Search Results for 'Brian Concannon'

Galway 3-25 Kilkenny 1-16

It is hard to believe how much water has flowed under the bridge since Galway’s last All-Ireland final appearance in 2018. That campaign seemed to be trucking along nicely before Limerick edged Galway in the final to end a 45-year Liam MacCarthy famine.

Championship changes everything. The margin for error disappears, the intensity lifts a notch and every decision — on and off the field — carries that bit more weight.

Survival but no finals or silverware. That’s the bottom line for Galway’s two flagship GAA teams after their National League campaigns wrapped up last weekend.

The safety nets no longer exist in the Galway Senior Championship from this point on, with every team that takes to the field fully aware that their season rests on the outcome of this game.

Though there have been a fair few one-sided affairs up to this juncture, of the sixteen teams in the Galway Senior Hurling Championship, only one team, Oranmore/Maree, has nothing riding on this weekend.

Below is a group-by-group preview of the Senior A and B hurling competitions, and a few predictions on each group.

The Greenhills Hotel on the Ennis Road was my destination of choice and the place was packed full of Tipperary and Galway supporters. You certainly would not have thought you were just 400 metres from the clubhouse of Na Piarsaigh – All-Ireland winners in 2016 - when the roof nearly came off the place after 14-man Dublin produced a monumental shock to unceremoniously dump the Treaty out.

Successive wins over Offaly, Wexford, Antrim, and Dublin have put Galway exactly where they would have wanted to be at the start of the campaign, with a guaranteed place in an All-Ireland quarter final and a chance to annex the Bob O’Keeffe Cup back to the west for only the fourth time.

Micheál Donoghue’s return as Galway senior hurling manager can already be graded a solid B grade on a report card, regardless of what happens from this point forward. Given where the team stood last year to where they are now, Donoghue Part Deux has already been a clear success.