Search Results for 'Jim Greene'

Last week in this column I let off a bit of steam in relation to the GAA’s treatment of the lesser hurling counties in the country. As far as I was concerned unless you are a leading contender for Liam McCarthy honours you just don’t matter. Last weekend, the quarter-finals of the Nicky Rackard and Christy Ring cups were played and for the counties involved their season hung on the result. I mentioned about how shoddy the arrangements were for the draw for these quarter-finals. While the draw was being made for the qualifiers in the premier competition, the rest of the counties involved in their own championships, were left to hang on with no idea of who their opposition would be. What I didn’t mention though was my surprise that the knockout games in the Ring and Rackard cups would be on a home and away basis.

On the computer I use to type out my weekly ramblings for Carlow First there’s an inbuilt thesaurus. I’d never thought of using it before until now. Why now? Well until last Sunday night I thought I had seen it all as both a player with and follower of the Carlow senior hurling squad. How wrong could I have been!

“Sure why would ya bother?” Those were the words of Naomh Eoin’s long serving Carlow hurler Robbie Foley on hearing of the original fixing of the Christy Ring hurling final for Croke Park at 7:30pm on Friday night next! Just think about it. Travelling up to Dublin on the Friday of the busiest bank holiday weekend of the year. What time do you leave at in order to ensure that you can get through the bank holiday traffic and arrive at the ground in time? Now I’ve devoted most of my columns of the last two weeks to criticising the top brass of the GAA for how they’ve treated the players of the smaller hurling counties and I don’t want to overdo it again this week but I can’t let it go without some comment on the matter. Offering Friday evening as an option to the teams basically belittles not only Carlow and final opponents Westmeath, but all the counties who competed in the competition this year.

Top Oil under-21 football championship

Carlow GAA are busy putting team management’s in place for the coming year. Dublin man Tom McKiterick will coach the under 21 footballers while Sean Adamson who has done Trojan work training the county minor football teams, will train the under 21 side. Jim Bolger, Dan McInerney, and Breffni Hannon, will act as selectors.

Last week I wrote about the remarkable record and tradition that Éire Óg have established in both the Carlow championship and at Leinster and All Ireland level. Well on Sunday last, they began yet another club championship campaign in familiar fashion. An opening round win against Wicklow’s Kiltegan was the first step on what will hopefully be a long road. While the final victory margin was only four points, in truth it was a much more comfortable victory than this might suggest. A very strong first quarter set the foundation for this victory with one of Éire Óg's bigger names to the fore in this period. Simon Rae was back to his sparkling best in this opening quarter and was heavily involved in the opening up of a 1-4 to no score lead in the opening quarter. Indeed when Mark Kelly got the vital touch to a speculative Ber Hennessy ball for the first of his two goals, it looked ominous for the Wicklow champions. To their credit however, they fought their way back into the game and they scored the next four points to leave just a goal separating the sides. Éire Óg weathered this storm well with a pivotal moment being a great save by Michael Hennessy which prevented the Wicklow men drawing level. From this point, the Carlow champions demonstrated their ruthlessness and big game know-how by engineering the second goal of the game in first half injury time when Mark Kelly doubled his own goal tally for the day by finishing a full length move to the corner of the net. This gave them the cushion they needed and despite Kiltegan's best efforts, the margin never dipped below four points. Rae was again influential in the second half, scoring two fine points himself and setting Eric McCormick up for his side’s ultimately decisive, third goal. This was a good performance from the Carlow champions given that they had only won their own championship the previous Sunday. It's never easy to begin another campaign so soon after winning your own championship, but if there is one club capable of doing it it's Éire Óg.

Éire Óg's journey through this year's provincial club championship came to an abrupt end at the semi final stage on Sunday last in Dr Cullen Park. Turlough O'Connor's men were soundly beaten by an impressive showing from Offaly champions Rhode. Éire Óg can have no complaints overall with the result with the only dispute being the awarding of a first half penalty against them for a foul by Vinny Kavanagh on Pascal Kellaghan which looked to have occurred outside the large square.

The announcement regarding the appointment of Jim Greene’s successor as manager of the county senior hurlers was made at last week’s county board meeting, and quite interesting it was. Trainer of Oulart The Ballagh for the last two seasons, Kevin Ryan is to be the new man in charge. Speaking to county chairman Pat Deering in the lead up to the appointment, he assured me that a very highly regarded candidate had expressed interest in the job. This is in no small way due to the fact that the profile of Carlow hurling has risen consistently over the last few years with the performances of some very talented minor teams and the senior squad’s Christy Ring success this year.