National Hurling Leagues 2026

Good second half from Tipp after a lack lustre first half. Work rate upped significantly.

John McGrath very good. Tobin did well for a new guy.

Don't know about Waterford but if the weather was anything like here in Limerick city it was a 30 point wind.

There was a definite increase in work rate and improvement of attitude in the 2nd half. Waterford would have been hoping to be able to carry and short pass the ball into good scoring positions but were unable to do so and we were turning them over quite a bit.

Sorry I should clarify: I'm not saying you criticized that kilkenny team, I'm saying the implication of your post was that, in general, people watched the great kilkenny and limerick teams and said oh it's a man's game, great stuff, and in contrast people are watching Cork now and being hyper critical of them playing on the edge. What I'm saying is, that's revisionism, I listened to a good ten years or more of people saying kk were destroying the game with the way they approached it, and all that stuff, and limerick fans have listened to the same thing since 2018. It just comes with the territory of winning, there will always be people saying the dominant team is dominant because they are breaking the rules. Two things about it though: they always say that the earlier dominant teams didn't do that kind of thing (hence the idea that kilkenny played a great brand of hurling is now commonly accepted), and they always say "they have good enough players that they don't need to be doing that".

The good news is it's not a popularity contest so you don't actually have to give a **** what anyone says about your team, and the more they're giving out the better you're probably doing!

I think Cork will win the all Ireland very soon, with the quality ye have up front now. Have a sneaking regard for limerick this year though, so dangerous once they get into their stride.

Kilkenny haven't the hurlers to do the business right now. In year one of a rebuild that should have started three years ago so there's a lot of players who should have had more experience by now and there should be way more depth in the panel. Always capable of a win against anyone but I don't think we have the personnel or the depth you need to go all the way, and I think we'll lose Leinster. But we're not as bad as we looked the last day either. And we are finally unearthing a few new lads like Liam Moore, Ivan bolger, garrett, and McDermott. Loss of huw lawler is huge though.

Galway are a year ahead of kk in their rebuild, not reading massively into the last match between them but across the league the performances of the two sides tells a story, and I think if Galway can keep the momentum going with a decent performance against limerick and then get a bit of a run in Leinster (and they have us and Dublin in salthill this year which is huge), they'll come into a Leinster final with their tails up, and they'll be very hard to stop. Not writing off Dublin either, but I think we'll be in a quarter final this year against a strong Munster team, could easily be Tipperary, and that could be all she wrote. Not being pessimistic here, we are rebuilding the team though, that's the way it goes. There's no evidence, to me, for why we would be unstoppable in Leinster.

Well still, if kk do go on a run im going to be in here accusing ye all of writing them off and acting like I never had any doubt!

For the record though, I am predicting a win against tipp this weekend! (I know it's a dead rubber more or less, but I predicted that before the Waterford tipp match and I'm standing by it, think the players will be furious with themselves for what they put on display last day out

The only way, as far as I can see it, for tipp to make the league final, is for Galway to beat Limerick and Tipp to beat Kilkenny by (something like) 30 points. Tipp, Limerick and Galway would be on 8 points and it would come down to score difference. Limerick are +34 atm and Galway are +30, while tipp are +5 (or so).

So, yeah, Limerick vs Galway is a de facto semi final.

Now if Offaly were to beat Cork (unlikely to happen), the 4 teams would be on 8 points. But that's very unlikely.

They got battered in 2 of there last 3 All Irelands and were clearly second best in the other despite keeping it close on the board.

They are like pre backdoor Galway getting to finals they are no way equipped for.

Do you think Kilkenny will win an All Ireland in the next 5 years ?

What odds would you put on them winning in the next 5 years ?

"Can't write them off" is a load of barstool bollix. I "wrote them off" every year this decade and was totally right to. I'm happy to get off the fence and say the rest of the decade will be the same.

"Write off" is a totally bollix term. Total nonsense.

Kilkenny are probably 5th after Limerick, Clare and Tipp as previous winners and Cork who have been very close. But it's a vast gap from them to Kilkenny in 5th. I don't think Kilkenny have the ability to beat 2 Munster teams in a month which is what is needed.

How about you tell me how and with who Kilkenny can actually win the All Ireland rather than just throwing out cliche "written off" or "never beaten" shte.

in your last post you brought up writing them off. Apologies if I am misread it. But what do you mean.

So is it just the term "write off" that you don't like? Because saying a team isn't capable of winning the all Ireland is the same as writing them off, so I'm not sure what the problem is with the phrase itself?

Not sure about the "vast gap" from kilkenny to Tipperary either, given what transpired last year on the semi final. I don't disagree that an all Ireland is probably beyond kk right now but a vast gap? Is two points and a scoreboard error a vast gap?