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Irish Daily Mirror
09-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Tailteann Cup Quarter-Final draw throws up heavyweight pairings
The Tailteann Cup quarter-final draw has thrown up two repeat League Final pairings from earlier this season. Competition favourites Kildare will go head to head with Offaly again, with the Faithful County having defeated the Lily Whites in the Division 3 decider at Croke Park at the end of March. Kildare, as group toppers, will have home advantage for that one with the tie set to be played at the redeveloped St. Conleth's Park, Newbridge. All four quarter-finals are scheduled for this weekend as the second tier competition ramps up a gear following last weekend's preliminary quarter-finals. Another repeat pairing comes in the shape of Limerick and Wexford, with the Treaty men claiming the Division 4 title against John Hegarty's side earlier this year. Jimmy Lee's Limerick will enjoy home advantage for that one after topping their group and will be favoured to move on to the last four, despite Wexford's resounding win over Antrim at the weekend. Oisin McConville's Wicklow are at home to Westmeath, the only Division 2 side from this year in the competition, with Dermot McCabe's men slightly favoured to emerge in this one. After racking up 3-26 against Laois at the weekend, the Lake County may be finding form at just the right time and could do damage in a competition they won three years ago. The final tie of the round sees Sligo go to Enniskillen to face Fermanagh. Tailteann Cup victory secures a golden ticket to next year's All-Ireland series, regardless of where teams finish in the League. For Kildare and Offaly, both in Division 2 next season, it would take the pressure off next year to finish high up their League. A sixth place finish in 2026 would see them stay in Division 2 and go into the All-Ireland. The stakes are particularly high here for Leinster sides like Kildare, Offaly, Wexford, Westmeath and Wicklow, due to the longer road they have to travel to a provincial final. This makes it less likely they will get into next year's All-Ireland via one of the top two seeds placings available to the provincial finalists in all four provinces. It's a similar situation with Fermanagh, as Ulster is particularly tough and with the Erne Men playing Division 3 next year, getting into the All-Ireland via league placings is highly unlikely. The Tailteann Cup is currently their best chance of making the All-Ireland in 2026. Tailteann Cup Quarter-Final Draw: Fermanagh v Sligo Wicklow v Westmeath Kildare v Offaly Limerick v Wexford
The National
13-05-2025
- Sport
- The National
Wholesome moment ex-Celtic boss Postecoglou breaks character
The North London club lost 2-0 to Crystal Palace over the weekend, and currently sit 17th in the English Premier League. There is a cause for optimism, though, given they are in the Europa League final. Read more: Postecoglou visibly hasn't let Sunday's result impact his mood. Although he is known for his stern ways and 'stand off' approach to his players, he sat on the grass with duo Pedro Porro and Rodrigo Bentancur in a wholesome exchange yesterday: Ange Postecoglou shares a moment with Pedro Porro and Rodrigo Bentancur during Spurs' pre-Europa League Final open training session🥺 What an image this is❤️ — Hayters TV (@HaytersTV) May 12, 2025 Spurs take on fellow Premier League outfit Manchester United next Wednesday in Bilbao for a shot at Europa League glory. The club haven't won a trophy since 2008, yet in only his second year at the helm, Postecoglou could end said drought. The 59-year-old left Celtic for Spurs in the summer of 2023. He sparked transformative change at Parkhead after the disastrous 2020/21 campaign, winning a double in his first year followed by a treble in his second. "I would like to sincerely thank everyone at the Club for everything they have given me," said Postecoglou after departing the club almost two years ago. "In particular, Dermot [Desmond], Peter [Lawell] and Michael [Nicholson] and the Celtic Board have shown me tremendous support in every aspect of my time at Celtic and I will forever be grateful for this. "They brought me to the Club and I have worked so closely and so well with them for the past two years, I will always have a special relationship with them. 'They wanted me to extend my time at Celtic and while I am so respectful and understanding of their position, a new opportunity has been presented to me and it is one which I wanted to explore. 'It was an honour to be asked to be Celtic manager and during my two years I have given everything I have to deliver success to our supporters."
Irish Examiner
26-04-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
When it's Cork v Tipp, best to expect the unexpected
When it comes to sport, it feels like we've reached our saturation point. It is impossible to keep up with everything. Would you even want to? How does a sport manage to keep itself relevant when there is so much going on? For the most part, it seems to be clips, clicks and giggles. Scroll through whatever social media that you've chosen to annihilate what's left of your brain cells and you're overwhelmed by nonsense. Apologies, content. The streets won't forget this, that was the best game ever of that, SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh is a great venue, but I can't park on the halfway line. Hyperbole has been the chosen weapon in the race to find the lowest common denominator. However, we saw something very different in Thurles and in Ennis last weekend. The occasions and the action were able to speak for themselves. It was impossible to distill what we saw into something bite-sized. There was a purity to it. Yes, the Munster Hurling Championship is alive and well. Where would we be only for it? To paraphrase the greatest hurler of them all, would the GAA only be half-dressed without it? I'm not one for hyperbole, but tomorrow the next chapter of the greatest rivalry in sport will unfold in front of a packed Páirc. A Cork juggernaut that was as good as derailed last Sunday in Ennis will lock horns with a rejuvenated Tipperary who held the greatest team of modern times to a draw a couple of hours later in Thurles. Like all great rivalries, the fortunes of the protagonists have fluctuated over the past 136 years. Go back over the history of it and it's surprising how little tit-for-tat there is from year to year. When a team wins one, they tend to win a couple. Five is the magic number for Cork. They achieved that on four occasions while their longest streak is six, but that stretched out from 1976 to 1985. Tipp like the number four. They achieved that on three occasions but the hegemony they enjoyed over Cork from 1958 to 1968 is their high-water mark, the high-water mark. Seven games, seven wins. What of Sunday, then? Well, after the League Final three weeks ago, many pundits may have mentally accrued the points in Cork's favour already. However, to quote the great truant Ferris Bueller, 'life moves pretty fast.' The second half of that game was about as false as our secondary national competition gets and this rivalry has turned the formbook on its head often enough in the past to ensure that the future can never be written in stone. Take, for example, 2007. Cork had beaten Tipperary in the Munster Finals of 2005 and 2006. They'd beaten them on that famous day in Killarney in 2004. They'd also beaten them in the 2000 Munster Final and the 1992 Munster semi-final. Interestingly, Cork haven't enjoyed back-to-back championship wins over Tipp since. Anyway, both teams had fallen in the Munster semi-finals so this game was to decide who would top the qualifier group. A post-Semple Gate Cork lost a thriller to Waterford while Tipp had drawn twice with Limerick before falling at the third attempt. Tipp were mired in controversy. Brendan Cummins didn't start, neither did Eoin Kelly. Cork were hell bent on getting into a fifth successive All-Ireland Final. Some 53,286 souls were present the previous year when Cork won the Munster Final, but only 12,902 bothered to show up to this. Cork raced into a 0-8 to 0-3 lead, but from there, Tipp grew into it and 2-3 from Willie Ryan gave them their first win over the old enemy since 1991. Both sides went out in the next round, Tipp with a whisper to Wexford, Cork with a scream to Waterford. I worked with a man from Cahir at the time. It's 26 miles from Thurles to Cahir. It took him three days to complete that particular marathon. Sometimes a game is just a game. Try this one for size. A young team loses an All-Ireland Final that they certainly could have won, perhaps should have won. They're expected to push on and surpass one of the all-time great teams and be the next big thing for years to come. They beat their nemesis in the league but when championship comes they ship three goals in their opening game and are faced with the same questions that haunted them from the previous campaign. No, this is not Cork 2025, but Tipperary 2010. In what turned out to be the last kick of a once great machine, an Aisake Ó hAilpín inspired Cork beat Tipp by ten points. The year, however, would belong to the Premier men. Cork haven't beaten Tipp at home since. Throw in 2017. A young and improving Cork showed great form in the league but nobody expected them to beat the All-Ireland champions in their backyard. Enter Michael Cahalane. And then there was this one. Cork hammer Tipperary in Thurles in a game that they must win to reach the All-Ireland Series. The loss sparks an existential crisis within Tipperary and the consensus is that the rebuild will take years. However, 349 days later Tipperary closed that gap and draw a game that they should have won. No, that's not tomorrow, that was 2023. The moral of the story? Expect the unexpected. More than anything else, as Public Enemy told us back when Tipp were beating Cork by nine points in Limerick in 1988. Just don't believe the hype.
