IT’S A PERFECT 10
With this breathtaking highlights reel, it may be the best weekend of hurling EVER
THE quality of the two All-ireland semi-finals across
Saturday and Sunday made last weekend possibly the greatest that hurling has ever known.
Albeit there was extra time in both, Saturday’s Clare-galway game marked the first time ever that both teams had hit the 30-point (white flags) mark in a game of hurling. Then it happened again within 24 hours.
There were an astonishing 130 scores registered in the two games, with myriad memorable moments. Here are our top 10..
5. MARK COLEMAN SIDELINE
There were a number of delicious sideline cuts over the course of the two semi-finals, with Joe Canning slicing over two and Tony Kelly another, but Coleman’s shortly before half-time in Sunday’s game, given a combination of the distance and the fact that it was on the ‘wrong’ side for a left-sided strike, was arguably the best of them.
6. JASON MCCARTHY EQUALISER
A brilliant team score, worked from Donal Tuohy’s puckout to Colm Galvin to Seadna Morey, who fed Conor Cleary to release David Fitzgerald. The Inagh-kilnamona man drew in the Galway cover brilliantly before feeding his teammate for the 94th minute leveller.
7. ARON SHANAGHER GOAL
Barely eight months since he suffered a cruciate ligament injury, Shanagher made an explosive impact off the bench for Clare on Saturday in his first appearance of 2018. He superbly fielded Colm Galvin’s long delivery in the second period of extra time and wheeled away from John Hanbury before firing past James Skehill to put his side in front for the first time.
1. PETER DUGGAN POINT
Duggan hit 0-14 for Clare in Saturday’s pulsating draw with Galway but his point in the 64th minute to bring the sides level was the score of the Championship. Despite challenges from four different Galway players, he somehow managed to wriggle free and loop over a
sensational point.
3. SHANE
DOWLING PENALTY
With Limerick a point up in the second period of extra time, tapping the ball over the bar might have appealed to some, but not Dowling. Not only did he have the wherewithal to go for goal, but the conviction to arrow it into the top corner. That Anthony Nash dived the wrong way was incidental – it was unsaveable.
8. PATRICK HORGAN FREE
Horgan didn’t have his most influential game in this year’s Championship against Limerick and had been quiet prior to being handed the last free to take the game to extra time. But that’s what makes it even more impressive as he nervelessly and nonchalantly stroked it over from distance under extreme pressure.
9. PAT RYAN GOAL
It didn’t really have a huge impact on the outcome as Limerick were well on their way at that stage, deep in extra time, but Ryan’s strike was probably the goal of the weekend for the audacity of the finish alone. There have been suggestions that it was an undercooked point effort but we’re going to give him the benefit of the doubt.
2. NICKIE QUAID SAVE
Limerick’s heroic comeback would have been in vain but for Quaid’s brilliant intervention with the sides level in the second minute of injury time as he flicked the ball away from Seamus Harnedy as the Cork captain was about to hit what surely would have been the winning score.
4. TONY KELLY POINT
Nothing encapsulated how well Colm Galvin dropping back as a sweeper for Clare with Tony Kelly moving to midfield worked than Kelly’s 28th minute point. Galvin mopped up a loose ball on the ‘D’ and fed Kelly, who belted it over the bar from inside his own 65.
10. CONOR LEHANE GOAL
Limerick wingback Dan
Morrissey ought to have intercepted
Anthony Nash’s puckout but Lehane still had much to do when he collected possession. Buoyed by a good start to the second half, he finished brilliantly from a tight angle. It looked to be the gamebreaking moment for Cork at the time as it put them five ahead.