A look back on a busy weekend of sport

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The Claire Byrne Show 14 min 4 speakers 5 chapters transcribed 3 months ago

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What were the highlights of the packed weekend in sports?

Unknown 0:01

And we're here off the back of a really packed weekend of sports.

Claire Byrne 0:12

So it's great to be joined by Eoghan Sheahan from Off The Ball. We better start with Kilkenny. I mean, that's the big headline, isn't it, of the week? Defeat to Dublin in Parnell Park. So what happened?

Eoin Sheahan 0:23

Well, Dublin were really good yesterday. First of all, I thought that as the game was going to edge towards the last 20 minutes and Kilkenny got it back to within a couple of points, I just kind of had this feeling that Kilkenny were going to pull away. Like Dublin have a desperate record against Kilkenny and you think that the tradition is going to come to the fore again. But this Kilkenny team isn't the Kilkenny team of 10 years ago. And perhaps this Dublin team is better than anything we've seen. even including the one that won the Leinster Championship, which still has a couple of those players, the likes of Liam Rush, for example, from that generation. He's back in the side and brings that experience.

Eoin Sheahan 0:54

There's a case to be made that this Dublin generation of hurler is actually better than that, and they're very much on the upward trajectory, despite how last year's season went for them. Now, last year they beat Limerick in the All-Ireland quarterfinal, and then were hockeyed by Cork in the All-Ireland semifinal. So it was hard to get a read on where they really were.

What happened in the Kilkenny vs. Dublin match?

Eoin Sheahan 1:10

But actually, I think... as the season goes on, maybe the big story yesterday might actually be Dublin and where they're at as a hurling county.

Claire Byrne 1:16

Because I think you're right in what you say, that you always, when you're watching Kilkenny in a situation like that, you always expect them to pull away, you know, to go into the next gear and it looks effortless and all that. And it just didn't happen.

Eoin Sheahan 1:26

Much like the dubs the previous week against Westmeath, you just kind of thought that that would happen. But things change. Generational talents retire. Generational teams go by the wayside. And there's going to be a lot of soul searching going on in Kilkenny at this stage. Like, is there going to be a change of management? Is there going to be a change of coaching team? I don't know, because it does feel that when you talk to people and you listen to anybody talk about this team, the players don't appear to be there. this season didn't get off to the best start for Kilkenny. They lost a few of their players just due to the fact that they wanted to go off and travel. And the likes of Hugh Lawler, for example, their brilliant fullback went off to Australia.

Eoin Sheahan 2:00

There was a brilliant piece of local radio commentary in Kilkenny from Andy Comerford who said, we have beaches in Tremor. What are you going down to Australia for? We have the beach here.

Claire Byrne 2:11

And that kind of... That's what your parents say to you when you talk about, you know, wanting to see the world. What would you want to be going? Haven't we lovely blue skies here and rain and everything?

2:19

Yeah.

Eoin Sheahan 2:20

And look, the beach would have been beautiful yesterday as well after Kilkenny played that game. So maybe he had a point, but I'm just making that reference because there were red flags raised early on in this campaign about where Kilkenny were at and the players that were available to them. And the writing was on the wall a little bit. But still, the Leinster Championship should be something that Kilkenny are qualifying from every single year.

Claire Byrne 2:40

And you were at Kerry Donegal. Do you want to talk about that?

Eoin Sheahan 2:43

I do. I do. I've a lot to say, Clare. I think there's been so much said about this already. Like what I would say is that when you're at a game, you do tend to be able to trust your gut a lot more with regards to what the big talking points are. And one of the big talking points after the game, because of his interaction, certainly with Tommy Rooney of Off the Ball, was Jimmy Guinness and him putting his hands on a Kerry player. And it was just really interesting because at that moment, when I saw it happen on the pitch, I thought to myself, well, that is beyond the pale. What we've just seen there, that is absolutely the same as Gerard Brennan a couple of weeks ago in terms of being in a space of a mentor being on the field and interacting with somebody he shouldn't be.