So the munster under 21 championship is starting this evening.
I have to say that on paper limerick look very strong and with the panel they have they should win the all ireland.
From our own perspective we have some excellent players but a lot of the others i dont think would be up to this level or certainly not the level of past under 21 teams.
Players like david fitzgerald, jason mccarthy, ian galvin and aron shanagher will have to drive this team on. A lot will be expected from those quality 4 players.
With them we will have a strong spine but unfortunetaly our first game will be against the winners of tipp and limerick, which would be expected to be limerick as tipp look to have a pretty young team this year!
Elsewhere in munster cork will be pretty good - they have collins in goals who must be playing his 4th or 5th year under 21!! Then they have the outstanding coleman, luke meade, darragh fitzgibbon and shane kingston. They will face wateford who look pretty good as well. They have patrick curran, conor gleeson and shane bennett.
Overall limerick definitely look strongest while tipp suprisingly may be the weakest of the 5!!
Its just unfortunate that we have the winners of tipp and limerick on july 12th. I would have prefered to avoid potentially playing limerick in our first game!! It will be interesting though to see how limerick handle the favouritism tag, particular if we meet after they have comprehensively beaten tipp! They may fall into the trap of believing their own hype and taking their eye off the ball!!
Replying To hurlingexpert: "So the munster under 21 championship is starting this evening.
I have to say that on paper limerick look very strong and with the panel they have they should win the all ireland.
From our own perspective we have some excellent players but a lot of the others i dont think would be up to this level or certainly not the level of past under 21 teams.
Players like david fitzgerald, jason mccarthy, ian galvin and aron shanagher will have to drive this team on. A lot will be expected from those quality 4 players.
With them we will have a strong spine but unfortunetaly our first game will be against the winners of tipp and limerick, which would be expected to be limerick as tipp look to have a pretty young team this year!
Elsewhere in munster cork will be pretty good - they have collins in goals who must be playing his 4th or 5th year under 21!! Then they have the outstanding coleman, luke meade, darragh fitzgibbon and shane kingston. They will face wateford who look pretty good as well. They have patrick curran, conor gleeson and shane bennett.
Overall limerick definitely look strongest while tipp suprisingly may be the weakest of the 5!!
Its just unfortunate that we have the winners of tipp and limerick on july 12th. I would have prefered to avoid potentially playing limerick in our first game!! It will be interesting though to see how limerick handle the favouritism tag, particular if we meet after they have comprehensively beaten tipp! They may fall into the trap of believing their own hype and taking their eye off the ball!!"
Hex who is over the 21s this year? Limerick look to be a bit ahead of everyone, should be big favs for the AI. They have a very strong team.
So as i has thought limerick were far too strong. They could have had 4 goals in the first 15 minutes. So we were lucky the margin wasnt far greater. Although our lads did almost make a game of it in scoring the first 5 points of the second half, but a few silly frees took the game away from us again. Aaron gillane was exceptional, 14 points 8 from play is some return.
Just on our own team, david fitzgerald started in thr half forward line. He was there for about 25 minutes, he did reasonably well, winning maybe 3 of our puckouts - between catches and collecting breaks. He was brought back and used as a sweeper for the last few minutes of the first half and then played as an orthodox center back in the second half. I wonder will senior management have noticed his ability under puckouts in looking ahead to tipp!!
Shanagher and mccarthy both showed glimpses of their quality but failed to really influence the game as they would have liked. I would start each of these 3 lads against tipp..