Dublin v Kildare 28th June

...Aaaand we're back!
Apologies for the two week hiatus - An insane wedding and bruised knuckles from the Dublin Junior Hurling Championship laid me low for a while but we're back on track and raring to go.
Still on a massive high after Westmeath's amazing win today against Meath, and I feel this game may just be the methadone I need to bring me back to normality.

The burning questions for today's game: Can Kildare mount a chall....
Actually, let's not bother. This is going to be a hiding.

Our commentary team for today's game: Marty Morrissey and Kevin McStay.

Also joining us through the magic of Whatsapp are my buddies Dave and Ted - I feel I will need all the help I can get to lash out a readable blog from this game.

National Anthem check: No opera singers. Perfect.

First Half

4 mins: Fantastic dispossession by Jonny Cooper prevents a certain Kildare goal - great corner back play.

8 mins: Goal for Dean Rock, set up well by Philly McMahon. Too easy.

Kevin McStay: "Almost a no-look pass there."

9 mins: Classic Marty Morrissey overreaction as Diarmuid Connolly taps over a point from 12 yards.

"Look at the skill of Connolly!"

A Kildare player is receiving medical treatment and the play is stopped.

Marty Morrissey: "Ollie Lyons has a hand difficulty".

13 mins: Goal for Bernard Brogan as his vicious first time shot smashes Connolly in the face. Brogan curtails his celebrations to check on his teammate.

Marty Morrissey: "Diarmuid Connolly might need an Anadin for that headache."


My buddy Dave is settling in nicely for the game:

Nice bit of grub Davey.


Dave: Michael Darragh needs a new hairstyle (thumbs down).

Me: Christ, Kildare are pathetic.

Dave: Bored, gonna start scoring the hairstyles:

Michael Darragh - 3 on 10 (thumbs down)
Brogan: 8 on 10...handsome bastard
Dean Rock: 6 on 10

16 mins: A nice touch as there is a round of applause from the Hill to mark the deaths of the students in Berkeley, and also the two Dublin supporters who died recently in Portmarnock. This has been well publicised all week, but Marty has absolutely no idea what's going on, as he says uncertainly:

"Eh, a round of applause there..."

23 mins: Goal chance for Kildare fired wide.

Marty: "There was a bend on it, but it was bending outside."

31 mins: Bernard Brogan turns and shoots from straight in front of goal, 21 yards out. Routine score but Marty's having none of it:

"Brogan with a lovely score from a difficult enough angle".

Me: MDMA is difficult enough to warm to...not the drug obviously.

Ted: Huh? MDMA?

Me: Macauley's nickname

Ted: Nice name.

Me: I think Connolly's nickname should be 'Heroin'.

Dave: Conway's hair: 7 on 10.

Me: I think all the Dublin players should be made to smoke 5 Rothmans at halftime

36 mins: Goal for Connolly. At his ease. Nice lazy finish.

Kevin McStay: "The oxygen has been taken out of the Kildare support."

Halftime score: Dublin 3-10 Kildare 0-6.

Dublin are coasting here - even with Cluxton struggling to find his mark with several kickouts, it has been a cakewalk. Jonny Cooper has given an exhibition of corner back play, and Ciaran Kilkenny has been on fire at the other end, with four points from play.

Halftime Analysis

Brolly: The balls to the Dublin full forward line have been delivered with a cushion and a top hat. Football of the very highest order.

Spillane: Superb.

Dave: Looking forward to scoring the pundits:

Darragh Moloney - 6 on 10
Brolly - 4 on 10
Spillane - 1 on 10
Poor showing from Kerry so far.

Dave (on Spillane):  shocking, looks like his hair was cut with a hedge trimmer.

Dave: Wowza,

Me: Brogan was at our club last week coaching kids. Apparently all the mothers were there in full makeup.

Dave: LOL

Spillane: This is Barcelona playing Yeovil Town.

Brolly: I remember speaking to Bernard Brogan in a nightclub, we were having a few drinks.

Spillane (interrupting): Jesus.

Brolly speaks about how Dublin have tweaked their playing style this year:

"Dublin last year was the Harlem Globetrotters playing against white men."


Second Half

42 mins Jim Gavin is giving the subs a run, nice to see.

46 mins: Marty: "The player that's going off is the yellow card, Tommy White."

47 mins: Mark Donnellan in the Kildare goal has made two fine saves since the break.

48 mins: Referee David Coldrick is clearly bored and is running around Croke Park flashing double yellow cards to anyone misbehaving. Lazy refereeing really, and a contrast to the fine refereeing performance in the Meath Westmeath game.

49 mins: A ringing endorsement of Kildare by Marty:

"Several of these Kildare players are still giving 100%."

Dave: I said earlier that McMemamin looks like Dessie Farrell, I meant Charlie Redmond. Just wanted to clear that up.

Me: Not a great compliment. Redmond was very dog-like. A dog with a sweet right foot.

Dave: Alan Brogan 7 on 10

Me: Combined haircut score of Brogans: 16 on 20.

Dave: Solid performance yeah. They obviously spur each other on.

With Dublin 12 points ahead, Kevin McStay has seen enough and puts the boot in:

"OK there's a big margin on the scoreboard, but not in the performance." I'd say they're fairly happy with it Kevin.

58 mins: An 'entanglement' breaks out in the middle of the field. In rushes David Coldrick...what will the decision be I wonder?
Two yellows!
Jonny Cooper on the ground with an arm across his throat will be delighted with that.

62 mins: Penalty to Dublin and a black card for the Kildare keeper. On comes the sub goalie for his first taste of intercounty football, facing a Diarmuid Connolly penalty.

Kevin McStay: "Best of luck with that, as they say."

Dave: Sub keeper 4 on 10.

Connolly buries the penalty and Kevin has words of encouragement for Kildare:

"There's life after this for Kildare, remember the qualifiers are there." Inspirational!

67 mins: Simple goal for Bernard Brogan as he plays a one-two with Paddy Andrews and the ball is almost walked into the net.

Marty: "That really is something special!"

Full time: Dublin 5-17 Kildare 0-14

Marty: "For Jim Gavin, this game is over".
Kevin McStay: "You'd have to be impressed".

What have we learned today? Nothing really. Dublin are really, really good at hammering bad teams, but we knew that last year. The big tests are yet to come, and how they can react to adversity remains to be seen.

Bernard Brogan's post-match interview:

Dave: Dat 'do though...

Me: Jesus, Brogan keeps the hair well during the match. He probably gets a touch up at halftime when he should be having his fags.


Post-Match Analysis

Spillane clearly had the calculator out in the last few minutes, and besides spelling out 'BOOBS' and showing it to Joe, he is rattling off average winning margins and scoring rates and all sorts of other figures.

Brolly: "Dublin are ambitious, honest and entertaining. You'll never be bored watching the Dubs."

Spillane: "There were 50,000 here at the start of the game and still 30 to 35,000 left at full time. That's because Dublin are beautiful to watch."

 I make that a 30% reduction in numbers Pat.

Brolly has been trying his best to needle Pat all afternoon to no avail, and has one last pop:

"Kerry won the All-Ireland last year and nobody outside Kerry gave a damn."

No reaction.

Pat finishes things off for us with his usual cutting edge insight into modern Gaelic football:

"If you want to compete against Dublin, you have to get stuck into them."

If only Jason Ryan was so wise...


Right, sin a bhfuil...

Tune in next week when we have a double header of Cork games to give out about. I swore blind I would never travel to Killarney again after last time, but you never know...


Slán.

Cork vs Waterford 7th June

Munster Hurling Semi Final Cork vs Waterford

Welcome one and all to the Munster Hurling semi final between Cork and Waterford from Semple Stadium – a rematch of this year's league final that Waterford won comfortably five weeks ago.

The general consensus seems to be that Cork will have learned from the league final and have Waterford's style of play sussed out – I'm not so sure – Cork should have known full well of Waterford's gameplan coming into the league final having seen them beat Tipperary in the semi, but it didn't seem to matter that day.

Waterford's game is reliant on good use of the ball, short passing and long range shooting, and at the back, denying space and goal chances with extra defenders.

Padraic Mahony is a huge loss for them today, having accounted for more than half of their scores in the league.

Cork must use the ball better today – in the league final, they played into Waterford's hands by raining long, aimless deliveries down on top of their outnumbered full forward line and were caught out by Waterford's powerful running from the middle of the field.

Bad news for Cork before the throw in, as Seamus Harnedy is ruled out through injury, to be replaced by Patrick Cronin.

Pre-game Analysis

Joining Darragh Moloney today for the pregame analysis are Cyril Farrell and Liam Sheedy.

Darragh: “Cork know what to expect from Waterford today, or do they?”

Cyril: “Jimmy Barry Murphy should say to his players, we'll play our system today, whatever it is.”

Indeed Cyril, that's exactly what Cork people are afraid of.

Cyril seems particularly agitated today, like a man who downed a pot of strong coffee five minutes before coming on air, one sentence rear-ending the previous almost before it exists.

Down we go to our commentary team of Ger Canning and Brendan Cummins.

Canning sets out his stall early by launching straight into the nonsense – this is championship hurling after all.

“A little birdie told me that Maurice Shanahan was here in Semple Stadium during the week practising frees. That little birdie was a robin redbreast from Cork.”

First Half

1 min Point from Conor Lehane featuring some good short passing in the buildup.

2 mins Mark Ellis comes forward from the half back line and hits a good score.

5 mins Two early wides from Maurice Shanahan, Waterford look nervous and slow to settle.

8 mins Patrick Horgans fluffs a decent goal chance, with Alan Cadogan inside him screaming for a handpass. A tad selfish and the kind of goal chance that a team like Kilkenny would convert as a matter of routine.

10 mins Seven wides already for Waterford, mostly from long range efforts.

15 mins Two points on the bounce by the much-maligned Pa Cronin, the first set up really well by Alan Cadogan.

Canning: “Cork's players are all in college, or have been.”

17 mins Three bad wides now for Aidan Walsh, at least two of which could have delivered into the full forward line.

21 mins Daniel Kearney is everywhere today, popping over a point having been back defending in his own full back line moments ago.

Score Cork 0-05 Waterford 0-02

Mark Ellis comes forward again but this time misses the target from a good position.

Brendan Cummins makes the standard “That's why he's a defender” comment which sends Canning into hysterics. Good stuff.

24 mins Colin Dunford shows an electrifying turn of pace to race away from the Cork defence and head for goal. He takes a good flaking from at least three Cork players before eventually being hauled down inside the square. Referee Barry Kelly awards a 21 yard free when a penalty was probably deserved.

26 mins Goal for Waterford! Maurice Shanahan fields a high ball over Damien Cahalane, turns and rifles the ball into the top corner of the net. Even Nash's flying hurley couldn't stop that one. Where was Shane O'Donnell? Cahalane was Cork's last line of defence there, jumping for the ball with two Waterford men.

27 mins Great long range score by Tadhg de Burca for Waterford to put them one ahead.

Score Cork 0-07 Waterford 1-05

Cork's play has become fairly aimless, hitting high balls in the direction of Waterford's sweeper in the half back line.

28 mins Point by Luke O'Farrell – a notable feature of the first half has been the combination play of Bill Cooper and Pa Cronin.

29 mins Unbelievable stuff! Another goal for Waterford – Jake Dillion takes a pass on the move from Brick Walsh and buries the ball past Anthony Nash. Cormac Murphy badly caught out ball watching. There didn't seem to be much danger and Cork had numbers back, but Murphy was asleep.

32 mins Pa Cronin's physical presence is causing problems for Waterford as he taps over his third point of the half.

33 mins Alan Cadogan is really struggling to keep his feet today, it's almost as if he tries to turn with the ball too quickly for his own legs.

34 mins Canning accidentally says 'Fuck' as he can't decide whether he wants to say 'puck' or 'free'.

One of the highlights of an action-packed first half.

36 mins Good point by Cadogan to finish the half for Cork. Three point in a row now to answer the last Waterford goal.

Half time score: Cork 0-11 Waterford 2-06

Canning: “Only a point in it at halftime, it could not be any closer.”

Well, it could, but, you know...

An entertaining half in which Cork were well on top for about 25 minutes. By and large they have used possession well, hitting short puckouts and working the ball forward with short passes to the free men around the middle. Cronin and Cooper are getting a lot of possession with time and space to operate in. When they hit the ball aimlessly long, Waterford inevitably benefit.

At the other end, the Cork backs seems confused by the lack of structure of the Waterford attack. Steven O'Donnell is getting drawn away from the edge of the square, and only for the excellence of Anthony Nash, Waterford would have scored another goal. They have also hit nine wides, mostly from difficult long range shots.

Half time Analysis

Cyril Farrell analyses Waterford's first half goal chances so quickly that he has the two goals described before the first one is shown hitting the net. He is badly out of sync now as Nash is shown making a fine save as Cyril says “Bang! Back of the net”.

Second Half

37 mins Two points in a row from frees for Maurice Shanahan, the second coming from a silly foul by Damien Cahalane on Brick Walsh.

38 mins Anothony Nash is going long with his puckouts. This was Cork's downfall in the league final...

41 mins Shane Fives is having a fine game on Alan Cadogan, not giving him room to breathe.

Cork's gameplan is starting to unravel a little bit, things are getting panicky. Nash is trying to go short with most of his restarts, but the Cork back receiving the pass (mainly Shane O'Neill) is just lumping it aimlessly forward instead of looking for a short ball to a nearby teammate. Exactly what Waterford want.

44 mins This may be the first time I have ever typed these words – Good work from the umpire! – as he spots that Pa Cronin's effort had gone over the bar before being batted back into play by O'Keefe.

Cork 0-13 Waterford 2-10

46 mins Leaving Cert student Shane Bennett scores with his first touch, Waterford are threatening to run away with this.

49 mins Lovely score by Steven Bennett after a powerful run by Austin Gleeson. He is a force to be reckoned with carrying the ball out of defence.

52 mins To me, Waterford look fitter and physically stronger than Cork – Maurice Shanahan outmuscles Steven McDonnell to set up Kevin Moran for a nice point.

Brendan Cummins has been excellent in co-commentary today, if a little too effusive in his praise of both goalkeepers. He is currently sitting in second place my co-commentary league, just trailing the grouchy pragmatism of Dónal O'Grady.

53 mins Patrick Cronin's fifth point of the day! He has been outstanding and I have been very critical of him in the past. He is finding a lot of space out there today and making good use of it.

56 mins Aidan Walsh goes for a score from a sideline ball and drives it well wide. WARNING – INCOMING SIDELINE BALL RANT!

Just because you are capable of getting good distance on a sideline cut doesn't mean that you have to try and put every single one of them over the bar. I blame Joe Canning for making the sideline cut sexy, now everyone wants to score them. I have no idea of the conversion rate but if I had to guess I would say somewhere around 10-15%. Just not worth it. Use the sideline cut to go short where possible, and if not, drop the ball into a dangerous area and put the defence under some sort of pressure.

I'm all in favour of awarding two points for a converted sideline, and that might justify attempting such a difficult shot at goal, but until then – JUST STOP FECKIN SHOOTING!

58 mins Another burst of extreme pace from Dunford wins Waterford a free in front of goal. Shanahan converts.

With all the talk of Leaving Certs today, it hasn't been a good day for Ger Canning's maths:

“Maurice Shanahan has done every bit as well as Paudric Mahony could have done today on the frees, he's only missed one.”

63 mins Red Card for Luke O'Farrell for an off-the-ball incident spotted by an umpire. No idea what happened, and no replay.

65 mins Shane O'Neill loses possession from a short puckout and Shane Bennett gets another good score.

69 mins Penalty for Cork! Great catch and strength by Conor Lehane, surrounded by four defenders. He has really tried hard to take on the Waterford defence in the second half.

Brilliantly taken penalty by Patrick Horgan – hard and low to the keeper's bad side. No chance for O'Keefe. Only two points in it now!

72 mins Ugh – game over – Waterford waltz through for another goal almost immediately. Well set up again by Brick Walsh, delaying the pass until the right moment and finished at the third attempt by Tom Devine.

Final Score: Cork 1-21 Waterford 3-19

Waterford remain unbeaten in 2015, and today scored 3-19, hit fourteen wides and forced three very good saves from Anthony Nash. All over the field they were stronger, faster and crucially, more composed than Cork.

In the early stages, Cork seemed to have an effective gameplan in place, but for reasons unknown, drifted away from it as the game wore on. The player receiving the short puckout must have the confidence and composure to find a teammate with a short pass and build the attack from there. Every aimless ball down the field was swallowed up by the Waterford defence and drained Cork's belief.

A game like today's was tailor-made for Conor O'Sullivan – he could have played as a sweeper in front of the full back line and would be the ideal target for Nash's short puckouts – he actually wants the ball in those situations and always uses it well. No point in dwelling on that now I suppose...

So, the round 1 qualifier minefield for Cork, along with Dublin and Clare. Waterford are into a Munster final against either Tipperary or Limerick and are developing into a really exciting, well organised young team with no fear of the traditional big names.

Post Match Analysis

Darragh Moloney: “You can teach fellas anything, but you can't teach them not to panic.”

Cyril Farrell, still agitated and excited, wraps things up for us – there is simply no way I can keep up with him so just had to jot done phrases here and there:

“Cork's lack of underage success...can Waterford challenge for an All-Ireland...Leaving Cert...playing to their system...Brick Walsh and Gleeson...Nash played well...Bennett isn't as fast as the brother...his father is kind of working away behind the scenes...Cork needed goals but twas Waterford got them...” all delivered in about ten manic seconds.

I think we all need to take a breath after that.

Slán, and get well soon to Michael Lyster.