Club Championships 2022/23

It's crazy.

That's not what the split season was about. The promise was not sunny summer hurling for the clubs.

The promise was that club players would have a reliable schedule and could plan their life. Previously players could plan nothing because of constant cancellations due to the intercounty team "going well"

Disappointing game. Over at half time. Feale were pretty awful.

Castletown are Wexford senior football champions. One of the best second half performances I have ever seen.

Completely and utterly written off. The bookies had Shelmaliers at 1/4, most 'experts' had them to win by upwards of 7 points, and there was a preview piece mid-week picking a combined 15 that had Shels 12-3.

And they didn't know what hit them. Absolutely tore into them. Eoghan O'Gara was painted as some sort of Brogan figure all week, yet ended up challenging his immediate marker to a fight in the car park. One of those days where you could easily pick 5-6 lads for MOTM, but special mention to 40-year old Jody O'Shaughnessy who went through a mountain of work and brought home his third medal to go with the nine won by his late father.

12 county titles now, top of the pile.

Watched the Kilkenny final yesterday. TJ Reid gave another outstanding display but i thought James Stephens were a very average team and the game wasn't great over all. If Ballyhale hadn't been reduced to 14 for a harsh red card early in second half they would have dished out a right beating i feel. Ballyhale favourites to go and finish what they feel they left behind to Harry Ruddle and co last year. I wouldn't bet against them.

Ballyhale look a good bit ahead of the rest in Leinster, if Na Pairsaigh and Ballygunner end up meeting in a Munster semi final that could be a cracker.

Ya, a serious outfit that will take some stopping.

On a side-note about yesterdays game, how on earth did the ref put up with Colin Fennelly constantly in his ear. He was virtually reffing the game and constantly whinging and moaning. Has he always been like this at club level.? Dont remember him like that under Cody at all. Maybe a new phase he's going through.!!

He gets away with it cause of his brilliance but TJ is brutal for it too.

I assume you mean football only ?

Today I witnessed some awful behaviour from Portarlington. Their fans were systemically booing Castletown, especially on the restart, rubbed it into them every time they scored and kept the sledging up on the final whistle too. One of their players spat at his direct marker during the game as well. Deserved winners due to how they saw out the last few moments but scandalous carry on.

Some craic for the Ulster Qf with the Ballybay manager having 3 sons on the Kilcoo team.

Ballybay deserve all the credit here. After a shaky start, they grew into the game and for the most part controlled it, especially that 2nd half where it was one way traffic. They managed the game like they were the team that have a ton of Ulster club experience, while Cross were the team which lacked discipline and couldn't control the black card periods.

Tbh I don't think this should come as *that* huge of a surprise to people that know the scene - while Cross probably deserved to be favorites on the balance of things, they're still a bit of a team in transition in terms of younger players coming through and finding their feet at this level, so it's not a vintage Cross side from that regard. Ballybay on the other hand just won their 1st county title in 10 years, but that doesn't really tell the tale of their quality. They've underachieved in recent years and should probably have won more, and they have a quality group of players, a good few of which have extensive intercounty experience.