GAA Hurling 2017

Can Tipp do 2 in a row

Will Kilkenny rise or fall 

Can Waterford and Galway improve 

Will new management teams in Clare and Limerick bring glory

Will Cork, Wexford or Dublin breakthrough 

The 2017 championship draw should be taking place soon enough

NHL 2017

1A contains Champions Clare, AI Champions Tipp, League Runners up Waterford, Kilkenny, Dublin and Cork. As always this division will be very competitive with a few shock results sure to happen

1B will be hard to call with Galway, Limerick and Wexford all fighting to get promoted to 1A. Kerry had a good campaign last year and will be a hard team to beat. Offaly and Laois (with new management teams) may find it tough 

You would imagine Davy Fitz will improve Wexford, but not to the extent of being contenders for Leinster straight off. Difficult start for him too, he was never able to help getting us over our mental block of playing KK during his time here, and Wexford have a similar block to playing them, there have been games in the past few years between them that were over about 5 minutes after throw in & Wexford simply didn't want to know. 

Good draw for one of the new management teams in Clare & Limerick, one of whom will get to the final, and happy enough with our draw, in the sense that if we were to lose to Tipp, at this point it might be better to lose in the SF than in a third final in a row. Very hard to win 3 Munsters in a row though, hasn't been done in nearly 30 years, and despite the last MF hammering, I don't think we are that far behind them & would be confident of at least giving them a close game. Don't see Cork being a factor whatsoever, they are barely at Clare & Limerick's level, never mind Tipperary's. 

Gets a mention most years, and this year, the Leinster chairman has been so dismissive of Galway's status in Leinster that it has made the national news (short of telling Galway to fcuk off, the message couldn't have been more blunt), but yet again, Galway told no home games in championship (one of the excuses yer man gave was Salthill was too far away, notwithstanding the fact there have been Leinster championship games played in Killarney last year and Ballycastle for a few years before that) and no U-21s or minors teams from Galway be allowed compete in Leinster. 

Said it in threads of the past few years, but about time Croke Park stepped in to this one & sorted it, not so much for Galway, who will survive at the top level or close to it regardless, but more so for Antrim (& possibly Kerry). In recent years, we have seen how far Antrim have fallen behind the rest at underage levels, there is an argument to be made that it's more important for their minors & U21s to play in Leinster than the senior team at this point. 

Leinster council doesn't appear to have much interest in anything bar how to maximise revenue from the Dub footballers, doing a great job at that, while at top level, there is all kinds of stuff spouted about help for weaker counties & keeping the tradition of hurling going in Antrim, but nobody can seem to see that to rebuild any team to competitiveness, you have to start with the grades below senior, and those lads need to play competitive games V teams at their own level, of which there are plenty in Leinster for Antrim to test themselves against, rather than turn up in AI U21 SF's & generally get hammered out of sight. 

He did a good job with Carlow to be fair to him, I'm delighted to hear Offaly have the likes of Hanamy and Duignan involved, it can only be positive for the county.

Just saw that Paul Flynn will be involved too? Fantastic news for the young forwards in the county.

Funnily enough, in terms of natural talent especially in Offaly they never had any problems in that department, but it seems the constant in house fighting and bitterness between clubs have really held the county back in recent years.

I'd love to see them competitive again, it's rather sad to see the plight of the county in recent years.

The footballers are making good strides having be down in the dumps for a lengthy period too.