already remarkable story.

Scorers for Limerick: Aaron Gillane 2-6 (5f), Diarmaid Byrnes 0-3 (3f), Kyle Hayes, Gearóid Hegarty, Tom Morrissey, Peter Casey, Seamus Flanagan all 0-2, Darragh O’Donovan, Graeme Mulcahy, Cathal O’Neill, David Reidy, Cian Lynch all 0-1

Scorers for Galway: Evan Niland 0-9 (all frees), Cathal Mannion 1-1, Conor Whelan 0-3, Brian Concannon 0-3, Kevin Cooney, Tom Monaghan both 0-1

LIMERICK: Nickie Quaid; Michael Casey, Dan Morrissey, Barry Nash; Diarmaid Byrnes, William O’Donoghue, Kyle Hayes; Darragh O’Donovan, Cian Lynch; Gearoid Hegarty, Tom Morrissey, Dv; Aaron Gillane, Seamus Flanagan, Peter Casey. Subs: Cathal O’Neill for Tom Morrissey (56), Graeme Mulcahy for Peter Casey (67), Conor Boylan for Gearóid Hegarty (69), Oisin O’Reilly for Seamus Flanagan, Adam English for Darragh O’Donovan (both 72)

GALWAY: Éanna Murphy; Jack Grealish, Daithí Burke, Darren Morrissey; Padraic Mannion, Gearóid McInerney, Seán Linnane; Joseph Cooney, Cathal Mannion; Ronan Glennon, Cianan Fahy, Kevin Cooney; Conor Whelan, Brian Concannon, Evan Niland. Subs: Tom Monaghan for Ronan Glennon (50), Conor Cooney for Sean Linnane (54), Liam Collins for Brian Concannon (63), Fintan Burke for Cianan Fahy (68)

Referee: James Owens (Wexford)

Leinster SHC Final

KILKENNY 4-21 GALWAY 2-26

By John Harrington at Croke Park

A Leinster Senior Hurling Championship that had shivered in the shadow of the Munster equivalent burst into life in a sun-dappled Croke Park today.

It had a bit of everything. Scores galore, sumptuous moments of skill, big hits, seat of the pants defending, and then finally an outrageous conclusion to it all.

The Galway players will be feeling bereft. They showed great guts to come from eight points down in the final 20 minutes of normal time to push two ahead in extra-time.

But in a final frantic passage of play when cool heads were needed they failed to clear their lines from the bottom left corner of the pitch with the ball doing a good impression of a hot potato.

Eventually it found its way to Padraic Mannion who was in the unfortunate position of having no hurley in his hands.

He felt the percentage play was to kick the ball down field as far as he possible could, but unfortunately for him and his Galway team-mates it went straight down the throat of Cillian Buckley who did brilliantly to weave his way past a couple of would-be tackles and plant the winning goal to the back of the net.

It was an incredible way to win a provincial title and joins a rich canon of Kilkenny victories chiselled from the face of adversity.

When the final whistle blew Galway players fell to the turf in utter dejection, and your heart went out to one of them in particular – Conor Whelan.

He’d been a force of nature throughout the game, scoring 1-6 from play with most of those scores from the very top drawer.

Thanks in no small part to the Kinvara man, Galway had looked like the sharper team in the opening exchanges, scoring the first three points of the match.

The Tribesmen were 0-5 to 0-1 ahead by the eight minute and looking confident, but then that cats finally showed their claws by scoring the first goal of the game.

Martin Keoghan raced onto a pass from David Blanchfield and then batted a smart finish past the advancing Eanna Murphy in what was a typically clinical finish by the Tullaroan man.

Points followed from TJ Reid, Eoin Cody, Cian Kenny and David Blanchfield and now it was Kilkenny on top, and leading by three points, 1-6 to 0-6.

Such was the nature of this match though that it was inevitable Galway would strike back because both sets of forwards looked like they had the beating of their markers.

On 18 minutes Conor Whelan zoomed onto a pass from Cathal Mannion and emphatically drilled a glorious low shot past Eoin Murphy for the equalising goal.

Now it was Galway with a power surge as Evan Niland landed a monster free from inside his own ’45 and Whelan and Kevin Cooney followed up with two classy points to push their advantage to three points.

It didn’t last long. Six minutes after coming on as a sub Walter Walsh proved he remains a hard man to stop when he’s full flight as did brilliantly to claim a high delivery and then ran 35 yards before firing a ruthless finish low and hard past Éanna Murphy.

For the remainder of the half the action swung this way and that as both teams combined some imaginative attacking play with seat of the pants defending.

By the time the half-time whistle blew both teams had managed three more points and were level, Galway 1-12 Kilkenny 2-9.

The first five minutes of the second-half followed that same over and back pattern, but then Kilkenny were emboldened to take a grip on the game by a sensational Mikie Butler goal.

The corner-back had followed the play down the field and when he took a popped handpass from David Blanchfield had only one thing on his mind as he bore straight down on goal and then finished with elan from a tricky angle.

Most of the play began flowing towards Galway’s goal now, and they were struggling to contain the Kilkenny attack, especially Eoin Cody who was turning the heat up on Padraic Mannion.

When points from him, Walter Walsh, and John Donnelly put the Cats 3-17 to 1-15 ahead after 50 minutes, Galway’s hopes seemed to be fading fast.

They needed a big moment and substitute Jason Flynn provided it, banging home a goal after Whelan did brilliantly to create the opportunity. The lively Evan Niland followed up with a point, and Galway suddenly had momentum again.

Now they were no longer so reliant on Whelan for inspiration, as Brian Concannon, Kevin Cooney, and Niland all began to trouble the Kilkenny defence in the final quarter of the match.

They drew level on 67 minutes when Niland banged over a free and then one from play, and held the whip hand in injury-time as Cooney, Niland, and Concannon slung over three points in quick succession.

But a Kilkenny team is never beaten, and when it really didn’t look likely they somehow found a way to win it with that last-gasp Buckley goal.

Scorers for Kilkenny: TJ Reid 0-9 (6f), Walter Walsh 1-2, Mikey Butler 1-0, Martin Keoghan 1-0, Cillian Buckley 1-0, Eoin Cody 0-3, Cian Kenny 0-2, John Donnelly 0-2 David Blanchfield 0-1, Padraig Walsh 0-1, Billy Drennan 0-1

Scorers for Galway: Evan Niland 0-12 (8f), Conor Whelan 1-6, Jason Flynn 1-0, Brian Concannon 0-3, Kevin Cooney 0-3, Cathal Mannion 0-1, Joseph Cooney 0-1

KILKENNY: Eoin Murphy; Mikey Butler, Huw Lawlor, Tommy Walsh; Conor Fogarty, David Blanchfield, Darragh Corcoran; Cian Kenny, Paddy Deegan; Tom Phelan, John Donnelly, Billy Ryan; Martin Keoghan, TJ Reid, Eoin Cody. Subs: Walter Walsh for Martin Keoghan (19), Padraig Walsh for Conor Fogarty (52), Cillian Buckley for Darragh Corcoran (58), Timmy Clifford for Tom Phelan (61), Billy Drennan for Billy Ryan (68)

GALWAY: Éanna Murphy; Jack Grealish, Gearóid McInerney, Darren Morrissey; Padraic Mannion, Daithí Burke, Fintan Burke; Joseph Cooney, Cathal Mannion; Tom Monaghan, Conor Cooney, Kevin Cooney; Conor Whelan, Brian Concannon, Evan Niland. Subs: Jason Flynn for Tom Monaghan (47), Sean Linnane for Conor Cooney (60), TJ Brennan for Darren Morrissey (64)

Ref: Sean Stack (Dublin)

Leinster Senior Hurling Championship

Dublin 2-22 Galway 1-25

By Paul Keane at Croke Park

On madcap days like these, hurling doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.

Galway may have qualified for the Leinster SHC final, just about as everyone expected, but the manner of their progression was anything but routine as Henry Shefflin’s Jekyll and Hyde crew remarkably came from 12 points down to rescue a thrilling Croke Park draw.

Trailing by 10 points at half-time and 12 early in the second-half, it looked as if a surprise win for Dublin was on the cards which, potentially, could have sent Micheal Donoghue’s men through to the June 11 final themselves.

But, a decade after their last provincial triumph, Dublin couldn’t hold on and were reeled in during a frantic final half hour or so as resurgent Galway, inspired by goalscorer Daithi Burke, did just about enough to escape.

Truth be told, Shefflin will be fuming with his team’s first-half performance and the 16 wides they blasted overall but the second-half display at least gives them vital momentum heading into the decider against Kilkenny.

Evan Niland’s 10 points were crucial and it looked, for a matter of seconds at least, as if he may be the matchwinner when the free-taker shot Galway ahead in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

But there was one last kick from a Dublin side that largely collapsed in the second-half in the form of a Donal Burke point from a free which meant the game ended in stalemate.

It all means that Dublin finish third in the table and will advance to an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final.

They will kick themselves because a memorable first-half when almost everything went Dublin’s way looked as if it had laid the platform for a famous win.

Dublin were certainly the dominant team at that stage and their natural pace suited the big pitch.

But they got a big helping hand from a Galway side that made an alarming number of errors.

Leaving players of the calibre of Cian Boland and Mark Grogan in acres of space was a big problem.

And while midfielder Joseph Cooney struck four first-half points, the inside forwards got little joy from any of their individual battles with the Dublin defenders.

Shefflin must have winced too as the westerners essentially handed the two goals to Dublin on a plate.

Cian O’Sullivan’s first in the ninth minute was a bizarre moment as the Dublin attacker shortened the hurl to avoid being hooked but miscued a point attempt that somehow dropped in over the goalkeeper’s ahead.

The second goal was an even greater nightmare from Galway’s perspective. Cooney Cooney, tracking back deep in his own defence and trying to work a ball across his own goal face, failed to pick out a Galway man and Danny Sutcliffe intercepted before blasting from close range to the net.

As if to underline just how tuned in Dublin were, Sutcliffe immediately gestured to his fellow forwards to be alive to the threat of a short puck-out.

That sort of ultra intensity and appetite for destruction was evident throughout the pitch. Free-taker Burke, one of nine different Dublin scorers in the first-half, showed the breadth of his talent with the opening score of the game from close to the left sideline and, later in the half, split the posts with an effort from next to the right sideline.

Everything seemed to be dropping over for the Dubs, even a monster effort from Conor Burke that dropped just a couple of inches beyond the crossbar.

It all added up to a whopping 10-point, 2-16 to 0-12, half-time lead for the hosts who stretched the gap to a dozen points after a bright start to the second-half.

A couple of unlikely Burke wides from frees suggested that nerves were kicking in though.

Sensing opportunity, Galway pushed on to finally give themselves a foothold in the game.

Between the 44th and 52nd minutes they held Dublin scoreless and put 1-4 on the board themselves. Man of the Match Daithi Burke slammed home the goal from close range after a probing run down the left. They should have had a second goal but Conor Cooney’s 47th minute strike from a penalty, awarded following a foul by Conor Burke on sub Brian Concannon, was brilliantly saved by goalkeeper Sean Brennan.

By the hour mark, Galway had whittled Dublin’s lead down to just four points. A sense of inevitability crept across proceedings as Galway slowly but surely picked off the points to eventually wipe out the deficit entirely in the 69th minute.

Niland’s 10th point of the afternoon in the 75th minute nudged them ahead and looked like being the winner but Na Fianna man Burke came to Dublin’s rescue with that late, late leveller.

Scorers for Dublin: Donal Burke 0-10 (0-6f, 0-1 65), Danny Sutcliffe 1-2, Cian O’Sullivan 1-1, Cian Boland 0-3, Eoghan O’Donnell 0-2, Mark Grogan 0-1, Daire Gray 0-1, Conor Donohoe 0-1, Conor Burke 0-1.

Scorers for Galway: Evan Niland 0-10 (0-6f), Joseph Cooney 0-5, Daithi Burke 1-0, Kevin Cooney 0-3, Tom Monaghan 0-3, Ronan Glennon 0-1, Fintan Burke 0-1, Eanna Murphy 0-1 (0-1f), Jason Flynn 0-1.

Dublin: Sean Brennan; John Bellew, Paddy Smyth, Eoghan O’Donnell; Conor Burke, Paddy Doyle, Daire Gray; Mark Grogan, Conor Donohoe; Sean Currie, Chris O’Leary, Cian Boland; Danny Sutcliffe, Cian O’Sullivan, Donal Burke.

Subs: Alex Considine for O’Leary 56, Dara Purcell for O’Sullivan 64, Paul Crummey for Boland 67, James Madden for Donohoe 68, Fergal Whitely for Grogan 74.

Galway: Eanna Murphy; TJ Brennan, Gearoid McInerney, Darren Morrissey; Padraic Mannion, Daithi Burke, Fintan Burke; Joseph Cooney, Ronan Glennon; Conor Cooney, Tom Monaghan, Evan Niland; Kevin Cooney, Conor Whelan, Declan McLoughlin.

Subs: Brian Concannon for McLoughlin h/t, Jack Grealish for Brennan h/t, Sean Linnane for F Burke 43, Jason Flynn for Glennon 49, Liam Collins for C Cooney 64.

Referee: Paud O’Dwyer (Carlow).