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Irish Independent
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Independent
If Cork manager John Cleary's time is up, could John Fintan Daly's time be finally now?
If John Cleary decides to call it a day as Cork football manager, could an outspoken Knocknagree man, with an impressive managerial cv, be the next man up? Corkman Where to for Cork football now? The Rebels season came to an end – some might say an inevitable end – against Dublin last Saturday, a three-point loss drawing a line under a season that promised much but failed to deliver much. If success is measured by wins and silverware, then the Cork footballers' year was a failure. They didn't win promotion out of Division 2 (again), they didn't reach the Munster final (again), they didn't get back to the All-Ireland quarter-finals. The played 13 games across the National League, the Munster Championship and the All-Ireland Championship, winning six and losing seven: that's a 46% success rate.
Irish Examiner
4 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Limerick GAA reschedule club games after reaching Tailteann Cup final
Limerick GAA have moved quickly to reschedule all grades of their club football championship, following Sunday's win in the Tailteann Cup semi-final. This has left dual clubs with prospect of 10 games in just 11 weekends. Initially pencilled in for the week ending June 22nd, all games were pushed back a week when Jimmy Lee's side negotiated Wexford in the quarter final. This has moved again, after a fifth Tailteann Cup victory in a row on Sunday. The original plan was to have played three rounds of the six grades by mid-July. However, a meeting of the CCCC on Monday within the county has confirmed that the opening round will take place on or before July 20th, with some inter-county squad members set to be in action within five or six days of the 12th of July meeting with Kildare. A decision not to alter the hurling championships, of which there are seven grades, means that rounds two and three of the football competitions will likely take place in August and September. There will be a scramble to make the Munster Championship dates in early November, with dual clubs facing into 10 group games, as well as potentially three knockout rounds. Limerick has successfully filled all their spots in the Munster Championships through the years, with other counties having missed deadlines preciously. Most grades now contain 12 teams, with two groups of six teams. The Premier Intermediate Hurling Championship has tested fixture makers with its eight-team championship, with each side meeting across seven rounds. Granagh Ballingarry, for example, who play at this grade, could face 12 games in as many weekends, while other clubs in this competition will entertain similar challenges with their sister football clubs. Meanwhile, ahead of that historic Tailteann Cup decider with the Lilywhites, the Shannonsiders will be hopeful of a fully fit trio. Iain Corbett (illness), James Naughton (ankle) and Emmet Rigter (hamstring) were all called ashore earlier than planned last Sunday but will be assessed in the coming days. The return to action for vice-captain Barry Coleman proved vital to overturning the deficit against Wicklow.
Irish Examiner
4 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
‘It's really exciting for all of us heading back up' – Maher relishing Croke Park return
They had their own business to take care of. For Tipperary, matters in Croke Park could wait. To secure their first date in HQ since 2019, they first had to overcome Galway. Outside of the Tipperary dressing room afterwards, their players started to learn about the seismic shock that had just taken place in the other quarter-final. Dublin's win over Limerick meant they would face old rivals Kilkenny in the semi-final. 'I wasn't looking at it at all,' said Ronan Maher. 'Just concentrating on my own game. You try to get right inside the dressing room. I only heard it when I came back in and walked into the dressing room.' That was a theme. Man of the Match Andrew Ormond only heard during his post-match interview. Manager Liam Cahill was content that 'they're all big boys' and can manage their game preparation themselves. There was no need to ban mobile phones or anything like that. It was against Galway in their opening league game that Cahill called for the Premier supporters to get behind his side. Saturday was the latest example that they have done so. Not even the threat of sprinklers turning on, which the Gaelic Grounds announcer warned repeatedly, could force them off the field after their pitch invasion. They took deserved time to soak it in. 'In fairness to the Tipp supporters, they have been getting behind us the whole way through the Munster Championship and onto the quarter-final, which is brilliant to see. It is a great lift for us on the field. They are the extra man. Long may it continue.' Maher is one of ten All-Ireland winners still in the Tipperary panel. The likes of Jake Morris, the McGraths, Willie Connors and Jason Forde will all be invaluable mentors over the next two weeks. They haven't played Kilkenny in championship since the 2019 triumph. For that experienced crop, it is good to be back. 'It is a new team. It is really exciting for all of us heading back up the M7. That is the aim at the start of the year and we're there now,' he said. 'It is going to be very exciting for everyone involved. They are a great bunch of lads there and a lot of work has gone in. We're looking forward to going up.'
Irish Independent
4 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Independent
Listowel Pitch & Putt club pay tribute to true stalwart – ‘He did everything for the club'
A Listowel native, Kevin was a well-known and well-liked member of the local community who, not only through his own brilliant skill on the course as a juvenile player, dedicated 40 years of his life to helping out with the club that he held so close to his heart. As an adult, he held every committee position that the club had to offer and represented Listowel at the highest level of the game on the course for many years. His crowning glory came when he became Munster Senior Strokeplay Champion in 1993. The Championship was played in Ashgrove in Waterford and it was here that Kevin won a six-man playoff having finished -12 for 36 holes. At the time The Kerryman reported that Kevin 'beat possibly the classiest field of players ever assembled for the Munster Championship'. Not content with success domestically, Kevin also played the game at an international level but interestingly, not for Ireland, but for England. It was while he was living and working in the UK that he was selected to play for England. Playing against Ireland, Kevin was drawn to play against his fellow Kerry man, and good friend, Derry McCarthy. For many years he worked tirelessly on the club's course to help make it the course it is today. He had a massive appetite for work and was involved with everything from scarifying to seeding or sanding greens. Only a week later, he returned to work on the course after shooting a fine of -4 in the second round of the Bob Casey Inter-Club competition in Castleisland. In their tribute, the club said that the feeling that Kevin possessed in his talented hands meant that he was also a great man to cut greens. They said that you would always know when Kevin cut the greens; they seemed to run so smoothly. Speaking to The Kerryman, Club Captain from Listowel Pitch & Putt, Ger Guerin, said that Kevin's passing is a massive shock and loss to the North Kerry town and the wider community. "He was a lovely, lovely fella. It [his passing] is a big shock to the club and to the wider community. It's just come out of the blue,' he said. 'He was heavily involved with us here in the club. He was a stalwart of the place. He did everything for the club. He took great pride in doing the greens and the fairways. He was always looking after them. He always had the place looking in top shape for scratch cups and competitions,' he continued. ADVERTISEMENT Myself and Kevin would have travelled a lot together playing pitch and putt. We travelled to Holland twice playing at the international level. He was just a great character around the place. He always took great pride in his son, Bobby, who is himself a great player. Bobby was the apple of Kevin's eye. As a club, we'd just like to offer our deepest condolences to his family and friends,' Ger added. Kevin will be reposing at Lyons Funeral Home, Derry, Listowel, on Wednesday evening, June 25, from 5pm to 7pm. His funeral will arrive at St. Mary's Church, Listowel, on Thursday morning at 11.15am, with the Requiem Mass for him being celebrated at 11.30am. For those who cannot make it, the funeral will be live-streamed on the Listowel parish website and it will be followed by burial afterward in St. John Paul II Cemetery, Ballybunion Road, Listowel.
RTÉ News
17-06-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
'Gaelic football owes a debt of gratitude to Kerry'
Analysis: No Kerry team has ever taken the field without belief in its ability, which is why the county has been so successful By Diarmuid O'Donovan One of my favourite stories about Kerry GAA comes from 1911. In March that year, Dr Crokes of Killarney met Mitchels of Tralee in a delayed championship game from the previous year. The game was intense and the scores were close. A dispute arose between the teams during the second half. Crokes and Kerry star, Dick Fitzgerald, led his Crokes team off the field. This turned out to be a grave error. The GAA's Central Council had recently ruled that "any team that walks off the field will forfeit the game and be subject to an automatic six-month suspension from all competition". The reality of the situation did not dawn on Crokes until it was too late. The new rule meant that Crokes would miss the 1911 County Championship, and the Crokes players, including Dick Fitzgerald, could not play for Kerry. In an effort to retrieve the situation, Fitzgerald attended a subsequent meeting of the Kerry Board where the draws for the 1911 County Championship were taking place. He pleaded for leniency and managed to persuade the Board to agree to include Crokes in the championship draw, and that they would not play their first round until late September, when the suspension had been served. To quote Fitzgerald's biographer, Tom Looney, this was "a Kerry solution to a Kerry problem!" From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne, retired Dublin footballer Robbie Kelleher and historian Mark Duncan discuss the Hell for Leather – The Story of Gaelic Football series Cork became the short-term beneficiaries of all this. Waterford defeated Kerry in the Munster Championship. Cork then defeated Waterford and went on to win the All-Ireland title. It was short-term because it would be another 32 years before Cork would defeat Kerry in senior football, and 34 years before Cork won another All-Ireland title. This story sums up everything that is tangible and visible about Kerry football. It has fierce and bitter local rivalries, stubbornness, guile, cunning, a drive to never, ever make the same mistake twice and, most of all, an innate ability to overcome any difficulty or situation for the sake of football. Kerry football was slow off the mark in terms of winning All-Ireland titles. The All-Ireland Championships began in 1887, but Kerry won only one Munster Championship (1892) before the turn of the 20th century. The first All-Ireland came in 1903. That win rooted Gaelic football in the Kerry psyche, and 38 All-Ireland titles have been won since then, an average of a title almost every three years. A little more than a decade after the "Fitzgerald Solution", Kerry became the scene of some of the bitterest fighting and atrocities of the Civil War. Yet, the scars of this dark time were never allowed to intrude on the Kerry senior football team. In his book In the Name of the Game, J.J. Barrett tells the story of how Free State soldiers such as Con Brosnan and Johnny Walsh played side by side with Anti-Treaty soldiers such as John Joe Sheehy and Joe Barrett. Brosnan was an army officer and organised a pass between noon and 6.00pm on Sundays to allow Sheehy, Barrett and others to play football. This does not mean that there were not strong differences of political opinion between these men (there certainly were). What it does show is that their desire to play for Kerry could overcome these differences. Barrett captained Kerry to the 1929 All-Ireland final. When the captaincy came his way again in 1931, he organised, in the face of fierce opposition from republican elements across the county, that the captaincy would be given to his old adversary and football colleague, Brosnan. Barrett was captain again in 1932 when Kerry won its fourth consecutive title. During that time and throughout the 1930s, Kerry used their fame to tour the United States and raise funds for the building of Austin Stack Park in Tralee and Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney (named after the Dick Fitzgerald from earlier). Kerry were fortunate to have Dr Eamonn O'Sullivan in charge of the Kerry teams from the1920s to the 1960s. He is regarded as the developer of modern team management in the GAA. His innovations, such as collective training and tactical awareness, were often the decisive contribution to Kerry All-Ireland wins. By the 1940s, Cork football was sufficiently organised to stymie Kerry's annual run through the Munster Championship. Cork won Munster titles in 1943, '45, '49, '52, '56 and '57, unprecedented success by Cork standards. Kerry's response was to win eight successive Munster championships and two All-Ireland titles between 1958 and 1965. During that run a new threat emerged for Kerry, namely Ulster football. Kerry did defeat Armagh in the 1953 All-Ireland final but lost to Derry in 1958 (semi-final) and the subsequence emergence of Down in the 1960s posed a new problem. Down beat Kerry, not just once, but in the 1960 final, the 1961 semi-final and again in the 1968 final (to this day, Kerry have never beaten Down in their five championship meetings). From RTÉ News, Michael Ryan reports from Tralee as Kerry bring Sam Maguire back to the Kingdom in 1985 The Ulster question went away for the remainder of the 20th century and Kerry tacked on 11 more All-Ireland titles between 1969 and 1999. This included the four-in-a-row between 1978 to 1981 and a controversial loss to Offaly in 1982. Ulster teams have re-emerged this century however, in the form of Armagh (who beat Kerry in the 2002 final), Tyrone (beginning in 2003 semi-final and several more times since), and Donegal (2012 QF). The restructuring of the All-Ireland championships since 2001 and the introduction of various forms of All-Ireland qualifiers has meant Kerry are no longer subject to a knockout blow from Cork, or the occasional ambush from Waterford or Tipperary, as happened in 1911, 1928 or 1957. This has helped rather than hindered the Kerry insatiable quest for All-Ireland titles. Kerry have lifted the Sam Maguire cup seven times since 2000. That's an average of one every 3.5 years; a rate almost as good as the success rate since the first title in 1903. It is a success rate achieved in spite of ongoing issues with Ulster football, and Dublin's nine All-Ireland titles between 2011 and 2023 (Kerry lost to Dublin in four of these finals). From RTÉ Archives, a 1984 edition of The Sunday Game looks at Kerry football dominance including two four in a row All Ireland title wins from 1929 to 1932 and 1978 to 1982 Gaelic football owes a debt of gratitude to Kerry. The county had shown the ability to surmount civil unrest, economic depression, emigration, the intense rivalry of its internal inter-club competitions and the intense efforts of almost every other county to defeat them. No Kerry team has ever taken the field without belief in its ability, and the intention to do everything possible to win the game. That is ultimately why Kerry has been so successful. That is why, as a football fan I love them and, as a Corkman, I have very mixed emotions.
