Galway's Liam Gordon to referee All-Ireland senior hurling final
Killimor clubman Gordon is set for his first senior final at Croke Park on 20 July, having refereed the 2019 U20 final between the counties, the 2020 Joe McDonagh Cup final, the 2024 Munster hurling final and 2025 All-Ireland senior club final.
Advertisement
Gordon was the man in the middle for Clare-Cork and Limerick-Cork in this year's Munster championship and Antrim-Dublin in the Leinster championship, as well as Dublin's shock All-Ireland quarter-final win over Limerick.
He refereed Wexford-Kilkenny, Tipperary-Cork and Clare-Cork in the Allianz Hurling League.
Gordon's first Liam MacCarthy game was in 2020, with the All-Ireland final his 18th.
His umpires on the day will be Killimor clubmates Damien Gibbons, Alan McClearn, John Larkin and Ollie Reilly.
Related Reads
Harnedy 'touch and go' to be fit for Cork in All-Ireland final against Tipperary
The key factors that helped Tipperary defeat Kilkenny to return to hurling bigtime
Dublin's Seán Stack and Waterford's Thomas Walsh will be his line umpires, with Stack the standby referee. Colm McDonald (Antrim) and Dickie Murphy (Wexford) have been confirmed as the sideline official and Hawk-Eye official respectively.
*****
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
25 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
Tailteann Cup final the latest rung of Limerick's ladder to consistency and stability
Stable. Sustainable. Successful. The above is no corporate speak. It is no aspirational jargon thrown out so as to give the impression that a plan is in place. The above is Jimmy Lee's vision for Limerick football. Seventy minutes from the end of his second term, how is that vision progressing? 'It is going in the right direction. We have boxes ticked, others still need to be,' says Lee. Making Limerick football a stable entity carries obvious reasoning. It is currently a peak-and-trough entity. Altitude peaks and sinking troughs, at that. Three League promotions and two relegations in the past six seasons. Four managers in the past four seasons. A 17-game winless League run spanning three seasons, followed by a 12-game League and championship run where they've only lost once. This constant yo-yoing has an easily identifiable root cause. When Jimmy was appointed in August 2023 and began assembling a dressing-room, he found that 19 of that year's panel would be unavailable for his debut 2024 campaign. From '24 to this year, 16 of the 36 did not carry on. Foundations laid from December to summer are being hammered in the off-season. The rebuilding cycle is in constant spin. 'You might have two, three, or four that step away at the end of this year, but we'll be pushing to see if we can avoid it in total. I know lads have given a length of service, but you'd always be hoping they will take one more leap of faith. 'The vision would be to make Limerick football sustainable year-on-year. But there are stepping stones along the way, such as to keep lads coming back in the door, to win a Tailteann. "The ultimate vision is to have a product you can deliver year-on-year within your capabilities.' A consistent product. That was Jimmy's 2025 vision. 'Last year, we were all over the place. We were training in Knocklong some nights, you were in Rathkeale others. With Micheál's [Cahill, coach] knowledge of surfaces and player physique, we based ourselves out of UL's all-weather surface this year. "We knew there would be a six-to-seven-week familiarisation period where lads would be getting stiff and sore, but it was smooth sailing after that. 'We would have been without places if we didn't have UL. We'd train once a week in Rathkeale on grass, but every other session was in UL, video analysis, the works. We didn't come out of there until April.' Winning the Tailteann Cup has been a means to an end for all previous winners. Just look at where Meath are two years after second-tier success. Even Down gave this year's top-tier a right rattle. You might think Limerick are different. They are, of course, without All-Ireland football championship silverware at any level since the 1896 Sam Maguire win. 'It's not the be-all-and-end-all,' Lee says of Saturday. 'You'd go into Sam Maguire, but our focus next year would really be on Division 3. 'Back when Stephen Lucey and Pa Ranahan were playing, under Liam Kearns, you were riding the crest of a wave, we almost won a Munster final here against Kerry [in 2004]. But yet and all then you went down. 'It is taking them peaks and troughs out of the way because where you want to go and maintain is a flat line, and you look no further than our neighbours Clare, seven seasons in Division 2. 'On the pathway of our journey, it is massively important to Limerick football to be in a national final. But it is beyond that and beyond that again.'
Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Irish Examiner
Jack O'Connor impressed by Tyrone's consistent underage success
Jack O'Connor has plenty to be going on with but he's hardly oblivious to the developing Tyrone tsunami on the back of consistent underage success. O'Connor's Kerry go into Saturday's All-Ireland SFC semi-final with four wins from the last five games against the Red Hands, but it's been a very different story at underage and colleges level, where the Ulster county continues to sweep the board. O'Connor might be right — his focus on Malachy O'Rourke's side is obsessive right now but having coached at schools and underage level himself, the Kerry manager is impressed with the successes Tyrone are racking up in the age grades. 'They obviously have very good people involved in coaching up there,' O'Connor said in Tralee. 'The schools seem to have got their act together in a big way and they are consistently competitive in the school system and that feeds into the minors and U20s.' He underlined his point: 'They have really good structures and really good people involved in coaching in the schools. I'm not saying they're not good people involved in the schools down here. But that's what it comes down to, it comes down to the quality of the people involved in coaching.' A couple of top U20 talents have already made an impact on Tyrone's senior progress to the All-Ireland semi final, such as Shea O'Hare and latterly Eoin McElholm. And there were standouts also on show in white and red as Tyrone pipped the Kingdom to the All-Ireland MFC title in Newbridge on Sunday — for instance, midfielder James Mulgrew. The Kerry manager knows too that Tyrone's midfield is strong, they have lethal senior forwards to manage this weekend, and plenty of impact off the bench. He wouldn't be human if there wasn't a hint of envy at Malachy O'Rourke's options, while he manages a Kerry squad that is down to the bare bones. Is the long list of Kerry injuries down to the hard running involved in the new game, or just plain rotten luck? 'There is probably is a bit more high-speed running, particularly in the middle eight,' O'Connor mused. 'Before these new rules it was a slower game. There were periods where teams could almost rest with the ball, if you know what I mean. You could foul tactically before as well to slow down the play. Now there's no such thing as a tactical foul because you can move the ball on straight away.' There is another consideration, one that the Kerry manager is loathe to get into, at least while the championship is still ablaze. 'It's well documented that Kerry players aren't getting enough of an off-season,' he winced. 'We have three championships down here. (Inter-county) players are playing into November when you're already starting pre-season training. It's very tricky. 'I don't think players are getting enough of an off-season. You might get away with that for a few months but then it comes back to bite you because if you haven't enough of an off-season, you haven't enough of a pre-season. Somewhere along the line, something is going to have to take a hit there. But that's for another day. That's a bigger argument and it's not for me to solve.'
Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Irish Examiner
John Fallon: Heroic hurlers magnifies malaise of Cork City
ONE Cork sporting code was lavishing in a sea of red on Saturday, whereas another was falling into the red zone the night before around the corner. Since Cork last won the men's All-Ireland hurling crown in September 2005, Cork City's footballers lifted the both national trophies, league and Cup, twice apiece. This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in Take us with you this summer. Annual €130€65 Best value Monthly €12€6 / month
