Hurling Nation: Limerick task looks to be beyond Dubs
The microwave season continuous to keep Hurling Nation on a restricted All-Ireland diet, with two quarter-finals on Saturday and nothing on Sunday.
First up, Dublin get a chance to flip the table if they could take down the heavyweights of Limerick. Hurling Nation really wants to be really optimistic.
Dublin have had some great half hours in this Championship, but they've had a few fairly mediocre 70 minutes.
After a good start against three teams you would expect them to beat, but wouldn't be too shocked if they didn't, the second half against Kilkenny was a mixture of skilling and grit.
It was tempting to say that even with football weighing heavy on the capitol, they surely must be enough hurlers to win Dublin and all Ireland before the world ends. Then Dublin played Galway and it was back to the same old story.
Dublin hurling needs a performance tomorrow. Since 2013 the county seems to be just going through a series of rebuilds.
Limerick will be more familiar with Croke Park and won't be startled by a big crowd, while Dublin have to learn how to cope with a good team in a broader space than Parnell Park.
[Chris] Crummey has the size to keep [Gearóid] Hegarty company and Rian McBride's return in recent games might give the option to ask Connor Burke to track Cian Lynch, but there's a long list of questions to be asked after that.
Can Dublin find ways to use the speed of players like Brian Hayes? Can they aggressively smother Limerick often enough to force turnovers? Can they score enough goals to rock Limerick?
Down the years. There's been a few times when we've thought we smelled weakness in Limerick, suspensions, injuries, fatigue or whatever, and surely más fada an lá tig an oíche.
But Limerick always come back. They're seldom surprised, rarely ambushed and they'll roll on tomorrow.
The other quarter-final looks promising. Tipp and Galway are connected by more than the short border they share. Two counties who produce great hurlers and great underage teams, but too often under deliver.
Since the late eighties, there's been an edge between the pair of them. In recent years, the power has shifted to Galway.
They played three All-Ireland semifinals in a row from 2015 to 2017. Tipp won the middle one, but only a point separated the teams in all three games. Galway won the last two meetings in 2020 and 2023, both by two points.
If we were to pick a winner tomorrow on the basis of highlight reels, we'd go for Tipp.
In Galway, Micheál Donoghue has turned over lots of rocks looking for new hurlers. There are flashes of talent and you can see his plan. But the two poor performances against Kilkenny are hard to forget.
Goals have been hard to come by for Galway. One goal in two games versus Kilkenny, conceded six. One goal over the course of the games against Dublin and Wexford, conceded five.
It's difficult to imagine a Galway team turning in a meek and mole performance against Tipp. We don't know enough yet about the true character of these two teams, but if you want to pick a winner, you'd have to go with form.
Allow Tipp some leeway for the disastrous start against Cork and you see them drawing with Limerick and beating Clare and Waterford. They have forwards young and old who know the smell of blood in water.
Tipp to escape and live to fight another day.
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