All-Ireland SHC semi-finals: All you need to know

RTÉ News​

19 hours ago

Saturday 5 July
Cork v Dublin, Croke Park, 5pm
Sunday 6 July
Kilkenny v Tipperary, Croke Park, 4pm
ONLINE
Live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app.
TV
Live coverage of Cork v Dublin on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, coverage commencing at 2.15pm on Saturday, with Waterford v Clare in the All-Ireland camogie championship preceding the semi-final.
Live coverage of Kilkenny v Tipperary on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, coverage commencing on 1.15pm on Saturday, with the meeting of the same counties in the All-Ireland camogie championship beforehand.
Watch highlights on The Sunday Game from 10.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
RADIO
Live commentaries and updates on Saturday Sport & Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1 - and Spórt an tSathairn and Spórt an Lae on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.
WEATHER
Saturday: Mostly cloudy on Saturday with patchy outbreaks of rain and drizzle. While a few bright spells will develop, it'll stay rather cloudy overall. Highest temperatures of 16 to 22 degrees, warmest in the south and east, where it will feel quite mild and humid.
Sunday: Cloudy to begin. Brightening up through the afternoon and for the evening with sunny spells and scattered showers. Highest temperatures of 14 to 19 degrees.
Semi close to sellout as hurling fever takes hold
Tickets are thin on the ground for this weekend's first semi-final, either a further of sign of the expectancy and hype that has taken hold in Cork this year or an indication that hurling fever has finally swept the capital in the wake of the quarter-final triumph and the Dublin footballers' championship exit. Probably a bit of both.
When Cork finally saw off Limerick after a penalty shootout on that June evening in the Gaelic Grounds, few would have foreseen that John Kiely's side would be gone from the championship the next time the newly crowned Munster champions took the field.
The Dublin hurlers' shock defeat of Limerick in the quarter-final has been described as the greatest upset in the hurling championship in decades, possibly since Antrim's landmark win over Offaly in 1989 (Though Dublin's own humbling at the hands of Laois six years ago is also in the mix.)
It was all the more stunning given that they played the majority of the game with 14 men, their celebrated half-back Chris Crummey being red carded for an elbow on Gearóid Hegarty in the first half, with his suspension upheld for this weekend's semi-final.
Few beforehand had given Dublin much of a chance against Limerick, especially given their previous championship outing had been a fairly conclusive home defeat at the hands of a Galway team who weren't exactly pulling up trees themselves in 2025.
The Dubs led 15-12 at the break following an impressive first half display. However, there was an assumption all the while that Limerick would eventually cut loose and the established order would remain in place.
That script appeared to be playing out by the 51st minute, when they nudged 19-18 ahead.
However, then Dublin plundered two goals in a minute and suddenly things all got very real. Big John Hetherton, creating chaos inside, fired the first goal on the swivel - a much cleaner strike than his similar-ish goal against Wexford. Then, he broke another high ball down for the excellent Cian O'Sullivan, who slammed home the second.
From there, they held on for a famous win, one which possibly even surpasses their Leinster title victory in 2013.
History corner - a fixture of woe for the Dubs
Saturday will be the 19th meeting of Cork and Dublin in the hurling championship, the former leading 15-2 in the head-to-head, with a solitary draw - back in 1904, since you asked.
The Dublin hurlers nominally have seven All-Ireland titles, however all of them dating from the pre-Second World War period when the team was comprised of migrants from hurling country, a disproportionate number of them members of an Garda Síochána.
The Dublin team that last beat Cork in the championship in the 1927 All-Ireland final was about as Dublin as a plate of drisheen.
The team included Pa McInerney, who previously won the 1914 All-Ireland with his native Clare, Dicksboro's Matty Power, who won four of his five All-Irelands with Kilkenny, and Ballinderreen's Mick Gill, previously part of the 1923 All-Ireland winning Galway team. Other members of the team included Garrett Howard (from Patrickswell), Tommy Daly (Tulla) and Jim 'Builder' Walsh (Mooncoin)... and so on.
Cork won the four All-Ireland finals contested between the sides during their glory days of the 1940s and early 50s, aka, the Christy Ring era.
The 1952 All-Ireland final was their last championship encounter until an inauspicious Parnell Park qualifier in 2007, just before the Dubs re-emerged as a respectable hurling force in the late 2000s.
Cork are seven from seven in championship meetings between the pair in the 21st century. Aside from the '07 game, there have been no real blowouts, most Cork wins being of the arm's length variety - last year's drab, goalless quarter-final being fairly typical.
By far the most notable game was the 2013 semi-final, when Anthony Daly's Dublin were serious contenders for an All-Ireland title and appeared to have the upper hand for most of the game until Ryan O'Dwyer's sending off midway through the second half.
There was still only a point in it until Pat Horgan's late goal decisively turned the game in Cork's favour.
Team news
Cork stalwart Seamus Harnedy, a veteran of the 2013 clash, misses out due to a hamstring injury, while Cormac O'Brien is laid low with a quad issue.
They're boosted by the return of Declan Dalton at wing-forward, while Rob Downey is able to start this time out. Niall O'Leary comes in for Damien Cahalane at corner back.
The Dubs are without the suspended Crummey, though Conor Donohoe returns having served his penance after the CCCC's attention was drawn to his wild swing on John Fleming in the Galway game.
Conor Burke slips back to centre-back, while in attack, Darragh Power starts at wing-forward with Diarmuid Ó Dulaing dropping out.
Kilkenny and Tipperary meet again after lull in rivalry
Time was when this was an annual meeting. The Tipp-Kilkenny match-up accounted for exactly half of all All-Ireland finals in the 2010s.
However, the sides haven't collided in the championship since the 2019 decider, when Liam Sheedy's side devoured Kilkenny after Richie Hogan was sent off in the run in to half-time.
Tipp, in particular, have been through a pretty savage transitional period, with the celebrated team of the 2010s drifting into retirement and their successors struggling to make the step up. Between 2022 and 2024, they won just one from 12 Munster SHC games. Last season, the Tipp hurling public made clear, by their absence, how little they thought of the current crop.
Liam Cahill cut a disconsolate figure at the end of last season. But they've been rejuvenated under his management this year. People were reluctant to read much into their strong league campaign, given its unreliability as an indicator in the past.
But this was backed up by a strong showing in Munster, with wins over Clare and Waterford guaranteeing at worst a third place spot. The All-Ireland winning U-20 team has provided an infusion of players, with Darragh McCarthy, Oisín O'Donoghue and Sam O'Farrell impressing throughout the season.
Jake Morris and Andrew Ormond, both graduates from the 2019 U20 All-Ireland team, hit a combined 0-10 from play from the half-forward line against Galway in the quarters.
The side still contains eight players who had some involvement in the 2019 senior final, though Noel McGrath and Seamus Kennedy were subs the last day, while Jake Morris and Willie Connors were subs six years ago.
In total, there are seven survivors from the Kilkenny side in 2019 that played in last month's Leinster final - Eoin Murphy, Huw Lawlor, Paddy Deegan, John Donnelly, TJ Reid, Adrian Mullen and Billy Ryan.
The Cats are seeking to bridge a 10-year gap to their last All-Ireland win - which already ties their longest drought since they won their first title in 1904. They may sniff an opportunity with Limerick unexpectedly taken out of the equation, Kilkenny having lost the 2022 and 2023 finals before being caught in a late Clare surge in last year's semi-final.
The current crop seem suffused with the same dogged spirit as previous Kilkenny teams and have achieved something of note with a six-in-a-row in Leinster, a milestone which has almost crept up on people.
Eoin Cody, absent for the Leinster final, is back available and provides them with a potent goal threat. Mossy Keoghan, their designated point-scorer from play during the cold winter months in the league, has been in superb form this year and opportunistically plundered 2-02 against Galway.
Their middle third was especially dominant the last day, with Cian Kenny and Adrian Mullen buzzing around and hitting 0-06 from play combined. While Reid, now 37, was as magisterial as ever.
History corner
Six years feels like a lifetime without a Kilkenny-Tipperary meeting in the context of the last two decades but the rivalry has gone through longer lulls before. The 1991 All-Ireland final, decided by Pat Fox's brilliance, was their only championship meeting in the last quarter of the 20th century.
Prior to this century, Tipperary were unquestionably Kilkenny's bogey team, the Cats regularly suffering in Hell's Kitchen in the 1950s and 60s.
The relationship flipped in the Brian Cody era, Kilkenny winning seven from eight between 2002 and 2014 (not including drawn 2014 final).
The 2009-11 trilogy of All-Ireland finals is recalled these days as a traditionalists' nirvana, while the drawn 2014 match has gone down as perhaps as the greatest decider of them all - though Cody himself thought the defending was far too loose.
The last two finals swung decisively in Tipp's direction, however. Seamus Callanan delivered a bravura performance in the 2016 decider before Bubbles O'Dwyer delivered an expletive-laden interview.
Three years later, they had 14 points to spare in Liam Sheedy's first year back in the job, their forwards ruthlessly exploiting their numerical advantage in the second half after Richie Hogan's sending off for an elbow on Cathal Barrett. As it stands, Tipp still hold a 15-12 lead in the guard of honour.