11 points from sideline cuts were scored in 2009. 9 players managed to cut at least one ball over the bar. The full list is as follows:

Points from sideline cuts by player in 2009
2 points Alan McCrabbe Dublin
2 points Gavin O’Mahony Limerick
1 point Colin Ryan Clare
1 point Diarmuid Lyng Wexford
1 point James Walsh Laois
1 point Joe Canning Galway
1 point Noel McGrath Tipperary
1 point Shane McGrath Tipperary
1 point Shane O’Sullivan Waterford

So the “king of the cuts” for 2009 is jointly awarded to Dublin’s Alan McCrabbe and Limerick’s Gavin O’Mahony.

The hurlingstats database only goes back as far as 2004; if we tally the number of cuts since then, Brian McFall of Antrim heads the chart with 5 points:

Points from sideline cuts by player since 2004
5 points Brian McFall Antrim
3 points Ben O’Connor Cork
3 points James Young Laois
2 points Alan McCrabbe Dublin
2 points Diarmuid Lyng Wexford
2 points Eamonn Corcoran Tipperary
2 points Gavin O’Mahony Limerick
2 points Joe Canning Galway
2 points Shane McGrath Tipperary
1 point Adrian Fenlon Wexford
1 point Brian O’Connell Clare
1 point Colin Ryan Clare
1 point Dave Sweeney Dublin
1 point Diarmuid McMahon Clare
1 point E Bevans Offaly
1 point Eddie Brennan Kilkenny
1 point James Walsh Laois
1 point Joe Fitzpatrick Laois
1 point John McCaffrey Dublin
1 point Martin Finn London
1 point Michael Cordial Offaly
1 point Noel McGrath Tipperary
1 point Rory Hanniffy Offaly
1 point Sean McBride Derry
1 point Shane O’Sullivan Waterford

The trend over the past few years shows that the number of points scored from sideline cuts is increasing:

Total points from sideline cuts by year
2009 11 points
2008 7 points
2007 8 points
2006 2 points
2005 7 points
2004 4 points

If we group the sideline cuts since 2004 by county, Antrim, Laois and Tipperary head the charts with 5 points:

Points from sideline cuts by county since 2004
5 points Antrim
5 points Laois
5 points Tipperary
4 points Dublin
3 points Clare
3 points Cork
3 points Offaly
3 points Wexford
2 points Galway
2 points Limerick
1 point Derry
1 point Kilkenny
1 point London
1 point Waterford

Interestingly Kilkenny have only scored one point from a sideline since 2004. So it’s clear that accuracy from the lineball is not a prerequisite for success.

If you read last year’s post on the 3-in-a-row, you’ll know that the answer is zero. No Kilkenny player played every minute of the 3-in-a-row, not to mind the 4.  I’ve had a request to do a follow-up post showing which Cats contributed most (in terms of playing minutes) to their historic 4 Liams in a row.

Here it is:

1235 minutes Tommy Walsh (18 matches)
1225 minutes Henry Shefflin (18 matches)
1200 minutes Eoin Larkin (18 matches)
1190 minutes Jackie Tyrrell (17 matches)
1145 minutes Eddie Brennan (17 matches)
1138 minutes JJ Delaney (17 matches)
1088 minutes Michael Kavanagh (16 matches)
1081 minutes Martin Comerford (18 matches)
1038 minutes James Fitzpatrick (16 matches)
934 minutes Derek Lyng (16 matches)
901 minutes PJ Ryan (13 matches)
784 minutes Brian Hogan (12 matches)
767 minutes Aidan Fogarty (15 matches)
685 minutes Noel Hickey (11 matches)
664 minutes John Tennyson (13 matches)
642 minutes Richie Power (13 matches)
538 minutes Michael Rice (13 matches)
444 minutes Willie O’Dwyer (12 matches)
359 minutes James McGarry (6 matches)
316 minutes Michael Fennelly (9 matches)
312 minutes John Dalton (6 matches)
266 minutes James Ryall (6 matches)
163 minutes Eoin McCormack (3 matches)
153 minutes Richie Hogan (4 matches)
147 minutes Richie Mullally (6 matches)
147 minutes Donncha Cody (3 matches)
118 minutes TJ Reid (7 matches)
96 minutes PJ Delaney (3 matches)
91 minutes Eoin Reid (3 matches)
21 minutes Sean Cummins (1 match)
12 minutes Peter Cleere (1 match)

Compared to last year’s post there are a few differences.

• Kilkenny played 18 matches to win the 4-in-a-row. 18 matches by 70 minutes gives 1260 minutes of hurling in total.  Tommy Walsh was only 25 minutes shy of this total.  He was substituted in the 2007 Leinster Final.
• Only 4 players played in every match of the 4-in-row.  Tommy Walsh, Henry Shefflin, Eoin Larkin and Martin Comerford.  Cha Fitzpatrick drops off this list; he played in every game of the 3-in-a-row but injury this season meant he lost his place.
• There are 31 players in the list compared to 30 last year.  The newbie is Sean Cummins who made his debut v Galway in the Leinster Championship.

Will I be repeating this post next year?  The bookies have the Cats at evens to do the 5-in-a-row so I think I’ll save this database query for another year

Kilkenny have defeated 10 different counties in the march to four-in-a-row. Their roll-call of victims along with the number of defeats inflicted is as follows:

4 Wexford
3 Galway
2 Cork
2 Offaly
2 Waterford
1 Clare
1 Dublin
1 Limerick
1 Tipperary
1 Westmeath

During 2006 to 2009 the Cats beat every strong hurling county in Munster and Leinster at least once. Galway failed three times.  Only two of the top 12 hurling counties avoided the Cats - Antrim & Laois.

Kilkenny played 18 matches to win the 4-in-a-row. Their smallest margin of victory was their 3 point win over Cork in the 2006 final. And of course their biggest was their 23 point destruction of Waterford in the 2008 final. They scored at least one goal in every match except the 2007 semi-final when Wexford held them to 0-23. They only failed once to score 20 points or more - that was in the 2006 final when they hit 1-16.

Waterford have the distinction of scoring the most against Kilkenny (3-15 in this year’s semi-final) and also conceding the most (3-30 in last year’s final).

Their average margin of victory in each of the four years was:

2006 7.6 points
2007 10.6 points
2008 17.25 points
2009 5 points

Impressive stats whatever way you look at them!

Barring a draw on September 6, Joe Canning will become the top scorer for 2009.  Right now he leads the field on 54 points (3-45).  The highest ranked Kilkenny player is Henry Shefflin on 33 points (1-30) and the highest ranked Tipperary player is Lar Corbett on 25 points (6-7).  If the All-Ireland final ends in a draw, it would give Shefflin a reasonable chance to overhaul Canning  seeing as he has been averaging 11 points a game this year.  The last drawn All-Ireland hurling final was 50 years ago between Waterford and Kilkenny.  However Tipp and Kilkenny drew in League final last May so another one could come to pass……

The top 5 scorers from play and placed balls are:

1. Joe Canning 3-45
2. Eoin Kelly (Waterford) 2-47
3. Alan McCrabbe 1-39
4. Diarmuid Lyng 1-31
5. Henry Shefflin 1-30

If we look at the top 5 most efficient scorers from play and placed balls, then McCrabbe moves to the number 1 spot and Lyng drops out of the top 5 to be replaced by Ben O’Connor:

1. Alan McCrabbe 6.19 mins between point
2. Joe Canning 6.26 mins between point
3. Henry Shefflin 6.36 mins between point
4. Eoin Kelly (Waterford) 6.60 mins between point
5. Ben O’Connor 7.08 mins between point

Ignoring scores from placed balls, the top 5 scorers from play are:

1. Lar Corbett 6-7
2. Niall Healy 5-7
3. John Mullane 1-17
4. Noel McGrath 1-13
5. Seamus Callinan 3-7

Corbett is 9 points ahead of team mates Callinan and McGrath.  The highest placed Kilkenny player is Shefflin on 1-9.  So similar to Canning, Corbett looks poised to be top scorer from play in 2009.

If we look at scoring efficiency from play the top 5:

1. Lar Corbett 11.08 mins between point
2. Niall Healy 14.32 mins between point
3. Shane Dooley 15.30 minutes between point
4. Seamus Callinan 16.92 minutes between point
5. Noel McGrath 17.06 minutes between point

Mullane drops out the top 5 to be replaced by Shane Dooley.

Most previews of last Sunday’s All Ireland hurling semi-final predicted a Tipperary victory - but not without a battle from Limerick, a county renowned for its fighting spirit.  Well the pundits got the first part right but not the second as Tipperary put six goals past a sorry Limerick.  It took Tipp 17 minutes to get their first 3 goals - one each by Eoin Kelly, Noel McGrath and Pat Kerwick.  The remaining three goals came from the stick of Lar Corbett and all in the last 13 minutes.  The last side to score 6 goals in a championship match was Waterford last year against Antrim.

Corbett ended the day with 3-1 and moved to the top of the scorers from play chart with six goals and seven points so far, three points ahead of Galway’s Niall Healy.  Eoin Kelly bagged 1-6 (6 points from frees), Noel McGrath helped himself to 1-3 and Pat Kerwick 1-2.  If you knew beforehand that Tipp were going to score six goals, you’d have reckoned that Seamus Callinan would get at least one as Callinan had scored a goal in each of his five previous championship matches.  However the Tipp man stuck to points this time scoring 0-3.

There was very little to cheer about for Limerick.  Keeper Brian Murray scored his second penalty of the season.  Sub Brian O’Sullivan who was making his championship debut scored 1-1 from play in the second half.

Tipperary now face Kilkenny on the 6th of September with the Cats going for 4-in-a-row.  The game will be reffed by Offaly’s Diarmuid Kirwan who also reffed the 2007 final.

As mentioned there was 1 newcomer last weekend:

Limerick

• Brian O’Sullivan

That brings to 62 the number of newcomers to championship hurling this year.

Last Sunday Kilkenny defeated Waterford in the first semi-final of this year’s All-Ireland championship.  The win brings the Cats within 70 minutes of the county’s first ever 4-in-a-row.  The only time a hurling 4-in-a-row has been achieved was by Cork between 1941 and 1944.  But….the 1941 hurling championship was severely disrupted by an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and several matches were cancelled including the Leinster Final between Kilkenny and Dublin and the Munster semi-final between Cork and Tipperary.  So if the Cats win on the 6th of September, they can probably argue that their 4-in-a-row is the first that was achieved with a full programme of championship matches…anyway let’s leave that particular debate aside for now

The final result on Sunday was 2-23 to 3-15 and over half of Kilkenny’s scores came from the stick of the sublime Henry Shefflin who hit 1-14 (1-6 from play).  It was Shefflin’s high tally since the 2005 Leinster semi-final when he hit 2-11 against Offaly.  It was also his first goal from play in championship hurling since the 2007 All-Ireland final versus Limerick.

For Waterford, Eoin Kelly scored 1-10 (0-3 from play).  If he had managed one more point, he would have levelled with Joe Canning at the top of the scoring charts.  But, as it stands, the only thing that will prevent Canning being top scorer would be if the semi-final and/or final end in a draw thus giving Shefflin and possibly Eoin Kelly (Tipperary) a chance to overhaul Canning.

Shane Walsh scored 2 goals to add to his one strike against Galway.  In fact Walsh has yet to score a point in championship hurling - his only scores up to now have been goals.

There were no debutants last weekend; however there were a number the previous weekend mainly due to the teams in the seemingly meaningless relegation semi-finals giving some new players a run including:

Offaly (3)

• Odhran Kealey
• Stephen Wynne
• James Gorman

Antrim (1)

• Darren Hamill

Clare (3)

• Conor Cooney
• Pat Donlon
• Conor McNamara

Wexford (1)

• Brendan Hobbs

Waterford (1)

• Shane Casey

Galway (1)

• Eugene McEntee

That brings to 61 the number of newcomers this year.

It’s been a while since there’s been a genuine shock in championship hurling.  The type of result where a long odds outsider overturns a hot favourite.  Well Laois came mighty close last Saturday when they gave Limerick “one hell of a fright” in Phase III of the All Ireland Qualifiers.  Laois led by 1-05 to no score after 6 minutes and held that lead until 10 minutes from the end but Limerick prevailed in closing minutes. Willie Hyland scored 0-8 (0-2 from play) for Laois while Eoin Costelloe scored 1-02 from play.  For Limeric, Paul Browne struck 3 points from play and Andrew O’Shaugnessy hit 0-6 (0-1 from play).

In the other Phase III qualifier, Galway overturned last year’s result with a 7 point victory over Cork.  As usual Ben O’Connor and Joe Canning were top scorers for Cork and Galway respectively.  Ben hit 9 points (2 from play) whereas Joe got 0-10 (all from placed balls including 1 sideline cut).  This is the first match in championship hurling where Canning failed to score from play.

So what happens next?  On Sunday, Galway face Waterford and Limerick play Dublin in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.  As Limerick had already faced Waterford (twice), they were kept apart in the q/f draw.  The winners of these matches play the provincial champions in the All Ireland semi-finals.  No matter who wins the quarter-finals, there will not be any draw for the semi-finals becuase the pairings will be pre-ordained.  This is because of 2 criteria:

• the provincial finalists cannot meet in the semis (i.e a Kilkenny v Dublin or a Tipperary v Waterford semi-final is not allowed)
• teams which have played already cannot meet again where possible.

Thus if Limerick and Galway win, the semis will be Kilkenny v Limerick and Tipperary v Galway because Kilkenny and Galway have already met in the Leinster championship.  Got that?  you can read all the permutations and combinations here.

Despite rumblings of discontent from the counties involved, it looks like the Liam McCarthy relegation play-offs will go ahead this weekend.  The two “semi-finals” are as follows:

• Antrim v Offaly
• Wexford v Clare

The two losers will play in a relegation “final” with the ultimate losers being re-graded to the Christy Ring Cup in 2010.  Carlow, as Christy Ring Cup champions, take their rightful place in next year’s Leinster and All-Ireland Championships.

Only 1 new hurler made his championship debut at the weekend bringing the total number of newcomers to 51:

Galway (1)

• Andy Coen

Back on the the 30th of May, 12 counties set out in pursuit of All Ireland glory…..7 weeks later and we are down to the final 8.

Those 8 are:

Provincial champions:

• Kilkenny
• Tipperary

Provincial runners up:

• Dublin
• Waterford

Phase II winners:

• Galway
• Limerick

Phase I winners:

• Cork
• Laois

The 4 teams which have been eliminated are Offaly, Wexford, Clare and Antrim.  What happens to those counties remains unclear.  They have been drawn against each other in relegation semi-finals (Wexford v Clare, Antrim v Offaly) but with Antrim claiming a right to 3 years competing in Leinster, the relegation play-offs have been postponed.  Sean Moran writing in the Irish Times has a good explanation of how we ended up in this mess.

The only thing that is sure (I think) is that Carlow will compete for the Liam McCarthy Cup next year having defeated Down in the Christy Ring Cup final.  In the Nicky Rackard Cup, Meath defeated London and in the Lory Meagher, Tyrone defeated Donegal.  Meath and Tyrone also move up a tier in 2010.

6 players were blooded in the championship last weekend:

Limerick (2)

• Gavin O’Mahony
• Paudie McNamara

Wexford (1)

• Jim Berry

Galway (1)

• Eoin Forde

Clare (1)

• Caimin Morey

Waterford (1)

• Maurice Shanahan

This brings to 50 the number of newcomers to championship hurling in 2009.

Question: Which first choice Kilkenny forward went 1 year without scoring in championship hurling?

Answer: Martin ‘Gorta’ Comerford.

Before last Sunday, Comerford’s last score was a point against Wexford in the Leinster Championship Final on Jul 6, 2008.  He was held scoreless against Cork in the 2008 All-Ireland semi-final, against Waterford in the All-Ireland final and also against Galway recently.  So not many would have backed him to be Kilkenny’s top scorer against Dublin.  For the Dubs, Alan McCrabbe scored 0-11 (0-3 from play).

In Phase I of the All Ireland qualifiers, Cork had a 13 point win over Offaly with Aisake Ó hAilpín scoring 2-1 and Laois edged out Antrim by 3 points.  Top scorer for Laois was Willie Hyland with 0-7 (0-3 from play).

Antrim and Offaly now await the losers of Phase II of the qualifiers (Galway v Clare, Limerick v Wexford).  There will be 2 relegation “semi-finals” with the losers playing the relegation final to see who gets demoted to the Christy Ring Cup for next year.  At least that’s how I think it works.  Antrim are claiming that they are entitled to a 3 year stint in the Leinster Championship under the new format.  We shall see what happens - but don’t you just wish that problems like this could have been prevented with a little foresight…….

Five hurlers made their championships debuts last weekend.

Laois (2)

• Eoin Costelloe
• Brian Dunne

Cork (1)

• Tadhg Og Murphy

Offaly (2)

• Colm Coughlan
• Derek Morkan

This brings to 44 the number of newcomers to championship hurling in 2009.

Every team competing for the Liam McCarhty cup has now played at least one match so I thought it would be a good time to review the top scorers’ charts.

The top scorers from play are:

1. Niall Healy (Galway) 4-4
2. Joe Canning (Galway) 2-4
3. John Mullane (Waterford) 0-10
4. Seamus Callinan (Tipperary) 2-3
5. Stephen Banville (Wexford) 2-3

The top scorers from play and placed balls are:

1. Joe Canning (Galway) 3-19
2. Alan McCrabbe (Dublin) 1-19
3. Eoin Kelly (Waterford) 0-18
4. Niall Healy (Galway) 4-6
5. Diarmuid Lyng (Wexford) 0-14

The most efficient scoring charts don’t kick in until a palyer has played 3 matches so there is no data in them yet.