Waterford stuck in limbo in Munster championship
Waterford’s imminent exit from the championship will ignite the annual hang wringing about hurling teams being eliminated in the middle of May. Instinctively, it feels wrong. Walsh Park emptied under the black cloud of a huge fire in a nearby industrial estate on Saturday night and it won’t host another intercounty match for eight months.
Waterford’s record in seven editions of the round robin format, though, is now just four wins from 27 matches. As it happens, they have beaten everyone in Munster over the years, except Limerick, the team they must overcome this weekend to keep any faint hopes alive.
It is by far the poorest record of any county who has taken part in every round robin since the format started in 2018. Offaly have only appeared three times in the Leinster round robin and their record now is one win from 12 games. But their draws against Kilkenny and Dublin this year are their best performances since this format was introduced.
The nature of the Leinster championship at the moment, with no serious All-Ireland contenders in its ranks, gives improving teams half a chance. Waterford don’t have that latitude in a province that has produced the last eight All-Ireland champions and 12 of the last 16 All-Ireland finalists.
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The strange anomaly in Waterford’s recent record is that when the championship reverted to a backdoor format during the pandemic, they won six matches in two seasons. Three of those wins were against Leinster teams, which is the kind of oxygen they crave now. Looking over the fence at the province next door they can see low-hanging fruit.
But changing the rules to allow four teams to advance from each province is not the answer – as Waterford players and management have suggested over the last year. In the life of the round robin system, they have played Tipperary seven times and lost just twice. In this year’s championship all three of their games were in the melting pot in stoppage time. It is not beyond their capability to break through. Denis Walsh
Hope and history rhyme for Roscommon
Roscommon – and Connacht – football enjoyed a great weekend, despite all the fretful muttering about the provincial finals being overshadowed by the All-Ireland draw taking place a week in advance.
A capacity crowd of 22,799 thronged King & Moffatt Dr Hyde Park for a thrilling final, capped by a majestic comeback from the home team. Hope and history rhymed for Roscommon, as their minors last Friday and under-20s the previous week had already won their provincial titles.
Senior captain Diarmuid Murtagh said afterwards that they had watched their under-20 counterparts, together as a team after training.
“Yeah, you get loads of energy off that definitely. We actually watched under-20s final together as a group, as some of the lads have siblings playing and obviously Cian Smith is the manager and that’s Enda’s brother, so it was a lovely thing to do to watch them together, just shows that kind of closeness within Roscommon that we’re all supporting each other.”
All of that hope for the future crystallised on a day when their 2001 predecessors, captained by Fergal O’Donnell, were honoured on their silver jubilee in a half-time presentation.
That history was in turn recognised when Murtagh acknowledged in his acceptance speech, the losses since then of three deceased players: Don Connellan, Conor Connelly and Ger Michael Grogan. He explained later:
“Again, we’re not a big county, so we’re really close in the community ... I think that is very important. We have that connection with that 2001 team now forever, which is a really nice thing for us going forward.”
They head into the All-Ireland stages with the county’s first clean sweep of provincial titles now complete. Tyrone will be the next visitors to the Hyde the week after next. Seán Moran
Kerry flex their muscles and show strength in depth
Sometimes it takes time for players to settle into a team. Especially an All-Ireland winning team from Kerry. This time last year, Mark O’Shea and Seán O’Brien were “peripheral players”, according to their manager Jack O’Connor, but not any more.
If Sunday’s Munster football final in Killarney tested the strength and depth of the Kerry panel to near breaking point, O’Shea and O’Brien proved to O’Connor their safe hands and clean heels, a midfield partnership now the envy of the country. Such was O’Brien’s enthusiasm in the victory over Cork, he had to retire on 55 minutes after injuring himself in one particularly spectacular midfield catch.
Afterwards, O’Shea recalled playing in the primary schools at half-time in another Munster football final, not that long ago, and along with O’Brien, has afforded O’Connor some peace of mind as up to a dozen of his panel are carrying an injury of some kind.
“Some people were saying last year that we didn’t have depth,” said O’Connor. “Now I think we’ve proven that we have a bit of depth, with the amount of bodies that are out, and fellas coming in, but Seán O’Brien has really grown in the last 12 months. He was catching those kind of balls here in training. I’ve always said to the selectors that training never lies, and last Tuesday evening Seán O’Brien was catching those balls in training and he carried that right into the game. Great to see. And Mark is so steady and such a cool head around the place.”
O’Shea also pointed to the importance of that strength in depth, set to be tested again in their All-Ireland rematch against Donegal on Saturday week.
“That’s the one thing inside, everyone is confident that there’s two or three fellas to come in and do a job once one fella goes down,” said O’Shea. “There’s fierce confidence in the squad as a whole, it’s a great sign.”
And a warning sign to others, perhaps, as the race for the Sam Maguire soon begins. Ian O’Riordan
Homegrown managers bring silver lining
Homegrown managers are set for a clean sweep of provincial titles in both codes.
In football, seven of the eight provincial finalists have a native manager at the helm – with Mark McHugh in Westmeath being the outlier. The former Donegal player is the only outside bainisteoir to have brought a team to a provincial final this year.
Over the weekend, Roscommon’s Mark Dowd managed his county to a Connacht final win over Pádraic Joyce’s Galway, while in Munster Jack O’Connor led Kerry to victory over John Cleary’s Cork.
Next weekend’s two remaining provincial football deciders will see Kieran McGeeney take his native Armagh to face Gabriel Bannigan’s Monaghan in an Ulster final in Clones.
And the Leinster decider at Croke Park will be contested by Ger Brennan’s Dublin (though he is currently serving a suspension, with Dean Rock deputising) and Westmeath.
Should the Dubs win the Delaney Cup, all four provincial football titles will have been claimed by homegrown managers.
Three of the four provincial football titles were won by local bosses in 2025 – Ulster (Jim McGuinness, Donegal), Connacht (Padraic Joyce, Galway), Munster (Jack O’Connor, Kerry). Louth’s historic Leinster triumph was masterminded by Brennan, before he moved to take charge of Dublin.
There was a clean sweep in 2024 though when all the provincial silverware was collected by locally managed teams – Ulster (Jim McGuinness, Donegal), Connacht (Pádraic Joyce, Galway), Munster (Jack O’Connor, Kerry) and Leinster (Dessie Farrell, Dublin).
Given the prevalence of local managers in hurling’s top tier, it’s little surprise that both the 2026 Leinster and Munster SHC finals are set to be contested by teams with one of their own in charge.
All five Munster counties have native bosses at the helm while Galway’s Johnny Kelly (Offaly) and Kilkenny’s Brian Dowling (Kildare) are the only outside managers currently operating in the Leinster SHC. Gordon Manning
Liam Rushe has day to remember in cutting off Lee Chin
Award for Straight Face of the Weekend goes to Dublin manager Niall Ó Ceallacháin. As an uncongenial wind whistled through the tunnel under the main stand in Wexford Park on Saturday evening, Ó Ceallacháin was asked about Liam Rushe. The defender who won his first All Star all the way back in 2011 had just made his first start for Dublin in five years and hadn’t looked out of place, even though he’s a month short of turning 36.
“Yeah, Liam is a great man, a great character,” said the Dublin manager. “Like, he has nothing intercounty under the belt for multiple years. A lot of it comes down to mindset, however, and Liam certainly has that. He did have a huge impact on that game. Ended up marking Lee Chin for a lot or most of that game, how it panned out.”
How it panned out! As though Dublin had prepped for the game by leaving it up to chance how they were going to approach shutting down Wexford’s main (only?) threat. As if parachuting Rushe into the team at the last minute – he was one of two changes to the team named in the programme – was anything other than a plan designed to curb Chin’s influence on the game.
Whither or which, it worked a treat. Chin only got off four shots from play all game. The Wexford crowd were constantly on the back of Mark Fanning for going short with his puck-outs but because Rushe had Chin’s number under the long ones, the Wexford goalie didn’t have many other options.
All in all, it was an excellent display from Rushe. How it panned out. Malachy Clerkin
