Search Results for 'Cathal Mannion'

A decade on from collecting his first All-Star award, Cathal Mannion has once again been rightfully recognised among hurling’s elite, earning a place on the 2025 All-Star team last weekend — marking a fitting reward at the end of a superb season for the 31-year-old from Ahascragh/Fohenagh.

It is most definitely crunch time this weekend as the final rounds of both the Senior B and Intermediate hurling championships take place with twelve games taking place across the county. The vast majority will have serious consequences for the teams involved.

Perhaps because the threat of relegation has been removed from the clubs participating in Senior B - which will be reclassified as Premier Intermediate in 2026 - there were notably higher scores per team than normal with an average of just over 24 points per team in round one, with Ahascragh/Fohenagh (39) and Kilnadeema/Leitrim (31) leading the way.

Below is a group-by-group preview of the Senior A and B hurling competitions, and a few predictions on each group.

The Greenhills Hotel on the Ennis Road was my destination of choice and the place was packed full of Tipperary and Galway supporters. You certainly would not have thought you were just 400 metres from the clubhouse of Na Piarsaigh – All-Ireland winners in 2016 - when the roof nearly came off the place after 14-man Dublin produced a monumental shock to unceremoniously dump the Treaty out.

The journey home typically follows a familiar cycle of grief. First, frustration with the players. Then the management, who inevitably get dissected in post-mortems. By Enfield, the County Board is often next in line. Everyone has something to get off their chest, and the bus or car becomes a mobile therapy session.

Successive wins over Offaly, Wexford, Antrim, and Dublin have put Galway exactly where they would have wanted to be at the start of the campaign, with a guaranteed place in an All-Ireland quarter final and a chance to annex the Bob O’Keeffe Cup back to the west for only the fourth time.

Micheál Donoghue’s return as Galway senior hurling manager can already be graded a solid B grade on a report card, regardless of what happens from this point forward. Given where the team stood last year to where they are now, Donoghue Part Deux has already been a clear success.

There are plenty of talking points to digest ahead of the Galway senior hurlers' eagerly anticipated clash with Dublin this Sunday in Parnell Park (throw-in 2pm), but the fact that it is a Leinster championship semi-final in all but name will make this contest compelling viewing.

The manner in which the Galway senior hurlers have responded to their dismal championship opener against Kilkenny has stirred some optimism across the county. A professional demolition of Offaly helped steady the ship, but it is the fixtures in May - now the defining month in the provincial hurling calendar - that truly serve as the barometer for real progress.