GAA Hurling 2018

Yeah- this. Wasn't sure what happened to 4th and 5th but you are correct. 

2. Its been like that for a while.

Sensible enough in that the 2 provincial winners rewarded with all ireland semi final then 2 quarters to get their opponents. 

The term Provence needs to be taken with a pinch of salt when referring to hurling championship though  

Aye, so I hear. 

The Leinster group stage enters its last stage with Galway facing Dublin in a no contest as Galway are through and Dublin guaranteed to finish 4th. It's a place in the Leinster final for the winners of Kilkenny vs Wexford and the AI prem round for the losers (vs the Mcdonagh cup runners up) for a place in the AI QFs 

It's dog eat dog in Munster going into Round 4 with Limerick vs Waterford and Tipp vs Clare. Think Limerick will beat Waterford guaranteeing them a Munster final spot and knocking Waterford out of the championship unless Tipp/Clare draw, a Waterford win makes things very interesting going into the last day. A loss for Tipp will knock them out of the championship but a win brings them right back into it, Clare could be as good as through if they win 

Can't have any complaints about being out of the championship either, we played 3 games and lost 2 of them heavily. There are some mitigating circumstances with the injury list, but in the bigger picture, we ideally needed to kick on & improve from last year and the truth is we didn't find the players to enable us to do that in the league. The notion of us being able to beat teams easily with no sweeper system and that McGrath was somehow holding us back all along got exposed for the myth it always was today. We have a large collection of very decent forwards who are all operating in or around the same level, but we are lacking a consistent aerial ball winner, and one of those lads like Mullane, a fella who gets 2 or 3 points even on a bad day, every day. The one fella capable of rising above that level and our top scorer from play from the last 3 years played at CB in the last 2 games, and yet an amount of experts around here will tell ya that it is his best position. It very clearly isn't. 

Have to give full credit to Limerick, they are an extremely well coached side, their movement today was brilliant, pulled our defence all over the shop, and the speed and numbers in which they arrive to breaking ball would remind ya of some of the great KK sides. They have a huge appetite for work and winning dirty ball. Right now, they are probably the 2nd best team in the country behind Galway. 

Didn't see Clare & Tipp, but I'm delighted Tipp are out, not because of any dislike for Tipp, but it would have been very unfair on Clare had they lost out on a Munster final or top 3 place because of the 'goal' awarded to Tipp V WD in a game Clare weren't even involved in. 

Anyway, sure we still have the football to sustain us for another fortnight..................

Need a change of management, Derek has done a great job but has brought us as far as he can

The next appointment is very important and we need the right man. Have a feeling we won't go for an outside man and Fergal Hartley will get the job. He is not a great manager imo and will set us back years 

I think Waterford would be well advised to stick with Derek McGrath if he wants to carry on. In a similar vein I don't understand the clamour to get rid of Michael Ryan in Tipp. 

Munster is ultra-competitive and my view is that it was simply one of those years for Waterford - everything that could go wrong did. 

No team in Munster is going anywhere for a while - the cut throat nature of the format is something supporters will simply have to live with, and two very good teams will lose out each year for the foreseeable future. 

Even still, Waterford should have been going into the Cork game knowing a win would have given them a great chance of qualifying - dreadful umpiring in the Tipp game saw to that. 

Big decisions to be made in Waterford. What do ye think deise lads?

http://https://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/hurling/comment-dise-golden-generation-at-crossroads-if-derek-mcgrath-goes-37004269.html

The next fella's appointment is important to get right, but realistically, much the same players are going to be available and I wouldn't be expecting any major changes to the playing style. Think players going travelling/taking time out is going to be a feature of the GAA in most counties and don't think it is necessarily limited to us. Lads that do go travelling are usually under 24, the main spine of our team is a bit older than that, and bar Brick, Moran & long term No.2 keeper Iggy, some or all of whom may yet stay on, we don't have that many at an age they would be thinking about retirement either. 

I think any new manager's job will be to tweak things a bit & evolve the team with a few new players, as well as adding a bit of depth in certain positions if possible,  but it won't be a revolution type thing like DMG himself did in his 2nd year where he cleared out half the squad, there is no need for anything like that yet, and there aren't all that many outside the existing squad going to break through anyway in my view, whatever about existing panel members becoming first 15 men. 

One of the things anyone should insist on, whether it is DMG or a new fella, is getting an alternative home venue (KK being the likliest, Wexford Park would be grand too) while the WP saga continues. Tony Browne made a valid point in the Examiner during week, he pointed out Spurs had no home this year, but they weren't expected to play Man U in the Emirates, Man City at Stamford Bridge & Liverpool in the London Arena as well as playing away to those teams, which kind of sums up the ridiculousness of it. As much as I have no time for the bandwagon fans, the team and manager could do with numbers supporting them in games, and our games this year showed that those numbers won't go to Limerick or Ennis. I also have zero confidence in the ability of our CB to make that happen.