The beauty of All Ireland finals is that while it’s a great day for hurling or football, it’s also a great day for betting opportunities. A quick look at Ladbrokes.com’s range of markets for Sunday’s match reveals that roughly sixty different betting markets are available, and while many of those are of the coin toss variety, others offer opportunities that cannot be found at any other time of year.
Scoring totals and matchups between players are always well worthy of analysis, however the questions hanging over Kilkenny’s team selection means that there is a little bit too much speculation involved in such bets this year. We may revisit those tomorrow depending on the selection announced by the Kilkenny management team tonight, but for now these bets are best parked. Another interesting selection however is that of a penalty to be awarded to both teams, a 6/1 shot for Kilkenny and a 7/1 chance about Tipperary being awarded one. Both these selections look like decent value, however in particular, the price about Kilkenny being awarded the placed ball opportunity looks hugely appealing.
The Cats have been awarded three penalties in their last twelve championship fixtures, including last year’s controversial call in the closing stages of the All Ireland final against Sunday’s opponents. Eddie Brennan and Richie Power’s pace and incision often leads to the penalty being awarded and both those players should spend plenty of time close to goal on Sunday, presuming of course Eddie Brennan starts, which is uncertain at the time of writing.
Of course the other side of this equation is looking at how many Tipperary concede, and this is where our appetite is whetted even further. Since Liam Sheedy took over in late 2007, Tipperary have played twelve championship fixtures and though they’ve yet to be awarded one, they’ve conceded five penalties in those fixtures, including, of course, last year’s final. The Tipperary full back line is not exactly a replica of the Hell’s Kitchen model of half a century ago, however they are known to stand up to running opposition players and could very easily concede close range fouls. Referee Michael Wadding is widely recognised as a good, competent and fair referee however he too has a track record of approximately one penalty awarded in every three championship matches, and he won’t shy away if a big call needs to be made.
At the other end of the field, Tipperary’s tendency to try and spread the play out and to restrict the number of players operating on the inside line does not lend itself to close range frees. Lar Corbett and Eoin Kelly are usually the two men who will operate closest to goal however both of these men do a lot of their hurling coming out and taking the ball off the half forwards before shooting from middle distances. 7/1 is still a healthy price, but the 6/1 about Kilkenny being awarded one is very much the eye catching selection and could easily be a genuine 3/1 or 4/1 shot. This column recommends a 2pt bet on Kilkenny being awarded a penalty at 6/1 but stops short of recommending such a wager on the Tipp side, though we certainly wouldn’t discourage anyone who would like to double up their investment by covering the other side as well.
Category: GAA
Kilkenny’s record over the past five years has been discussed in great detail all across the nation’s media, however perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of their championship performances in that time has been the scarcity of games where the Cats have even been in any sort of trouble. This year is the perfect example – not alone have the All Ireland champions returned to Croke Park to defend their title, they have done so by comfortably beating every opponent that they met along the way. Most unbeaten runs of this nature would be peppered with narrow escapes, matches where either the break of the ball or perhaps a piece of individual brilliance snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, but Kilkenny have avoided any such pitfalls, instead cruising for most of the five year run.
Perhaps the most intimidating fact about this Kilkenny team is that they have needed no such miracle escapes. In the 2006 All Ireland semi final against Clare, the Cats were level at 1-10 apiece at half time, before going on to win comfortably, 2-21 to 1-16 on a day when Henry Shefflin scored 1-13. In every other championship match for the last five years, not only have Kilkenny won, but they also led at half time.
Of course Tipperary did give Brian Cody’s men a scare last year in the final and led with a ten minutes to go, however in all their games against every hurling county in Ireland in the past five years, that was the only instance where this team was in any kind of trouble. Even then they only barely went odds against in the in-running betting. Clive Woodward always used to maintain that he trained his rugby teams to win by eight points or more, because that gave his sides the margin for error in case of an unlucky bounce, a bad refereeing call or simply a piece of brilliance from the opposition. Brian Cody has stated no such goal, but his team have implemented that approach nonetheless. They have been comfortably superior in every game, so much so that while they have lots of championship experience, they haven’t been prepared for nervy finishes because they simply don’t experience them.
Tipperary have been the source of plenty of betting support this week and it will be interesting to see if Ladbrokes’ offer of a standout price of 5/2 about the Premier men survives until 3.30pm on Sunday, however even if Tipperary give Kilkenny plenty to think about, chances are the Cats will still have got off to a better start, simply because that is their way.
4/5 about Kilkenny to lead at half time and to win the match is therefore an excellent bet, and one that would have paid out in every one of Kilkenny’s championship matches for the last five years, with the exception of that August afternoon against the Banner County. The run will come to an end some time and there is every chance that Tipperary will be the team to finally slay the Marble demons, but at 4/5, it’s worth taking the chance that Sunday will not be that day.
Category: GAA
It’s fair to say that after last weekend, the minor footballers of Cork and Galway won’t be on the Christmas Card list of this column. A freak scoreline between two teams that hadn’t scored well previously to this was enough to scupper our totals bet and do a considerable amount of damage to our betting record for the year. There are two reactions to shipping a heavy defeat like that, one of which is to go chasing, the other of which is to retreat to lick our wounds. The third reaction is of course to question whether or not a higher power is testing our faith, but greater theological insight than that of yours truly would be required to answer such a question.
The danger of chasing is something that hopefully does not need discussing on here as it is the single most dangerous mental state of any bettor, however while it is very much the lesser of two evils, retreating and running scared of getting back in the game is not a good policy either. Betting opportunities continue to present themselves, and ignoring such chances is never a good policy, irrespective of what has gone on before.
For example, despite this column’s travails in attempting to call minor football last week, the underage hurling again looks like the best bet of the weekend, with Clare essentially being dismissed by the oddsmakers as they bid to unseat Kilkenny. On a direct formline through Dublin, it’s easy to see where the compilers came up with the nine point handicap line. Kilkenny’s demolition of Galway in the All Ireland semi final was incredibly impressive and they are widely expected to set the tone for the senior hurlers this Sunday, but nonetheless the match odds of 1/16 are incredibly short against a Clare team that have slowly but methodically rebuilt their season after opening their campaign with a loss to Waterford back in April.
As we’ve discussed previously, minor teams are too volatile to ever legitimately trade at double figure odds on and this policy is doubly correct when the game in question is an All Ireland final, the most nerve wracking occasion many of these players will ever face. However even looking at the bare form, 1/16 is simply too short about a Clare team that has won games against decent opposition. If this game turns into a shootout then it’s fair to say that Kilkenny should accumulate a bigger total, particularly of goals, but if the game remains tight as the closing stages loom, then anything is possible. The injury to full back William Phelan won’t help and though Kilkenny manager Richie Mulrooney is doing fantastic work, he’ll have his work cut out dampening expectations when there are those within the county expecting double digit wins.
On the grounds that anything can happen at this level, a speculative 1pt bet on Clare minors at 15/2 is certainly justified, while the main bet on this game is a 3pt bet on Clare plus nine points at 10/11. Kilkenny have the hurlers to win this game by a large margin but that’s far from a given in an All Ireland final. Clare have given Kilkenny plenty to think about in the three challenge matches they’ve played so far this year and there’s no reason why they won’t again.
Category: GAA
For pub talk or to become immediately popular with sporting followers, there are few jobs better than that of an odds compiler. Relative to anything administrative, or technical, the world of trading sports seems quite glamorous and is much more likely to elicit follow on questions and genuine interest from the other parties to the conversation. In most cases, the follow on question will be “so have you any good tips?”
Here is where one enters a proverbial minefield. To many of those with little more than a fleeting knowledge of the betting game, their idea of a tip is something that involves small stakes, big odds and is guaranteed to win. As those with more than a little fleeting knowledge will tell you, such recommendations simply don’t exist. And so the odds compiler invariably ends up scrambling to come up with some viable long shot, while at the same time trying to dampen expectations with all sorts of warnings and caveats. Of course if the other party actually takes out a pen and paper or makes a note on their phone, there is little left to do except pray, since all future relations now hang on whether or not this bet comes in.
An alternative approach is to try and tip a winning selection, but as many of those who make money from their betting will tell you, one of the first secrets to turning a betting profit is to lose your fear or prejudice surrounding certain prices. Odds on selections quickly become a lot more viable and soon become the best way to turning a consistent profit, however they certainly do not constitute good recommendations for pub talk. A suggestion of a 1/2 shot that should be closer to 1/4 is normally met with rejection on the grounds that 1/2 is “no kind of price”, before your new found friend looks at you in a manner that suggests that he or she thinks you have mixed them up with JP McManus or Dermot Desmond.
For those outside the game, and particularly for those who aren’t comfortable with numbers, the concept of value is simply too much to grasp. For example this weekend, there is fantastic value in the 4/7 about the Kildare vs Down game to be the higher scoring match of the weekend, even though 4/7 is the sort of price that would turn off a lot of punters.
As a general rule, most senior games score higher than minor matches simply due to their longer duration. Given an average senior match and an average minor fixture, this would be a fair price. However Kildare and Down are both scoring freely in the qualifiers and both teams would consider their strengths to be in moving the ball and creating scoring opportunities as opposed to constrictive defending. The two minor protagonists on the other hand are both solid overall units who haven’t shown any great flair up front and neither team would expect to accumulate too large a total. Galway have scored 0-13, 1-10 and 0-10 in three meaning ful games, while the Rebels have scored 1-9, 2-12, 1-8 and 3-11, a good average but very hit and miss. Cork did cut loose a little against Armagh but they scored two late goals in that game to nick the tie and it could very easily have gone quite differently. Both sides are now coming up against the best defensive units that they have faced so far, meaning that a line of 27.5 would probably be closer to the mark than the 28.5 currently on offer from Ladbrokes.
Kildare and Down’s total line of 31.5 could easily be raised a point as well, so the best plan of attack is surely to take the market that combines both of these outcomes while still leaving a little leeway. As with all odds on bets, a good size stake is required to make this bet worthwhile, however every so often it’s worth throwing the shackles off and this is one such case. A 6pt bet on Kildare vs Down to be the highest scoring game is recommended at the 4/7 odds on offer.
Category: GAA
The term “bonus country” has been a regular feature of this year’s All Ireland football championship, with Pat Gilroy and Fergal O’Donnell both using the term to describe how they felt about their final game of the season after good performances up to that point. It’s a term that could easily be used by either James McCartan or Kieran McGeeney at this stage of the season too, but now that both sides face into a semi-final with beatable opposition ranged in front of them, they have got that little bit more greedy, and rightly so.
These two sides met in the first round of the national league this year and while it would be easy to say that it’s been a long way from Newbridge to here for both these teams, it’s actually quite remarkable how few changes have been made to this Down team. Twelve players who started that day in Newbridge also started the All Ireland quarter final against Kerry, with seven of those twelve starting in the same position and two others merely switching wings. That’s an incredible level of continuity in this day and age, all the more remarkable when one considers that James McCartan is still very new to this job and had a lot to learn about his players, even allowing for being in his home county and his time in charge of Queens University.
Kildare have been revamped hugely since that time and it’s a very different looking Kildare team that will line out on Sunday. It goes without saying that huge improvements from that day are likely. This Kildare team are unlikely to be held to 0-8 in either half on Sunday, never mind the full seventy minutes, so the league result will rightly be taken with a pinch of salt. However one key aspect from that cold February Sunday was the hugely impressive performance of Ambros Rodgers at midfield. The Longstone midfielder was a man of the match contender that day and the dominant performer in the middle sector. For all the furore regarding whether or not Dermot Earley starts for the Lilywhites, the likely absence of Rodgers should have a much bigger bearing on this game.
To lose a captain and a central performer in such a settled team is a massive blow and while McCartan has had time to groom a replacement, most likely Peter Fitzpatrick as a straight swap or else Benny McArdle to full back with Dan Gordon moving into the engine room, there is no substitute for the quality and leadership that Ambrose brings to this Down team. This Kildare side are a well oiled machine who will forage, hunt and support consistently for seventy minutes and while their poor starts are by now legendary, the absence of Rodgers is likely to give them even more possession to work with.
From originally being assessed as an even game, the market has moved in favour of Kildare, though in the opinion of this column, not nearly by enough. Kieran McGeeney has developed a solid game plan and structure that his players have bought into, and more importantly, it’s a structure that doesn’t rely on individual brilliance, hence their ability to sustain the loss of a player of Earley’s calibre after only a few minutes of their quarter final against Meath. John Doyle and James Kavanagh will probably win All Star awards this year, but their productivity is as much a result of the constant pace and movement of this team as any great individual skill – which they also possess in spades.
Down’s tendency to perform well at Croke Park is well noted, but Kerry were there for the taking at the quarter final stage and outside of that game, Down haven’t actually performed that well this year. They looked no better than average in Ulster, needed a lot of luck to get out of O’Connor Park unscathed and despatched a Sligo team that were beaten before they even took to the field. Contrast that with Kildare, who have already taken out three Ulster teams this year. This game is Kildare’s for the taking and they should cover the one point handicap as well. A 5pt bet on Kildare -1 at 11/10 is the recommendation this week and is the strongest recommendation this column has made for some time.
Category: GAA
An age old rule behind betting is to always know your opponent and to respect their strengths. Traditionally, this meant knowing which bookmakers had an inside line into certain stables, and taking careful note of occasions when those bookies took an unusual approach to laying a horse from that stable, whether that was ducking it entirely or adding a couple of points to the best price in the market and going after whatever money was out there. In GAA betting, this usually meant factoring in local knowledge and respecting when certain bookies had an inside line, either through their geographical base, or through individual connections.
Thus, when looking at the Derry senior football championship, we tread warily since we are fully aware that Ladbrokes write a big cheque to Derry GAA every year. There is no doubt that when my fellow columnist Neil picks up the phone to ask about the local action going on Foyleside, he can be sure that he’ll get a very genuine and honest response at the other end of the line. It wouldn’t do to be jeopardising a large sponsorship deal simply to land a touch for a few grand after all!
That said, it’s hard to ignore the pricing of tomorrow night’s fixture between Loup and Kilrea. Of these two clubs, Loup would be the better known team and as the reigning Derry county champions and former Ulster club champions, they have to be respected. St Patrick’s are not a young team by any stretch of the imagination, however they are a battle hardened outfit and one that should be respected.
Facing them tomorrow night are a team that are very definitely on the up, leaving the betting public with the conundrum of assessing whether or not the two graphs have crossed lines yet. Padraig Pearses of Kilrea have had a string of very good minor teams and those young players are starting to make their presence felt in the senior championship. Indeed many of them, including James and Charlie Kielt and defender Brian Óg McAlary, have featured in the Derry inter-county set up.
These two sides met in last year’s championship and the Loup emerged victorious by four points on that occasion, but the form of St Patrick’s simply hasn’t been at that level this year. Two wins out of twelve games in the league and a narrow win over a moderate Magherafelt team isn’t good enough to suggest that Loup are likely to be in contention this year, while Kilrea have shown definite signs of improvement, as one would expect from such a young set up gaining in experience with every game. They narrowly failed to beat Ballinderry in a tempestuous encounter in the second round of this year’s championship, but if they can harness that experience in a positive fashion, they can take the next step up tomorrow evening.
Backing young and improving teams against older sides who have seen and done it all before is always a risky business since even a dying wasp usually has one final sting in his tail, but this looks like a game where Kilrea are four or five points the better team, meaning that Loup’s experience might not be enough to sneak the result. The 2pt stake that we’ll place on Kilrea at 11/10 is in deference to the inside line enjoyed by the Magic Sign, but even allowing for that, this is a game and a team worthy of a small investment.
Category: GAA
With no championship meeting having taken place between Cork and Dublin for the last fifteen years, a look back at their most recent encounter should, on the face of it, offer little by way of insight into Sunday’s game. From a playing perspective, that 1995 All Ireland semi final was utterly irrelevant, but nonetheless the parallels between that meeting and the semi-final this Sunday are intriguing.
Cork had slowly become the dominant team in Munster back then, but failed to put an All Ireland title on the board, most notably failing to justify favouritism against Derry in 1993. Dublin too were on the back of a sustained run of supremacy in the eastern province that hadn’t yet resulted in a Sam Maguire trophy, but manager Pat O’Neill had put his faith in an unproven full forward whose atypical background was no barrier to his ascent into legendary status with the Hill 16 regulars after a string of crucial goals.
Jason Sherlock’s goal on that 1995 afternoon was the deciding factor in a tight game, and this Sunday, Eoghan O’Gara’s battle with Cork full back Michael Shields is likely to play a big part as Dublin are likely to need to get in behind the Cork defence for a goal or two. On paper, based on concession of scores to his direct opponent, Shields has performed well in 2010, but O’Gara is the most robust opponent he will have faced so far and Shields’ tendency to take full advantage of his “allowance” of two or three fouls when under pressure might not get him out of trouble against the Templeogue player who tends to ignore fouls and continue bullocking forward.
Cork’s win over Roscommon was by far the most underwhelming performance of the four quarter final winners, but allowance must be made for the extremely limited challenge that Roscommon presented in opposition to Cork. The Connacht champions were way out of their depth at that stage of the championship and it was no coincidence that Cork only looked good once the Sheepstealers had the temerity to take the lead early in the second half, essentially rousing their opponents into action. Still, Conor Counihan’s men looked both powerful and directionless in their play at times and could find this Dublin team surprisingly capable of counteracting their pace and movement.
Cork’s dominance of primary possession has been one of their strongest assets in recent years but here too, it’s difficult to make a confident call about how the two sides will match up this weekend. Any one of Murphy, Walsh, O’Connor and Kavanagh could start in the engine room for Cork, while there was no real kickout battle between Dublin and Tyrone since both sides took the short kickout option when it was offered. Dublin have been voracious at devouring breaks but they will expect to concede many more clean catches than they make themselves. This won’t be a problem if they can prevent the Cork wing backs and wing forwards from finding space and the football around the middle third and instead force Cork to play the ball backwards, thus allowing their blanket defence to reset. In this regard, the potential loss of Graham Canty could prove crucial.
More than any other player, Canty is able to take opposition defenders out of the game and create missed tackles, even going through heavy traffic areas in the middle of the field. He’s likely to play some part in Sunday’s match, but if he’s any way short of full fitness, Cork will be missing a crucial aspect of their play.
The match prices of 7/4 about Dublin and 8/13 about Cork already suggest that a fair amount of improvement in form for Cork is priced in, but that expectation might not yet come to pass. Dublin’s full back line is improving with every game and while Pierce O’Niell remains a wild card, Cork’s unsettled forward line might struggle to score with regularity. Dublin are far from the finished article, but in terms of value, they offer much more than the Rebels. A 2pt bet on Dublin at 7/4 is the obvious match betting play in this game, with nerves of steel required for the early stages, when Dublin have tended to struggle in games so far.
Category: GAA
Anyone who ventured out on the town this past week or weekend will have witnessed the annual carnage that was the Leaving Certificate and A level results celebrations, an annual mix of youthful high spirits and badly mixed alcoholic spirits, with predictably chaotic results. Now far be it from this columnist to condemn childish exuberance when it still features regularly in his own social ventures, however the escapades that are to be seen on these nights gives a reasonable indication of how much growing up that seventeen and eighteen year old teenagers still have to do.
For the minor footballers of Tyrone and Mayo, the celebrations will almost certainly have been put on hold as today’s All Ireland semi final loomed large on the horizon. Teams that progress to this stage of the All Ireland championships are invariably well endowed with discipline as well as skill, and as the two best teams in the championship so far, these two sides are obviously well drilled panels. However, they are still teenagers, and for that reason alone, the odds of 2-7 about Tyrone today look disgracefully short. After all, but for a God given talent and using an O’Neills football, these are the same youngsters that would have been carousing frantically and displaying their lack of maturity over the past few days.
Tyrone have been outstanding so far this year and there is no question that their form would justify such short odds, if they were an adult team with more experience under their belts. They cruised through Ulster, easily accounting for a very good Armagh team in the provincial decider, before really cutting loose against Kerry when they made the whole country sit up and take notice.
In contrast, Mayo did what they had to do in Connacht and though their full forward line looked very sharp in the Connacht final, at no stage did they look like world beaters outside of that. Against a spirited but limited Offaly team in the All Ireland quarter final, they again did what they had to do but they never looked comfortable and could have been undone if it were not for their strong start into the wind. For long spells of the game Offaly looked the better team in that match and that’s not the form of a side ready to usurp Tyrone.
If these two teams were to play each other several times, chances are Tyrone would easily win by an average of four points or more, thus justifying the handicap odds currently on offer from Ladbrokes.com. However, the nature of championship football is that teams don’t play each other several times – they meet once, and in a one off game, unusual things can happen. That unusual thing could be a heavy Tyrone win, but it could be a Tyrone off day either.
Moreover, this is a Mayo team capable of goals and scoring in quick bursts, and that’s when the fragile mentality of teenage footballers comes into play. We all know that youngsters can feel invincible, but when you concede two quick goals in a huge but largely deserted Croke Park, and when the empty stadium echoes the words of criticism from hardcore local fans, it takes a really strong mind to blot these things out and to continue having faith in your own ability. Most adult teams would struggle in such a circumstance – indeed only those with plenty of medals on the mantelpiece could be relied upon to stick to the game plan and push for home, ignoring the setback.
Recommending a bet is still a bridge too far for this column since this Tyrone team has been incredibly impressive and they could easily win with plenty to spare, but as a policy, opposing long odds on minor teams is a good ploy, irrespective of the form on the table. Despite the very real possibility that this Tyrone team could be as good a minor team as we’ve seen since perhaps the Down unit of 2005, there is no reason to abandon such a solid policy now. If a match bet is to be placed on this match, there is good value to be had in the 10-3 available about the Connacht champions.
Category: GAA
In the breathless aftermath of the 2009 All Ireland hurling final, the 82,000 fortunate souls who departed Croke Park and the countless thousands who watched the game on television must surely have already been counting down the days to the 2010 championship and the rematch between Kilkenny and Tipperary. Tipperary looked at the time to be agonisingly close to matching their neighbours to the east and the prospect of another year of development suggested that they were well poised to put serious roadblocks in between the Cats and their five in a row dreams.
Of course things didn’t quite turn out as planned and the Tipperary express was derailed over the course of late Spring and early summer, before finally pulling things back on track in the qualifier series. There were signs of decline during the national league campaign, but Kilkenny’s shadow boxing during the league meant that no-one took Tipperary’s poor form any more seriously than they did that of the Cats.
Of course when the Munster championship rolled around and Cork prepared to ambush the favourites, suddenly the country sat up and realised that the great pretenders had in fact been genuinely off colour during the league and that their forward momentum from 2009 had stalled. Instead they had gone backwards, while Kilkenny’s devastating opening performance against Dublin illustrated that they were very much going about their business as usual, primed for a fifth successive Liam McCarthy cup.
In hindsight however, Tipperary needed to exorcise the demons that were lurking within their ranks. Cork’s exposition of their failings illustrated that they couldn’t just sit around and wait for the coronation that so many people suggested was inevitable – they had to continue developing, growing, and improving. On Sunday, we will find out whether or not they have developed sufficiently to take that extra step and give themselves a real shot of winning their first All Ireland title in nine years.
Despite winning the Munster championship and having a poor track record when it comes to keeping a lid on hype, Waterford come into this game with an incredibly low profile. The 2008 All Ireland final was a particularly black cloud and Déise supporters may be excused for letting slip a wry smile at the notion that there was a silver lining to that particular piece of cumulonimbus, but they have since reaped some benefits from that game. Essentially, since that defeat, they have been dismissed from everyone’s All Ireland calculations. There is a lazy, but accepted wisdom out there that this is an old and declining team and that Kilkenny merely nailed their coffin shut that fateful day in Croke Park.
It is fair to say that some of the biggest names in Waterford hurling history are moving on into retirement, but Davie Ditzgerald has done an incredibly good job of harnessing the tools at his disposal and without any great level of fuss, his team has been quietly reconstructed into a working, cohesive unit. They don’t possess the same level of raw potential as Tipperary, but they proved this year and last that they are a dogged outfit who play some of their best hurling when games are in the balance and as Galway in 2009 and Cork this year will testify, they’ve become very good at salvaging difficult situations.
It’s difficult to know whether Tipperary have addressed most of their problems or whether Galway simply weren’t good enough to take advantage – around midfield in particular, there is a feeling that the latter could be the case. Gearóid Ryan is a great addition and Conor O’Mahony looks to be back to the form that left him very close to a player of the year award last year, but for all that, Tipp might do well simply to scrape a win here. Waterford plus 3 points at evens with Ladbrokes.com is the kind of bet that might not get widespread support but it does look like the better trade in this game.This column recommends a 2pt stake.
These Waterford lads have proven that they have plenty of fighting ability and against a team which is talented but still not completely hurling at their peak, those attributes could be enough to keep them within striking distance, and crucially, within the handicap as well.
Match Betting:
Tipperary 2/5
Draw 10/1
Waterford 5/2
Category: GAA
For the first time in thirteen years, this year’s All Ireland minor hurling final will see a break from the usual mix of Kilkenny, Cork, Tipperary and Galway. The traditional powers of the small ball code have monopolised the minor grade in recent years, resulting in the current outright betting market where the protagonists in this Sunday’s semi final are each strongly fancied to lift the Irish Press Cup next month while Clare and Dublin, who will form the undercard for the Tipperary and Waterford semi-final, are dismissed at 3/1 and 10/1 respectively. Clare were the last county outside of those four to reach a minor final in 1997, when they took the All Ireland on the same day that their seniors beat Tipperary.
Kilkenny and Galway met in each of the last two All Ireland minor finals and won one title each, though Kilkenny’s smash and grab raid in 2008 when they won by 3-6 to 0-13 left many people feeling that the better team lost on the day. Galway balanced the books with a well deserved success last year, but they have lost most of last year’s team, while Kilkenny have put some very impressive form in the books so far. Galway’s win over a well fancied Waterford team suggests that this new batch of players have plenty of potential and they look particularly sharp up front, but nonetheless Kilkenny have a lot more hurling done and it’s easy to see why they are fancied this week.
In the absence of any games between Leinster and Munster teams so far, it’s difficult to say with certainty how Kilkenny’s form will hold up outside of the eastern province. They’ve won all three games so far this year with plenty to spare, though the absence of a substantial goal threat will worry the Kilkenny management team. Their defensive unit has been superb, while at midfield they’ve hurled a lot of good ball and created good point scoring chances for the inside men.
Galway manager Mattie Murphy has been around the block and knows exactly what it takes to win minor titles, however he is working with a very fresh panel this year and though he has a good spread of talent, they might find this game to be a bit much for them in the absence of good match preparation.
Neither of these counties badly need another All Ireland minor championship but the nature of successful counties is that they will take every opportunity that comes along. This Kilkenny team, right now, looks the better placed side to take give themselves that All Ireland opportunity and they can justify the 4/5 odds currently available about a win in sixty minutes.
Category: GAA
