GAA

Do you know the heartbreak of your favourite hurl breaking while you’re at peak performance in an important match? With the ability to knock you off your game, why let something so trivial continue to happen? It can often mean the difference in getting that final point to win the match. However, Cúltec is leading the way in the next generation of hurling sticks. The Offaly based company has brought a new synthetic fibreglass hurl to the market which is much stronger than the traditional ash hurl.

Why Choose a Cúltec Fibreglass Hurling Stick?

Approved by the GAA, the Cúltec hurl is the perfect tool in the hands of any hurler or camogie enthusiast. The synthetic hurley is hallow from the handle to the bás, with a cork in the bás to give a large sweet spot. It encompasses premium touch, strike and balance to be used by all levels of ability

Sunday's TG4 All Ireland Ladies Football Final brings together the novel pairing of Galway and Dublin to Croke Park, with the Jackies going for their third consecutive Brendan Martin success. Galway are seeking their second title having defeated Sunday's opponents in 2004 on a score of 3-8 to 0-11. With the Camogie team having powered their way to a fantastic win and the ladies semi-final victory over Mayo, completing a championship double over their nearest rivals, optimism is high in the West that this young emerging team can provide a shock.

The manner of their win over Mayo will have given great confidence to the Tribes' women. Mairéad Seoighe got Galway off to the best possible start hitting a goal on three minutes and a second on the fifteen-minute mark. Mayo, ever resilient, put Galway to the proverbial pin of their collar, reeling in the deficit with goals of their own and took the lead in the second half. The sides were level coming down the home stretch with three

This Saturday Kerry and Dublin embark on the second part of their latest drama. For both panels a date with fate in Croke Park awaits. Another classic? Extra time? An unlikely winner? History repeating itself? It’s the oldest and most enduring rivalry in football. Soaked in history. One for the purist, a case of play it twice, Sam, for old times' sake.

A Beautiful Friendship

Whatever happens, with a young Kerry team on the rise and a Dublin team blending emerging players with established stars, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship over the next few seasons. Certainly, the Kingdom looks best placed to pose a consistent threat to this brilliant Dublin outfit. A browse through the papers shows pundits and former players seeking ways and means to spot the cracks in Dublin. There aren’t many. Normal service could resume on Saturday.

As time goes by, since the first match, the expectations are that Dublin will change their

The other day in an interview Dublin midfielder Michael Darragh Macauley professed not to know how many consecutive All Ireland’s Dublin has won. MDM mustn’t read the papers or watch the television because as the championship has progressed the talk of the Dublin quest for another consecutive All Ireland is all around us. In every break in the game. He’s good craic anyway is MDM.

We’ll Remember Dublin from these Rare Times

Irrespective of the outcome on Sunday it is hard to argue that we have ever seen a better team and panel. As a team they are exceptional, they have evolved in their movement, their use of the ball, their kicking of the ball, all under Jim Gavin’s ever watchful eye.

The decision making on the pitch is uniformly excellent. The exploits of the Dublin bench are so exemplary they are taken for granted. Consider the likes of Con O’Callaghan. If Dublin win Con will have won four all Ireland

This summer Tommy Walsh is back to gold again and playing with real purpose. He was a real handful in winning the ball and turning the tide against the Red Hands. The question this weekend is, should he be given a starting Kerry jersey, as the Kingdom bid to stem the blue wave.

His former partner in the Twin Towers Kieran Donaghy is adamant that “he has got to start the final for Kerry. You got to go with your size, with your big guys. He’s an experienced player and a leader in the dressing room.”

Tommy Walsh? He’s 6ft 6in and has created scores and space against Tyrone. The question now in Kerry is what he can do against Dublin. Walsh, Clifford, Stephen O’Brien, Sean O’Shea and Geaney in a forward line. It could get interesting. If he doesn’t start, the danger is that by the time he comes in, the damage could be done. Exhibit A; Andy Moran for Mayo. 

From Kingdom Come and Australia Bound

By Declan Bogue

WELL, that was fun, wasn't it?

On Saturday afternoon as Fermanagh played Armagh, a thousand middle-aged men in were left wailing at the complications of technology as they begged their children to teach them all about the mysterious Goddess that is the BBC iPlayer.

When they eventually got plugged in and zoned out, what met them was one of the most atypical Ulster Championship matches. Fermanagh played to a rigid system that yielded the right result, aided by; 1) Armagh selector Paddy McKeever earning a red card for a

 By Enda McEvoy

Limerick pulling off the summer’s first surprise, if surprise it was, at the Gaelic Grounds. Michael Ryan, that most gregarious of men, refusing to talk to the media afterwards before having the sense to change mind and tack the following day. Cork finishing the better to see off a wasteful

This weekend we see both Ulster Football Championship semi final replays. They will be observed by afar from many with a degree of disdain. Ulster football. Ulster football to the uninitiated is considered a sort of faction fight with an O’Neills football thrown in for good measure.

But for the diehard Ulster football aficionado, a good tight match in Ulster is the highlight of early summer. And don’t be surprised this weekend if both matches attract a decent crowd, as all four counties, Tyrone, Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal approach the games optimistically. The two Ulster semi finals have been the best games this summer so far.

In 2014 Dublin GAA and Kerry GAA

The Club Jersey, Croke Park and the Club Finals

The Club Jersey

The Club jersey. You’ve known it and worn it for as long as you can remember. Club legends that went before you. Your dad. Uncles, maybe a brother. And now it’s your turn. In Croke Park. Something special. The jersey. The badge. The band of brothers. The banter and the craic. The Club. And Croke Park. Think of the lads that will come after too. The legacy you leave behind. What it all means. What’s in Jersey? The passion. Pride. The history.

That’s the way it is for eight panels of club players this week. On Saturday and Sunday the footballers and hurlers of eight intermediate and junior clubs get to do their thing in Croke Park. As the sponsors the AIB would have you believe, it is #TheToughest. A winter’s preparation and hard word boils down to one afternoon in Croke Park.

It always seemed that gaelic football was the more likely of the gaelic games to become widely played worldwide, however in recent years hurling has gained a foothold in the United States, increasingly common among non Irish communities, where players are attracted by the skill and physicality of a game that they say has it all.

Hurling has featured in North America since reports in the late 1700s reported matches between rival Irish immigrants, with the occasional row breaking out among players and partisans!

At the start of the twentieth century there were about a dozen American hurling clubs. Indeed in 1910 a group of American hurlers toured Ireland and in the 1930s teams from the States played in the Tailteann Games.

Hurling is now spreading beyond the Irish communities in the United States with some success. More and more unfamiliar, yet distinctively Irish hurling and gaelic football jerseys are appearing on the O’Neills website. There is a thriving interest