Two Changes For Minor Semi-Final

Date Published: 14-Aug-2008

IF you were to believe the panellists on last weekend’s ‘Sunday Game’, Cork have already booked their place to meet Kilkenny in this year’s All-Ireland minor hurling final and – in the words of Galway manager Mattie Murphy – the Tribesmen “should not even bother turning up” for Sunday’s semi-final showdown at Croke Park (1.45 p.m.).

Cork are Munster champions, having seen off reigning All-Ireland champions Tipperary in the thrilling provincial final, while all Galway have to show for their efforts in 2008 so far is a one point victory over the Leinster runners-up, Wexford.

Add in the facts that Cork have also had the benefit of games against Limerick, Waterford, and Clare and that their 2007 minors inflicted a massive 17-point drubbing on the Tribesmen in last year’s quarter-final and it’s not hard to understand where the RTE ‘experts’ are coming from.

But sport does not always work out that way and, with three weeks of intensive training under their belts since the Thurles thriller (0-16 to 0-15), there is a clear mood of optimism around the Galway camp ahead of this trip to the capital.

They might not have the ‘superstars’ of recent years, to match the likes of Niall Healy or Joe Canning, but there is a real solidity about the first 24 or so on the panel and the result is genuinely fierce…