September road

The long road to lift the cup

ONE OF the most striking features of yesterday’s match at Páirc Uí Chaoimh – apart from the collapse of Tipperary – was the low number of frees given away, especially in positions that allowed the opposition a chance to score from the placed ball. The reason is simple. Giving away a free in hurling in your own half is, nowadays, practically the same as turning around and pucking the sliotar over your own bar. You’ve just given away an almost dead-cert score.

All about the hunger not years

IT’S BECOME almost a past-time for hurling commentators to mention the “aging” Cork hurling team. But, unlike the team’s score yesterday, the numbers just don’t stand up.

The combined age of the starting home team in Páirc Uí Chaoimh yesterday was 410 – making an average of 27.3 years. Donal Óg Cusack is the most senior at 33, with Jerry O’Connor 31 (amazingly, so is Ben!). The other 12 are all still in their twenties.

For Tipperary, the combined age of the starting line-up was just 375, making an average of exactly 25 years. But Tipperary have brought several new players into the squad in the past few seasons, with no less than two of their starting forwards born in the 1990s!

And the oldest player on the pitch was Brendan Cummins at 35, with Declan Fanning, four years his junior, the only other Tipp player with a three at the start of his age.

But it’s possible the oldest team on the senior hurling championship circuit this summer will be the defending All-Ireland champions.

Say Kilkenny go with a starting line-up of PJ Ryan; Michael Kavanagh, Noel Hickey, John Dalton; Tommy Walsh, Jackie Tyrell, JJ Delaney; Derek Lyng, Michael Rice; Martin Comerford, Henry Shefflin, Eoin Larkin; Eddie Brennan, Richie Power, TJ Reid. That’s a combined age of 420. An average of exactly 28. Older than Cork. However, as Cork showed yesterday, it’s all about hunger, not years.

44 goals in just eight meetings

IT WAS little wonder that Galway didn’t have it all their own way on Saturday evening against Wexford. Sure, what had the ‘true’ Leinster county to fear from the, erm, non-Leinster county in the Leinster championship?

But, finally, after eight attempts, Galway recorded their first victory over Wexford – a record that goes back to their first meeting in 1951, and includes an All-Ireland final clash four years later, when Wexford came from behind to outscore Galway, 1-10 to three points, in the second half to claim the cup.

The Eight Championship Clashes

1951 All-Ireland Semi-final Wexford 3-11 Galway 2-9

1955 All-Ireland Final Wexford 3-13 Galway 2-8

1956 All-Ireland Semi-final Wexford 5-13 Galway 1-8

1970 All-Ireland Semi-final Wexford 3-17 Galway 5-9

1976 All-Ireland Semi-final Wexford 5-14 Galway 2-23

1976 All-Ireland Semi-final Wexford 3-14 Galway 2-14

1996 All-Ireland Semi-final Wexford 2-13 Galway 3-7

2010 Leinster First Round Galway 2-22 Wexford 1-14

Extra-terrestrial GAA players a great advert for the games

IT’S A long, long way from clips of a GAA player scoring a goal, or bursting up the field with the ball, before the camera turns to them holding down some poor animal and dosing them with whatever the TV commercial was trying to sell.

The GAA have this week unveiled two new television advertisements that will be running from now until September.

And, to be fair, they are both slick and professional looking, and each has a simple, but clever message – hammering home the idea that the GAA is part of the fabric of each community. If the revolution years on the pitch came in the 1990s, than the revolution years for GAA adverts has come in the past decade.

And it reminded us, of possibly the best of them all – Vodafone’s one for the All Stars.

You know the one, it start’s with the question: What makes a GAA All Star do it? Is it the Glamour? (as a player slides head first into muddy water during a game); The Social Life? (with views of player training on his own); The Respect? (as a typical GAA manager reads a player the riot act); Or is it something that runs deeper? (as a child stands on the side of a field, with a sign that says ‘come on Da’) Call it GAA. Better still, call it GAA.

Brilliant.

In their ads, Guinness have tended to turn GAA players into something extra-terrestrial.

There have been several that have caught the eye – especially perhaps the advert that involves a hurler taking a close-in free in the lashing rain, with the sliotar turning into a ton weight, and the defenders changing into beasts with shields. The only problem was possibly that the central character was an English actor that didn’t know a GAA hurley from a Liz Hurley. Still, it definitely beat those old GAA ads that featured images of terrified cattle.