2019 Club Semi Finals - Intermediate Hurling
St Galls. Runners up in this competition the year they won their historic football All Ireland. Always a dual club. Any club from the Glens will tell you the Milltown men always give it everything. Antrim senior finalists in 2014. Ten All Ireland campaigns in fifteen years. Sevens specialists in football too. Men like CJ and Kieran McGourty, Aodhan Gallagher, Karl Stewart and of course Sean and Conor ‘Je Suis Burkey’ Burke. Led by the indomitable Mickey Culbert, St Galls stalwart. Goals from CJ and Sean McAreavey steered a course to their second Ulster Intermediate hurling championship. In Ulster it was a late late Tómas Ó’Ciaran free that kept them in the match against Derry’s Swatragh before CJ McGourty - who else? - finished the argument with an extra time goal. Can they emulate their county compatriots O’Donovan Rossa who won the title in 2015? Bragging rights in Belfast up for grabs.
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Oranmore Maree. There’s an All Ireland flavour about the men from Oranmore in the County Galway. Galway legend Gerry McInerney having ditched the white boots for Bainisteoir bib. Gearoid McInerney and Niall Burke on the team. And St Thomas All Ireland winning manager John Burke in backroom brainstrust. These men have been there and lifted the trophy. For all its success in the senior club grade, no Galway team has ever won an Intermediate All Ireland, although clubs from the county have contested six finals. Could Oranmore Maree make it a first? The advice to St Galls? You start by watching Niall Burke, who hit 1-10 in the Connacht Final.
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It’s a case of 7Up for North Cork outfit Charleville having gone through the gears and divisions from junior to senior in seven years. Winning Cork Intermediate means they compete at senior level next year! There’s nothing just like being ten points behind at halftime in a Munster final is there lads? Hitting six of the next seven points helps steady the ship. So does 2-1 in the last four minutes to win by three. Hats off Jack Doyle, Darragh Fitzgibbon and Darren Casey for that last minute magic! 2018 AllStar midfield dynamo Darragh Fitzgibbon powers the team from the midfield engine room. Wearing the Bainisteoir bib is Ben O’Connor, no stranger to crafting hurling success at all Ireland level, winning three with Cork, one as captain, and one club All Ireland with Newtownshandrum.
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For Graigue Ballycallan after twenty five years at senior level the club lost its senior status in 2013. For a team that won two Kilkenny championships and contested the 2001 All Ireland, it was a fall from grace, but that’s not unusual in Kilkenny. They have one ace in the pack for this campaign, albeit an old dog for the hard road. In addition to his eleven Leinster medals with Kilkenny, his eight All Irelands and four All Stars, Eddie Brennan won a Kilkenny senior championship in 2000. He was there when they lost that All Ireland Final in 2001 after extra time to Athenry. Still soldiering he patrols between the 11 and 14 berth at the slightly age of 40, still sniffing out vital scores when he can. The club of John Hoyne, Adrian Ronan and Johnny Butler and Michael Hoyne. A new generation is calling.
O’Neills wishes all the teams well in this weekend’s Club Championships. We are proud to supply the GAA clubs from Sligo to Seoul, Amsterdam to Antrim, check out our online GAA clubshops from Ireland, Asia, USA, Australasia, Europe and more.