Tullamore in leinster final

[leinsterman]

Good win for tullamore and a hard one, great to see them in the leinster final. the gift pull off a great save near the end,
if clonkill had to get that it would have being hard to win. Shane dooley done well from frees but i taught he never got into the game.
stephen egan great game again today hope he plays for the county. francis kerrigan had a quiet game still he had 3 shots at goal
one hit the post the other two he got 1-1 , midfield done well shane kelly got great point in the second half. but my man of the match
would be alan martin jasus for a small man great bit of stuff came out with great balls today. ref was fault for the fight near the end should
have giveing number 21 for clonkill a red card for the elbow on damien fox. lenister final against ballyhale now they have noting to lose
hope they go and give it a good lash you never know who would of thought at the start of the champonship that tullamore would be in
a leinster final from a birr man i like to say well done tullamore win it now.

[1964]

congrats to the lads on reaching the leinster . clonkill were very dogged and could have won the match were it only for a couple of saves from the gift tullamore will need to up it for the final which should be no bother to them. didnt think the ref did us any favours and they got very dirty near the end there number 21 should have got the line for his tackle on the gift after he let that go with a yellow it gave them licence to start pulling dirty strokes but fair play to the lads ye never backed down

[black and red exile]

Phew that was too close for comfort. Lets be honest here, the blues were very lucky today, Clonkill were every bit as good as Tullamore but hitting 15 wides to Tullamore's 3 wides tells the story. There were times in the second half where Tullamore were hanging on by the skin of their teeth and can thank Damien Fox, Alan Martin and Stephen Egan for keeping the door on the hinges, Fox in particular made one save in the second half that any top keeper in the land would be proud of, his reflexes were superb and he certainly showed that he was Mr dependable yet again. Others to impress were Shane Kelly, james Keane in patches, Shane Dooley was very accurate from placed balls but at times when in possession took too much out of the ball when maybe passing to a better placed colleague might have been a better option.
It's a good sign to win when you play badly so it was good to get this game out of the way. The ultimate test now awaits in Portlaoise in 2 weeks time but the blues have nothing to lose so hopefully the whole county will get behind them and roar them on. CAN'T WAIT FOR LOAN SHARK'S PREVIEW

[turk]

Hi, I was at the match today. I enjoyed it!

In the first half it looked to me like Tullamore's touch and control individually was better and they managed to move the ball better when needed. Clonkill in contrast seemed to miscontrol it a lot allowing Tullamore to close down. Clonkill's shooting was quite poor too and they weren't effective in the full forward line in the first half. Some poor balls hit in the direction of nowhere too. Once Tullamore got the goal in the first half I thought they could have clamped the game down a bit better. The goal was well taken by Kerrigan. Another (reasonably) close in free by Dooley was hit goalward and deflected over - although possibly this dipped a bit in the wind. Clonkill's number 12 looked useful enough and was moving well but I didn't feel they should have been allowed get to within one point at half time.

Clonkill had two good chances early in the second half for scores. The first one they had a three on three about 30 yards out but they misplaced the pass and from this Tullamore went down and got a point. The next one, I actually forget what happened here, but they botched it up again, Tullamore went down and hit it over again. Tullamore were well in control for most of the second half and took their scores nicely. I think Clonkill only scored one in the second half going into the last ten minutes.

Big turning point in this game (for me) was when Tullamore were six up and Dooley went for a goal from a free. It was saved and cleared and Clonkill went up and hit a big shot which hit the crossbar and bizarrely went out for a sideline near the endline. This seemed to lift Clonkill going into the last few minutes. After that they got their goal which was deflected off Egan's hurl and in. They had Enda Loughlin and Brendan Murtagh in at full forward for spells near the end and started hitting balls in. Savage save near the very end to keep Tullamore in it. Clonkill were very foolish to get involved in niggling near the end as they really had all the momentum at this stage.

I thought the ref overall was grand here lads. He kept the game going well enough and wasn't over fussy. He had booked a couple of lads earlier and while Enda Loughlin (21) may have seen red for his strike on Fox it was unlikely he would, given that it was generally a clean game up to that point and he may have been given the benefit of the doubt. But the two scuffles at the end were nonsense and played right into Tullamore's hands. He could have sent off any amount of lads at this stage for the scuffles at the end. Thankfully for Tullamore they will have a full deck for the final v Ballyhale.

I was going to stick around for a pint but I decided to head off as I saw some Tullamore extremists dousing effigies of LONE SHARK with petrol, lighter fluid and Dunnes stores twin packs of firelighters

[TheManFromFerbane]

I was going to stick around for a pint but I decided to head off as I saw some Tullamore extremists dousing effigies of LONE SHARK with petrol, lighter fluid and Dunnes stores twin packs of firelighters

The least they could have done is bought the Bord Na Mona brand!!

[Bord na Mona man]

I was going to stick around for a pint but I decided to head off as I saw some Tullamore extremists dousing effigies of LONE SHARK with petrol, lighter fluid and Dunnes stores twin packs of firelighters

The least they could have done is bought the Bord Na Mona brand!!

Well the Cusack Park pitch is in Dunnes Stores!
Its a unique selling point for a GAA ground - Shop and watch the match at the same time. A crèche for the children and a GAA pitch for the men.

Damien Fox pucks the ball over towards the deli counter, James Keane nips in between two trolleys to collect it.
Shane Dooley solos past the vegetable aisle, through the pet food section and all the way through the check outs.
He shoots, he scores, he collects his money back vouchers!

[Plain of the Herbs]

From the Leinster GAA site - hurling club final is fixed for Tullamore on Sunday. How did ye wangle that?!

AIB LEINSTER CLUB SENIOR HURLING CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL 2009
Sunday, 29th November 2009
O'Connor Park,Tullamore (2.15pm) - Ballyhale Shamrocks (KK) v Tullamore (OY)

[bula bula]

Will take any little thing going our way. Will definitely need it.

[BUFFALO]

Jaysis!
Thats ruddy great news altogether.
Wholly unexpected to see such a u-turn regarding the venue,but much appreciated nonetheless.
It'll give us that little bit more of a chance,in a game where nobody is giving us a prayer.
There should be 10,000+ in attendance which will be a huge boost to Tellamore.

An Tulach Mhor abu!

[leinsterman]

Told ye it Would Be in Tullamore, birr have went to nowlan park the last 2 years
they got the lenister final last year birr the year before so its back to a offaly view again.
as i said before that won't worried ballyhale they would play it in geashill, all kilkenny teams
play well in tullamore down the years. it will be nice for tullamore to have it at home hope
the town come and support them now.

[uibhfhailiabu]

Told ye it Would Be in Tullamore, birr have went to nowlan park the last 2 years
they got the lenister final last year birr the year before so its back to a offaly view again.
as i said before that won't worried ballyhale they would play it in geashill, all kilkenny teams
play well in tullamore down the years. it will be nice for tullamore to have it at home hope
the town come and support them now.

That is not the reason why the game is in O'Connor Park, the Leinster Council had agreed to a neutral venue of Portlaoise but becuase the Clara - Portlaoise rematch is on Saturday, they feel the pitch will not be able to hold two games in two days. Ballyhale had no objections to playing in Tullamore. Incidentally it was the Offaly County Board who proposed the motion of the two leinster club finals being played at neutral venues.

http://www.hoganstand.com/Offaly/Articl ... ?ID=120800

[The Magpie]

Bula Bula and Kemo Sabe are now official members of the Clara fan club

[Lone Shark]

The bit that surprises me is that while moving the game to Tullamore is a sound decision on a few levels, even from a Ballyhale perspective, I'm still amazed that the Shamrocks agreed to it. After all, the underlying message is quite clear - they simply don't think that an upset is remotely possible here. After all, if you felt that on a bad day, Tullamore were maybe good enough to nick a one or two point win, why would agree to go into their home field where you increase the lieklihood of that occurence? Why play in front of a crowd of seven or eight thousand fans in Tullamore looking for a home win, when you could play in front of the hardcore support of both clubs and feck all neutrals in Dr Cullen Park?

I think this is a clear signal from Ballyhale that they think that they simply can't lose this game, no matter what happens, and they want to make it as competitive an exercise as possible.

I also think that it's great that someone else has made a statement like this instead of me, so I don't have to. But that's beside the point.

[Kemo Sabe]

Bula Bula and Kemo Sabe are now official members of the Clara fan club

dont think so lad but if your asking would i prefer them or portlaoise well of course im going to shout for clara .its great news having the game in o conner park should give the players a huge lift .birr went into the semi final thinking that they couldnt lose either and look what happened to them .we have nothing to lose and will give it everything we have and who knows where that will take us .if we can stop ballyhale from getting goals which is easier said than done we will not be too far away .tullamore to win by 2 or 3 points .COME ON THE TOWN

[TheManFromFerbane]

The bit that surprises me is that while moving the game to Tullamore is a sound decision on a few levels, even from a Ballyhale perspective, I'm still amazed that the Shamrocks agreed to it. After all, the underlying message is quite clear - they simply don't think that an upset is remotely possible here. After all, if you felt that on a bad day, Tullamore were maybe good enough to nick a one or two point win, why would agree to go into their home field where you increase the lieklihood of that occurence? Why play in front of a crowd of seven or eight thousand fans in Tullamore looking for a home win, when you could play in front of the hardcore support of both clubs and feck all neutrals in Dr Cullen Park?

I think this is a clear signal from Ballyhale that they think that they simply can't lose this game, no matter what happens, and they want to make it as competitive an exercise as possible.

I also think that it's great that someone else has made a statement like this instead of me, so I don't have to. But that's beside the point.

I was thinking about this and the only conclusion I could come to is this. If Ballyhale were to walk this game against Tullamore they would be heading into an All-Ireland Semi-Final after winning two handy games which they would see as a huge disadvantage.

By playing this game in Tullamore, they are giving Tullamore a bit of an advantage, but from a Ballyhale perspective, if they couldn't beat Tullamore in their own back yard then they weren't going to win the All-Ireland anyway, which would be their main objective.

That's the only reasoning I can think of anyway.