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Irish Times
a day ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Seán Moran: Hurling championship kept its biggest surprise until the end
The great irony of the All-Ireland season is the contrasting finales in football and hurling. Football was as open as it has ever been in the past couple of decades and yet, despite shocks along the way, two of the favourites have ended up in the final, including perennial front-runners Kerry. As a friend messaged after the quarter-final blitz of Armagh: 'The most open football championship known to mankind is probably going to be won by Kerry.' At the weekend, we had the climax of the hurling championship, by consensus slightly overshadowed by its football equivalent and so full of intrigue back in April that the bookies paid out on Cork before a match was played. Except that on Sunday, a Tipperary team, which had started the championship as distant outsiders, romped to a 29th title. In the past three decades, only three counties had taken Liam MacCarthy without having been in an All-Ireland semi-final for the previous five years: Clare in 2013, Cork in 1999 and Wexford in 1996. READ MORE That might slightly overstate Tipp's underdog status, as a side that still was crewed by a clutch of All-Ireland medallists even if just four started on Sunday against Cork. This was an influence referred to by Nicky English in his All-Ireland hurling final preview in The Irish Times. He recalled from his playing days the views of his own former mentors Theo English and Donie Nealon that it was easier to win All-Irelands with at least some players who already had Celtic crosses. So convinced was Wexford manager Liam Griffin of this truth that in the first minute of injury time in the 1996 final, he sent on 19-year-old Paul Codd so that county teams would have someone who had won an All-Ireland medal on the field of play at their disposal for well over a decade. [ I believed anything could happen in a Cork-Tipp match but wasn't quite prepared for this Opens in new window ] The scale of Tipperary manager Liam Cahill's achievement is still phenomenal and spanned the generations on his panel. The focus has been on the very youngest players, the Darragh McCarthys and Sam O'Farrells but, as a team-building exercise, it required the fusion of those rookies plus the reactivation of the 2019 survivors – epitomised by John McGrath's plundering of seven goals this championship – as well as incorporating the bridging generation, led by Jake Morris. Before the under-20 championship came into being it wasn't uncommon for a tranche of under-21s to feature in senior panels but the dropping of the year has made that progression less viable. Cork's Ciaran Joyce and Jake Morris of Tipperary. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho Cahill nonetheless cleared the decks for generational change after the humiliation of Thurles last year and Cork's 18-point destruction of the home team, who that day had also been mostly abandoned by their supporters. He drew scepticism for using his first-choice team so relentlessly in the league but they needed experience. They got that and more. Although the competition is best remembered for the seismic defeat by Cork in the final, there were, in regulation fixtures, ultimately telling wins over Galway, Cork, Kilkenny and Clare – all of which would be repeated at critical junctures of the championship. Maybe the opposition wasn't always at full stretch but they acquired a habit of winning, which survived championship setback. Cahill's approach crystallised after the win against Kilkenny in March. Speaking afterwards, he raised two issues that would be relevant until last weekend. 'Today was a good test again for one or two newbies. Young Oisín' – O'Donoghue, a goal scorer that day who would repeat that feat against the same opposition in the All-Ireland semi-final – 'making his debut in the Tipperary jersey. He did really well for 30 minutes there. 'Younger fellas again that performed well at the start of the league. The likes of young Sam O'Farrell' – immensely promising captain of the All-Ireland-winning under-20s and a starter on Sunday – 'and obviously young Darragh McCarthy. All those boys are going to be an integral part of Tipperary going into the future, not just in 2025.' McCarthy at 19 was in a category of his own in the All-Ireland, scoring 1-13 and showing immense fortitude in the wake of his disciplinary issues earlier in the championship. The manager also addressed the hum of background noise that has followed him since he took Waterford to a league title in 2022 followed by a championship blowout and was also picking up volume this year. Tipperary's Darragh McCarthy scores a penalty in the All-Ireland SHC final at Croke Park. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho 'People say Tipperary under Liam Cahill will win matches in the spring, but can they do it in the summer? We have to prepare in the spring to make sure that we give ourselves a fighting chance in the summer. Summer is only six weeks away now.' An All-Ireland like this has become feasible in the modern era of multiple fixtures and the ability to absorb defeat along the way. In one way, Tipperary's victory is easily explained. Since the 15-point defeat by Cork in May, Cahill's team was on a constantly rising trajectory. None of the wins was of itself groundbreaking but created momentum, which accelerated as the victories became more consequential. Cork were more uneven in their delivery even though they had won all of the big prizes before last weekend. The ghosts that had haunted them along the way – and were believed to have been exorcised by league and provincial success – returned with a vengeance. To have ended up with as bad a final beating as they had suffered at the hands of peak Limerick four years ago has thrown the considerable progress – first league in 27 years and first Munster in seven – of the year into turmoil. This also poses problems for the GAA. The county's buoyancy has animated the last two championships, bringing crowds and colour. For all of that to plummet into disillusion would be a terrible blow for the game in general. Tipperary have given them a template for turning adversity into triumph but have Cork the materials and, above all, the perseverance to return to the bottom of the hill and start pushing all over again?
Irish Times
a day ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Darragh Ó Sé: Donegal have a wide spread of scorers but Kerry have David Clifford - that will swing it
I know they're probably not big hurling men – no more than myself – but Jack O'Connor and Jim McGuinness would have got plenty out of sitting their players down to watch Tipp v Cork on Sunday. It's a while since you got such a clear and obvious lesson in advance of the football final. Who do you want to be on Monday morning, lads? The team heading back the road as heroes or the one that can't bring themselves to do a homecoming? All-Ireland finals can spook players. It's very easy for them to forget what's important. The fact that you're in one at all means that things have been going well. Now your job is to make sure you do everything that caused you to get here in the first place. I remember going into the 2006 final with fellas telling me I was playing great football and that I was on top of my game and all that. You can get carried away with all that stuff and maybe think that a final is the place to really embellish the whole thing. But that's the wrong way to go about it. Going into that final, I told myself to be conservative. Box clever. Don't go swinging loosely and get caught by a sucker punch. All-Ireland finals aren't about shooting the lights out, unless you're the type of player that regularly shoots the lights out. That was never me. So I said I'd go into that final and be miserable. Be tight to the man I was marking, get in and do the dirty work. Tackles, turnovers, the basics. READ MORE The hurling final showed what can go wrong if you get away from all that grind. This thing can blow up in your face very quickly. Cork were six points up at half-time but the game was over when young Darragh McCarthy scored his penalty. That was only a quarter of an hour later. If I was playing in the football final this Sunday, that would be running around in my head all week. Do your job, otherwise disaster might only be 15 minutes away. From a tactical point of view, I don't think there's much either manager can come up with that would be on a par with Liam Cahill playing an extra defender. Both of these teams have had their own way of playing since the start of the year and I can't see either of them pulling a rabbit from a hat now. Part of that is because Kerry football is Kerry football and Donegal football is Donegal football. Kerry's Seán O'Shea in action against Tyrone at Croke Park on July 12th. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho But part of it too is that football is still very young under the new rules. If you take what we have now as being the game that came after the rule changes halfway through the league, you're only really talking about a few months all together. I don't doubt that in time, some enterprising coaches will sit down and start looking for a way to destroy it. But the fortnight since the semi-final isn't long enough for that. That's why I think this will be an enjoyable final. It's all still very fresh and very new and you have two teams that can play thrilling football, in their own way. I know we can still have bad games under the new rules but I don't think this will be one. [ Darragh Ó Sé: Kerry and Donegal are operating at a level above because everyone knows their role Opens in new window ] For Kerry, a lot still revolves around David Clifford. Donegal will man-mark him obviously – I presume it will be Brendan McCole – but I don't think they'll drop a man in front of him. You saw how Armagh paid for that in the semi-final, with Seán O'Shea running riot in the first half because there was space out around the arc. That distance between them is something that has really struck me about the way Kerry have set up throughout the championship. You very rarely see Clifford and O'Shea close to each other. They have tended to give each other as much space as possible. Paudie Clifford is liable to pop up anywhere but the two big scorers keep their distance from each other. Donegal's Brendan McCole. Photograph: Leah Scholes/Inpho Kerry need them both to be on form because Donegal's spread of scorers is so much wider. Clifford has played in four finals so far and he's had good days and bad days. Funny enough, the game against Dublin in 2023 is the one everybody holds up as his big failure but I don't see it that way. He was so close to having a brilliant game that day – a foot either way on three shots and it would have been one of the greatest All-Ireland final performances. That's how tight the margins are. Especially in a final like this one where there's no big favourite and everybody agrees that these are the two best teams in the country. There's no cause to cling to here, or no agenda for either team to lean on. Nobody will be able to say afterwards that they were written off going into the final. There's no hiding place now. Both teams know they left a good chance at an All-Ireland behind them last year. Both of them know the work that goes into getting back to this point. Losing is not an option for either of them. The players involved have to go beyond themselves, find that extra 10, 15 per cent that will make the difference. My sense is that Kerry might just swing it. No player on the Donegal team is scoring as fluently as Clifford and I just think that with a dry ball and a summer's day, he's going to make the difference. Kerry, narrowly.
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
All-Ireland number four is Noel McGrath's sweetest yet, but he may already be plotting the drive for five
Noel McGrath is in the lobby of Malahide's Grand Hotel, patiently posing for photographs and cheerfully signing autographs. The Irish Sea just beyond the double doors is hidden beneath a low grey haze while incessant summer rain continues to soak the shoreline. It has been a dark, heavy morning across much of the country but there is a lightness to the air inside the hotel foyer. McGrath was a kid of just 19 when he won his first All-Ireland senior hurling title in 2010. On Sunday, at 34 years young, he collected his fourth Celtic Cross for Tipperary . Walking up the steps of the Hogan Stand to raise the Liam MacCarthy Cup , he brought his two-year-old son Sam with him to the plinth. READ MORE 'To be able to have my son there yesterday was probably one of the greatest things I could have done. I lifted the Liam MacCarthy with him in my arms,' says McGrath with a smile. 'I never thought in my wildest dreams that I'd be able to bring him to Croke Park [while I'm still playing], so to win an All-Ireland with him is unreal. 'That will be something I will remember forever. In time, I suppose he'll see all the pictures from it. He won't remember it but he'll have those pictures. It's special for me to be able to do that with him.' There is a second child on the way in October. Life is about to get even busier, even better. As he speaks, several of McGrath's team-mates are meandering through the lobby, floating around with expressions of total satisfaction painted across their faces. Tipperary manager Liam Cahill has taken Liam MacCarthy and a group of players to Children's Health Ireland (formerly Crumlin Children's Hospital) while others are standing around in small clusters trying to organise taxis to deliver them to one of the city's early houses. Ronan Maher with Tipperary supporter Oisín Crowe during the All-Ireland champions' visit to Children's Health Ireland at Crumlin. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho Conor Stakelum is one of those ambling around the place. This is his first experience of winning an All-Ireland SHC. 'It's the stuff of dreams really,' he says. 'I was on my phone looking at the messages, soaking it in, then I came down to the lobby here and you see everybody smiling. 'You'd always be watching the news after All-Ireland finals, dreaming about being there some day and seeing the buzz around the day after. Now you're in it.' Dillon Quirke is never far from the thoughts of this Tipperary group. Nearly three years have passed since he collapsed during a club match and was pronounced dead in hospital. For Stakelum, Sunday brought back memories of the 2018 All-Ireland under-21 final between Tipp and Cork. [ Ashamed to be seen in public just one year ago, Tipperary's redemption story defies belief Opens in new window ] 'A couple of us were out with Dan and Hazel Quirke (Dillon's parents) on Friday before training, we had a cup of tea and a scone,' says Stakelum. 'Dillon was playing that day [in 2018] and we were just chatting about that match. When we were on the bus yesterday it started to rain, and it was raining that day too. 'If things were different Dillon would be here today and no better man to enjoy it with us if he was here.' McGrath will turn 35 in December. His story of resilience and defiance has already guaranteed him a place in the pantheon of Tipp greats. In 2015 he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and just days later he underwent surgery. But he hasn't let it define him, having now added three further All-Ireland titles. He also claimed this latest one alongside his brothers, John and Brian. 'As I said after the semi-final, it never gets old,' he says of playing for Tipperary. 'As long as you're able to do it and to have days like this, it would keep anyone in good form and looking to do it again. It's great, it's unreal, it's unbelievable.' Tipperary's Conor Stakelum celebrates beating Cork in Sunday's All-Ireland final. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho The retirement question has dangled overhead for a few seasons but the blue and gold has, for now, always enticed him back. 'There's no point in saying over the last number of years that you don't think about it,' says the Loughmore-Castleiney man. 'When you're feeling good about it and when you're enjoying it, it's hard to step away, because when you're gone, you're gone. You're not going to come back at my age. 'Who knows about the future? There's no point in me saying here now what I know I'm going to do. I'd love to stay playing forever but I know that can't happen.' The temptation might be to sign off on his Tipperary career with that final act of striking over the last point of an All-Ireland final victory. It would be quite the way to go. But the lure of a possible fifth medal is real. 'I'd love to be able to give it a go and have a rattle off it next year again, but we'll go back to the club over the next few months and we'll battle it out against each other there and see what happens.' Outside, the rain continues to fall but nothing can dampen the mood of contentment swirling through the hotel. Just over McGrath's shoulder, outside the double doors, is the team bus. It'll be off to Tipperary soon. Taking Liam MacCarthy home. For the fourth time and counting, Noel McGrath will be along for the ride.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Irish Times
Clare hurler Niall Gilligan ‘lost control' and ‘punished' boy with stick, court hears
All-Ireland winning Clare hurler Niall Gilligan 'lost it' when he hit a 12-year-old child 'multiple times' with a stick in 2023, the State has said in a closing speech. At Ennis Circuit Court on Monday, Sarah Jane Comerford said Mr Gilligan 'lost control' when he 'punished' the boy for the damage caused to his Jamaica Inn hostel property in Sixmilebridge, Co Clare. Mr Gilligan, who was selected as an All Star during his inter-county career, denies a charge of assault causing harm to the boy with a stick at the hostel on October 5th, 2023. Defence counsel Patrick Whyms said Mr Gilligan was in no way trying to suggest he was entitled to punish the boy as suggested and said the boy's injuries 'are clearly regrettable'. READ MORE Mr Whyms said Mr Gilligan 'didn't know that he was dealing with a child and did not create this situation'. Mr Gilligan 'was at the end of his tether' over the vandalism to a vacant property he was trying to sell, the barrister said. Putting forward the defence of reasonable force, Mr Whyms said Mr Gilligan was at the hostel on the night of October 5th 'in the dark and believed that he was under siege'. 'Believing himself under threat and needing to protect himself and his property, Niall Gilligan needs to make an instant decision and so we are here,' said Mr Whyms, instructed by solicitor Daragh Hassett. To the jury, he said: 'Did Niall Gilligan use such force as was reasonable in the circumstances as he believed them to be? If he did then no offence was committed.' Mr Whyms said an undisplaced fracture to the finger is 'the only fracture in this case'. [ Niall Gilligan case: Former hurler said he acted in 'a reasonable manner' at time of alleged assault on boy (12) Opens in new window ] Earlier Ms Comerford, instructed by State solicitor for Clare Aisling Casey, said this is a 'story of a man who lost his cool'. 'Instead of picking up the boy after he slipped and bringing him out to his car and driving him home and telling his parents, he hit him and lost it and he was angry and frustrated,' she said. Ms Comerford said Mr Gilligan 'lost control and punished the boy for the damage and inconvenience caused to his property on a morning when he had to clean up human faeces and urine from his property'. She said the evidence of the boy and his friend 'is credible and can be relied upon to the high standard beyond reasonable doubt'. Of course the boy knew it was not okay to explore a building without permission, to let off fire extinguishers and to remove keys, she said. She said a medical report said the boy suffered a head injury, loss of consciousness, bowel incontinence and injuries to his arms and shoulders. 'He lost consciousness for a while. He must have been hit multiple times in order to have sustained as many injuries as he did in the various locations you can see in the photos taken on the night and following day,' she said. Self-defence should not be available to Mr Gilligan as a defence due to the level of force he used, she said. Judge Francis Comerford commenced his charge to the jury on Monday. The jury will begin deliberating after the judge completes his charge.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
‘We had a terrible game in-house': Tipperary bounced back from sobering loss to win All-Ireland in style
The Tipperary B team beat the A team during an in-house game just one week before the All-Ireland senior hurling final. Tipp gambled on playing Bryan O'Mara as a sweeper against Cork at Croke Park in Sunday's decider. The tactic proved to be a cornerstone to their stunning victory . However, their initial trials of playing an extra defender in training weren't exactly successful 'We trained last weekend and it didn't actually work out for us; we had a terrible game in-house, the A versus B,' said Tipperary player Eoghan Connolly. READ MORE '[The B team won] and by an awful score as well. There was wicked heat inside in Thurles last weekend and it was probably our first time playing with a plus one in a long time, since the Clare game I think. So it just took us a while to get to grips with it. But even by Friday evening, we were training and we couldn't get enough of it. 'Liam [Cahill] and Mikey [Bevans] put in massive work in the background. We got our match-ups right on Sunday and thankfully got the result. 'I have been involved since 2021 and I've been on the B team for a few years of that. It's just the competition; them boys are mad for a jersey as well. They are all so competitive, so it just drives everybody's standards that bit higher.' [ The hurling year in review: Ronan Maher leads the way for Tipperary's stunning triumph Opens in new window ] Connolly was marking Moneygall's Joe Fogarty for much of that in-house game. 'He's actually a carbon-copy of Séamus Harnedy. I got an awful licking off him last weekend – I was even half-worried as to what my form was at, to be honest,' he said. But Connolly need not have worried as he delivered a strong performance on Sunday to help Tipperary win a first All-Ireland SHC title since 2019. And he intends to be back out on the pitch next Saturday when his club Cashel King Cormacs play Clonoulty-Rossmore in a West Tipperary SHC final at Golden.
