I bought myself an early Christmas present last weekend - Our Games The Official GAA Annual of 2009.  A fine publication (containing some superb photos of this year’s All Ireland Championships) it is too but my interest was mainly statistical.  While flicking through I noticed that two matches from the All Ireland qualifiers were missing from hurlingstats.com.  These were the All-Ireland qualifiers’ relegation play-off and the relegation/promotion play-off.  In the relegation play-off, Antrim beat Laois; as a result Laois faced the Christy Ring Cup winners Carlow in the relegation/promotion play-off.  Laois had a comfortable 10 point win thus ensuring their particpation in the Liam McCarthy Cup next year.  The full stats for both games can be found here:

• Antrim v Laois
• Laois v Carlow

I also spotted a few small mistakes in the 2008 scoring stats.  The stats showed Joe Canning scoring two goals from play against Cork; in fact one goal was from a penalty.  Similarly the stats had Eoin Kelly getting 1-8 from play against Wexford; the goal was actually from a close in free.  These changes have one significant effect.  Eoin Kelly drops down to second place in the list of top scorers from play and John Mullane is elevated to numero uno for 2008.

I made one small enhancement to the site - the tables listing a team’s matches and a player’s matches now is now subdivided by year.

Finally thanks to those of you who emailed me with player profiles updates.  Your help is appreciated.

There was unanimity among the various committees and other hurlers on the ditch about this year’s hurler of the year awards.  Kilkenny’s Eoin Larkin was awarded the triumvirate of senior awards - the Texaco Hurler of the Year, the Vodafone Hurler of the Year and the GPA Hurler of the Year award.  As for the young hurler of the year, it was no surprise that Galway’s Joe Canning was the recipient.

Joe Canning

Larkin had a superb year for Kilkenny and scored freely from play in every match.  He started with 4 points against Offaly in the Leinster semi-final and struck 3 more in the final versus Wexford.  His goal against Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final (when he ran through the center of the Cork defence and coolly stroked the sliotar past Cusack) illustrated not only his skill and determination but also a ruthless self-confidence which many of this current Kilkenny side seem to possess.  In the All-Ireland final, he contributed 1-4 of the Cats’ 3-30 haul, his goal coming early in the second half to well and truly exstinguish any lingering Déise hopes.  Larkin is a soldier with the Irish army and spent 6 months on a peace-keeping mission in Kosovo only arriving back in Ireland in April.  It makes his achievement this year all the more impressive.

Joe Canning is probably the most high profile hurler ever to win the Vodafone Young Hurler of the Year award.  His exploits with the Galway minors, under-21s, Limerick Institute of Technology and Portumna created a huge degree of hype so a lot was expected of him in the Galway senior jersey.  And if 2008 is anything to go by, the hype is justified.  He was behind most of Galway’s good play in their League final loss to Tipperary in April and scored a memorable goal.  But it was his one man show against Cork in Thurles that really whets the appetite for more of the same in 2009.  Canning scored 2-12 and established himself as the leader of the Galway attack in his debut year.  Galway compete in Leinster next year so hopefully we will see a lot more of Canning.

Clarer hurler Tony Griffin has been awarded the 2008 GPA Hurling Fair Play Award for his work with the Tony Griffin Foundation. Griffin set up the foundation to raise money for charities dedicated to cancer prevention and cure following the death of his father from cancer. One of his major fund raising efforts was a 7,500 km cycle across Canada and Ireland in 2007.

On the hurling field, 2008 wasn’t a great year for Tony. He admits as much in his blog. Here’s hoping he can rediscover the form of 2006 when he was was the third highest scorer from play.

In any sport, the fans like players who can get the big scores on a regular basis. Be they spectacular volleys into the top corner or home runs hit out of the ballpark, the fans know that this player has the potential to do something special. Waterford’s Paul Flynn was such a player. The reason I say was is because he has announced his retirement from inter-county hurling.

His trademark score was probably the close in free and I don’t think there was a better exponent of this skill in the past fifteen years. The most famous example was his goal against Cork in the 2004 Munster Final. Later in that year, he scored 0-13 in Waterford’s narrow semi-final defeat to Kilkenny.

He has been affected by injuries in recent years and only played a bit part in this year’s championship. He came on in the All Ireland final for the closing 18 minutes.

He will be missed by fans of the game especially those who looked forward to his net busting dead ball strikes.

Elsewhere in Waterford news, John Mullane’s De La Salle won their first county title with a 2 point win over Abbeyside.  Other Waterford players who played in the game include De La Salle’s Stephen Brenner, Brian Phelan and Kevin Moran and Abbeyside’s Gary Hurney and Richie Foley.

As usual I’m a bit behind the hurling news cycle but in case you missed it, the 2008 GPA hurling team of the year was announced on Monday. Here are the winners:

1 Brendan Cummins Tipperary

2 Michael Kavanagh Kilkenny
3 Noel Hickey Kilkenny
4 Jackie Tyrell Kilkenny

5 Tommy Walsh Kilkenny
6 Conor O’Mahony Tipperary
7 JJ Delaney Kilkenny

8 ‘Cha’ Fitzpatrick Kilkenny
9 Shane McGrath Tipperary

10 Ben O’Connor Cork
11 Henry Shefflin Kilkenny
12 Eoin Larkin Kilkenny

13 Eddie Brennan Kilkenny
14 Eoin Kelly Waterford
15 John Mullane Waterford

The county breakdown is:

9 Kilkenny
3 Tipperary
2 Waterford
1 Cork

The team is exactly the same as the 2008 All Star selection except that John Mullane replaces Joe Canning. The GPA team is picked by present and former inter-county players who are GPA members whereas the All Stars are picked by a panel of sports journalists.  Perhaps those journalists who were present in Thurles to  witness Canning’s sensational display against Cork in the All Ireland qualifiers were swayed to choose the Portumna man over Mullane who had an excellent season for na Déise?

Joe Canning taking a sideline cut

I attended the Galway Senior Hurling Championship final in Pearse Stadium today.  Portumna defeated Gort on a scoreline of 1-18 to 2-07. The win continues a golden era for the Shannonside club. They have now contested the last six county finals winning four of them:

2003 Portumna 2-13 Loughrea 2-09
2004 Athenry 0-15 Portumna 0-13
2005 Portumna 3-21 Loughrea 3-14
2006 Loughrea 1-13 Portumna 0-15
2007 Portumna 6-12 Kinvara 0-11
2008 Portumna 1-18 Gort 2-07

Portumna fielded five players who played for the Galway senior team in this year’s All-Ireland qualifiers:

• Ollie Canning
• Joe Canning
• Kevin Hayes
• Damien Hayes
• Andrew Smith

Gort had no inter-county players.

In the minor final St. Thomas defeated Athenry 2-17 to 2-10.

Here are photos of the match programme:

2008 Galway senior hurling championship final programme cover

2008 Galway senior hurling championship final teams

2008 Galway minor hurling championship final teams

Before the game the Gort team which won the 1983 county title were introduced to the crowd.

Gort Senior County Champions 1983

The answer is none. Zero. Nada. Faic.

Kilkenny played 14 matches to win the 3-in-a-row. 14 matches by 70 minutes gives 980 minutes of hurling in total.

Only 5 players played in every match - Cha Fitzpatrick, Tommy Walsh, Henry Shefflin, Eoin Larkin and Martin Comerford. But none of these played every minute of every match. Cha Fitzpatrick came the closest - only 7 minutes shy of the 980 max.

Here is the full list of the players who contributed to the 3-in-a-row along with the number of minutes and matches they played in.

973 minutes Cha Fitzpatrick (14 matches)
955 minutes Tommy Walsh (14 matches)
945 minutes Henry Shefflin (14 matches)
920 minutes Eoin Larkin (14 matches)
910 minutes Jackie Tyrrell (13 matches)
892 minutes Martin Comerford (14 matches)
886 minutes Eddie Brennan (13 matches)
858 minutes JJ Delaney (13 matches)
829 minutes Michael Kavanagh (12 matches)
776 minutes Derek Lyng (12 matches)
685 minutes Noel Hickey (11 matches)
644 minutes Brian Hogan (10 matches)
621 minutes PJ Ryan (9 matches)
529 minutes Aidan Fogarty (11 matches)
444 minutes Willie O’Dwyer (12 matches)
384 minutes John Tennyson (9 matches)
381 minutes Richie Power (9 matches)
359 minutes James McGarry (6 matches)
266 minutes James Ryall (6 matches)
258 minutes Michael Rice (9 matches)
251 minutes Michael Fennelly (7 matches)
172 minutes John Dalton (4 matches)
163 minutes Eoin McCormack (3 matches)
147 minutes Richie Mullally (6 matches)
147 minutes Donncha Cody (3 matches)
96 minutes PJ Delaney (3 matches)
91 minutes Eoin Reid (3 matches)
63 minutes Richie Hogan (1 match)
43 minutes TJ Reid (3 matches)
12 minutes Peter Cleere (1 match)

There are 30 players in the list.

I felt the site was in need of a splash of colour so I’ve added a new banner image.  The photo used in the image was taken at league match between Galway and Waterford in March 2005.

Thanks to you know who for helping me with Photoshop

Anyway if you’ve any thoughts, post a comment.

P.S.  If you can’t see the banner or if something looks off, you might need to force a refresh of your browser.  CTRL + F5 usually does the job.

Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy

While many people remember the 1953 final which Galway lost narrowly to Cork, few realise just how competitive Galway were in the 1940s and 1950s. Back in those days Galway went straight through to the semi-final and played the Munster or Leinster champions on alternating years. Here are some of the years when the Tribesmen went close:

1944 Lost to Cork in the semi-final by 1 point. Cork easily beat Dublin in the final.
1945 Lost to Kilkenny in the semi-final by 1 point. Tipperary beat Kilkenny in the final.
1947 Lost to Kilkenny in the semi-final by 1 point. Kilkenny beat Cork in the final.
1952 Lost to Cork in the semi-final by 2 points. Cork easily beat Dublin in the final.

Two key players on those Galway teams were the Duggan brothers. Seánie Duggan played in goals while his brother Jimmy was a forward. They were both honoured this week by the National University of Ireland Galway for their contribution to hurling in Galway.

Above is a photo from the front page from the Irish Times on Tuesday which shows that the brothers have not lost their touch (Jimmy is on the left).

The 2008 All-Star awards were announced last night and, as expected, Kilkenny dominated the selection.  Here are the winners:

1 Brendan Cummins Tipperary

2 Michael Kavanagh Kilkenny
3 Noel Hickey Kilkenny
4 Jackie Tyrell Kilkenny

5 Tommy Walsh Kilkenny
6 Conor O’Mahony Tipperary
7 JJ Delaney Kilkenny

8 ‘Cha’ Fitzpatrick Kilkenny
9 Shane McGrath Tipperary

10 Ben O’Connor Cork
11 Henry Shefflin Kilkenny
12 Eoin Larkin Kilkenny

13 Eddie Brennan Kilkenny
14 Eoin Kelly Waterford
15 Joe Canning Galway

The county breakdown is:

9 Kilkenny
3 Tipperary
1 Waterford
1 Cork
1 Galway

Henry Shefflin probably needs to extend his mantlepiece as he now has 8 All Star awards. Tommy Walsh wins his sixth consecutive award at the ripe old age of 25.

In his debut year in senior inter-county hurling, Joe Canning won his first award.

The one omission which stands out is John Mullane. Mullane had an excellent year for Na Déise and and clocked up 27 points from play - which put him second on the list of the top scorers from play.