Both the county senior and premier intermediate hurling championships will be reduced to 8 teams this afternoon.
In the senior grade, two preliminary quarter-finals take place , the first one getting underway at 1.30pm.
That’s the meeting of West champions Clonoulty/Rossmore and Thurles Sarsfields in Holycross.
Local GAA writer Enda Treacy believes today’s weather conditions and venue may favour Clonoulty/Rossmore:
“We’ve seen it over the years with Thurles, even their recent team that won the four in a row in their pomp, once the heavy conditions came and the bad weather came, they tended to go into their shell a little bit and it used to bring other teams closer to them and we seen that in their Munster championship campaign.
“If the weather is the way it’s meant to be, Clonoulty love that sort of contest, a physical one, fighting for every ball, scrappy, it’ll definitely even it up, even the scores.
“You’d imagine Thurles would maybe have more stickmen at the moment but that rarely wins you matches, you have to have that desire and Clonoulty have it in spades and in a tight pitch in Holycross, it’ll be a tough game.”
We’ll have live updates from that game throughout the afternoon here on Tipp FM.
After that, at 3pm in Semple Stadium, we’ll have live match commentary of JK Brackens versus Nenagh Éire Óg in their preliminary quarter-final clash.
Nenagh come into the game following a three week break since their last outing, whilst Brackens are fresh off a loss to kiladangan last weekend.
Enda Treacy believes potent forwards on either end of the pitch could be the difference:
“This is the type of battle that Nenagh, they haven’t come through too often, in fairness they seem to be trumping that a bit after their north final win over Kiladangan when they were down to 14-men.
“The return of Daire Quinn will take the edge off of Barry Heffernan missing.
“It’ll probably be a really tight game and it could come down to Andrew Ormonde or Jake Morris having a good game, a really good game because the two of them are hurling really well.”
Our coverage is with thanks to REA Eoin Dillon Kenyon Street Nenagh.
Also taking place today is the premier intermediate championship preliminary quarter-final meeting of Clonakenny and Burgess.
That one gets underway in Semple Stadium at 1pm and we will have live updates from that game throughout the day here on Tipp FM.
