Waterford star Austin Gleeson thinks Limerick and Kilkenny will set up a third successive All-Ireland final meeting this weekend, with the Treaty’s semi-final clash with Cork providing more open hurling and the Cats’ meeting with Clare the closer encounter.
The Mount Sion star, who plans to return to the Waterford set-up in 2025 after taking a year away from inter-county hurling, also hopes this weekend’s match-ups can provide hurling with the “big boost” it needs after controversy over the scheduling of the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
Cork beat Dublin in the first of those, played at lunchtime on a Saturday afternoon, their fourth successive Championship victory after losing their opening two Munster games. The first of those wins was on an emotionally charged night at Pairc Ui Chaoimh when they beat Limerick by two points, but Gleeson doesn’t see the Rebels turning over the five-in-a-row chasing Treatymen again on Sunday.
“Cork beat Limerick already this year and you can see what it meant to the people of Cork and they’re going to come in massive numbers this Sunday, but Limerick are going to be hungry to beat them after the only defeat this year was the Cork game,” said Gleeson,
“It’ll be a good game, I think it’ll have a lot more free flowing hurling than the Kilkenny-Clare game. I think Limerick will have that bit of extra bite especially after losing to them already this year – it’s hard enough to beat a team once but to beat a team twice is even harder. I don’t know whether it will be a close enough game, I think Limerick will beat them by five or six points. You could see in the Munster final [against Clare] they were starting to find that rhythm again that the’ve had the last number of years.”
While Gleeson sees John Kiely’s side having a little bit to spare over Cork on Sunday, Saturday’s semi-final, which sees Clare take on Kilkenny at this stage for the third year, in-a-row is closer to call with Clare out to avoid a third successive loss to the Cats. Clare head into the match off the back of a comfortable quarter-final win over Wexford, which got Brian Lohan’s side back on track following their disappointing Munster decider defeat to Limerick.
Kilkenny, meanwhile, destroyed Dublin in the Leinster final and what they showed in that display is part of what has Gleeson leaning towards the Cats.
“I’ve a feeling it could be even better than the Limerick-Cork game; the last couple of years they’ve been nip and tuck with each other,” said the 29-year-old.
“Looking at Kilkenny in the Leinster final, it was serious performance. I know Dublin might have been under par that day but Kilkenny were really at it.
“It’s going to be very physical, two big enough teams. but with plenty of hurlers around. This thing with [Kilkenny’s] Mikey Butler and [Clare’s] Tony Kelly the past two years is going to be interesting as well. Will Clare bring him out to the middle of the field to bring Mikey Butler out or will they leave him in the forward line? Then, on the other side Adrian Mullen is there, John Donnelly is having super year. There are a lot of tactical decisions that both side have to look at. I know Kilkenny are seen to not have the most tactical side of things but if you look at it they have, and have for the last number of years, really gone in-depth with stuff.
“I think Kilkenny might have just that extra in them again and pip Clare.”
With RTÉ showing Euro 2024 games later on the Saturday of the All-Ireland quarter-finals, the two hurling matches at Thurles were played at 1.15pm and 3.15pm, a situation Gleeson, himself a big soccer fan, feels shouldn’t have happened.
“I just don’t understand it,” he said.
“Even if you look at League games, League games are never that early at quarter-past one. I just don’t get it. I understand that there might have been clashes with soccer and stuff like that but, at the end of the day, the GAA is our national sport.
“A hundred per cent I’m after watching nearly all the soccer games I possibly could as well, I love watching it, but I just think [the hurling] should have taken centre stage.
“They didn’t seem like All-Ireland quarter-finals. There were top-six teams in the country this year and I don’t think they got the respect they deserved for getting that far. I think the GAA need to be looking at that.”
Austin Gleeson was speaking as Pinergy announced the switch-on of a new 27.52 kWp solar installation on the roof of Mount Sion GAA Club. This partnership sees Mount Sion GAA Club’s energy needs met by the installation with excess energy being exported to back to the electricity grid to supply the local community in Waterford city.
