League final place thrills Galway

Old friends will be reunited in the National Hurling League final after Galway and Tipperary passed through the semi-final double-bill in Thurles yesterday.

It will be the fourth time in seven years for the sides to meet in a league final - the most recent being a year ago when Tipperary came out as winners. The next meeting, to be played on Sunday week, is confirmed for the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick.

In front of a sun-blessed crowd of 34,600, Galway were first to claim their berth, sneaking past Waterford 2-15 to 1-15. With both teams regarding the league title as a prized possession, they provided the more memorable fare with a fearless, determined, display. In the end, two devastating goals in the second half allowed Galway the right of passage, enough to hold off a determined Waterford fightback engineered by the impressive Ken McGrath. And it puts Galway manager Mattie Murphy exactly where he wants to be.

"It's a huge bonus," he revealed afterwards. "We would have been very disappointed to return without a league final."

Galway attacked with real intent in the second half, most tellingly when Joe Rabbitte found Ollie Fahy with open ground behind him and that resulted in the first crucial goal. Their next score - like Fahy's - came with Fergal Healy darting through the centre to pistol-crack another goal past Brendan Landers.

Waterford cut the gap to a point with five minutes remaining but Galway pulled safely clear with a bit of style which suggests even better days ahead.

Waterford manager Gerald McCarthy allowed himself a smile and then put the defeat down to chances taken. "It's disappointing," he said. "I think those goals were the killer factor, especially given that we had two very good chances in the first half and couldn't convert them and that really is where the game changed."

There was a far more commanding win for Tipperary in a disappointing second semi-final. They by-passed Limerick 2-19 to 0-17 in what will be another important lesson for manager Eamonn Cregan.

His youthful Limerick side couldn't match the collective scoring velocity of Tipperary, and Cregan was blunt about their shortfall. "We conceded two goals and on both occasions the ball should have been cleared," he said. "It wasn't and we were chasing the game from then onwards. The lads have got to learn. Forwards have to chase and harry and take the chances. We didn't."

His counterpart, Nicholas English, may be happy that he has avoided a further meeting with Waterford in advance of their championship date, but he certainly wasn't bragging about their performance here.

"To be honest, it was a poor game," he admitted. "The crowd never really got involved. The players did enough to win but we were unimpressive enough. If Limerick had taken their chances in the first half, they could have made it difficult for us."

In fact, most of the supporters were already heading out with a quarter of an hour to go. Limerick were chasing the game throughout and although they did well to square things up by halftime, the wind was in Tipperary's favour for the second half and they had little difficulty pressing their advantage home.