The GAA All Ireland Championships may have formally started in New York and London last weekend but they exploded into life over the past two days.

A glance at the results from Saturday and Sunday might not reveal the dramas that took place with all the reults going the ‘right’ way according to expectation, especially in Football but there were some close calls.

Tipperary laid down their claim in the Munster Hurling Championship with a first win in the competition for two years in defeating Cork. A crowd of 30,274 was ahead of expectation which will be some comfort to Cork GAA, beating last year’s corresponding fixture at Semple Stadium by 8,000.

Cork now have to travel to Limerick next weekend and could find their All Ireland ambitions ended before they have begun.

In Leinster Football the high hopes of Kildare and Meath to mount a challenge to Dublin look dented after narrow and late wins over Wicklow and Offally but at least they do march on.

Leitrim highs of playing at Croke Park in April were dashed in May as they were well beaten by Roscommon while Louth will be Dublin’s first opponent on the drive for five after beating Wexford in their first-round clash.

Tyrone are many people’s dark horse to topple Dublin this year but they were training to Derry with only seven minutes remaining before rattling off 1-05 to progress in the Ulster Championship.

Sky TV got their coverage up and running for the year with a belter of a game at Nowlan Park. Dublin led by four points at the break before a fired up Kilkenny took control in the second half and came through in the end.

Dublin selector Greg Kennedy was the main talking point for catching a ball on the pitch after a (too) quickly taken free and getting the crowd and social media all riled up.

We did like Jackie Tyrell’s tweet after the incident.


RTÉ had Joanne Cantwell in the hot seat for their opening round of fixtures seeing Clare and Tipperary secure away wins in Munster Hurling and they will be down south again next week for what looks like a win or go home challenge for the Cork hurlers against Limerick.
It’s shaping up to be one hell of a summer again.
 




Image Credit: Inpho.ie