Sport

GAA Round Up - Fri Feb 18th

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Category: Sport

Published on Friday, 18 February 2011 11:22

The Irish Examiner quotes Seán Óg Ó hAilpín as saying that Cork have slipped into the second tier of hurling counties.

"If you look at last year’s championship, and especially Cork’s exit, you would have to say that Cork are in the second tier. I couldn’t see Cork competing against the likes of Kilkenny and Tipperary the way they played in the All-Ireland and that’s being honest.

"Cork are going through a rebuilding phase. There are new faces being looked at, which probably was going to come anyway and needed to come. A lot of the players that were mainstays from 2000 or whatever, you are talking about 10 years.”

Meanwhile, John Joe Halloran, the chairman of the Galway Football Board has denied that there is any trouble in the Galway football camp.

Rumours of unrest circulated when Kieran Fitzgerald and Niall Coleman decided to retire during the week.

"I spoke to both players and those are the reasons they left,” O’Halloran told the Irish Examiner.

“Tomás has told them the door is open if their circumstances change, and hopefully they will. Kieran has been a wonderful servant to Galway football and hopefully he will recover and come back. I can fully appreciate Niall’s situation. I have been self-employed myself all my life and know how hard it can be.”

Speaking to the Irish Independent, Dublin boss Pat Gilroy has warned supporters of the Sky Blues not to get carried away with the progress his side made in 2010.

"You can delude yourself into thinking things are far better than they are. At the end of the day we won nothing, whereas we had won a Leinster Championship the previous year," he said.

"This is about winning. We were close to getting to a National League final, got hammered in Leinster and then came close to getting to an All-Ireland final. But if you look at it coldly, we regressed in terms of results last year because we lost the Leinster Championship.”

The Irish Times reports that the state-funded players’ grants have been given the green light for another year.

Armagh manager Paddy O’Rourke, who was speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, has called for the Orchard County to step up a gear when they face Monaghan in the Allianz League on Sunday.

“We gave away too much in the first-half against Dublin and we cannot afford to do that against Monaghan,” said O’Rourke.

“While I was pleased with aspects of our performance I feel we have to step up further now.”

 

Source: gaa.ie