Firstly id like to congratulate Tipp on a good win, they deserved the win yesterday better side in most areas. I taught their backs cut us out of the game, if we were there till tomorrow we wouldn’t have got a goal. Also most of our points were from frees. It was a typical hard tipp performance where they stop ya from hurling and tack on their own scores along the way. To be honest we could do with learning to win in this manner as at times in the championship even when we are winning we fail to really control the game and cut the oppositions teams forwards out of the game. If not for ken yesterday it would have become a bit of a one sided game id imagine. Tipp were unlucky at times not to get a couple of more goals, this meant we had to foul them to stop them and gave away easy scores to Mr Kelly.

We now need to avoid an air of doom and gloom that seems to be emerging. We still have the back bone of a top class side; we were clearly lacking fitness and sharpness yesterday. To be honest I get the impression the focus is clearly on championship this year and the league was treated as a challenge tournament to gauge the depth of our squad and how much work we have to do in the next two months, last year we ran out of steam and were caught by a hungry limerick side

The issue for us is not peaking too soon im sure we would all give up our league and Munster for an all Ireland , this must be our focus for the year and as such im not overly concerned by our current form. We will gauge our form better after the game after what is a limited Clare side.

I guess im just appealing not to slate the players and management before we puc a ball in the summer. Don’t let people wind ye up. People forget how poor the league is when you compare it to championship.

Finally I just wanted to pay tribute to one of the finest centre backs to play the game, who was called to the great game in the sky this weekend. Pat Stakelum of Tipperary, I grew up watching this man dominate in what was one of the greatest team of that generation. He contributed greatly to underage hurling around Munster promoting the game.

God must have need a great centre back! RIP

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Report by Give if Fong! (as posted on the Waterford GAA Message Board)

Waterford will have two teams in this year's All-Ireland Colleges finals after today's victories for De La Salle and Blackwater Community School against Galway opposition in Templemore. De La Salle got off to a typical sluggish start and even suffered the rare ignominy of conceding a goal when Gort Community School availed of some slack defending to take an early lead. Although a physically stronger and well-drilled De La Salle gradually got on top they missed a lot of chances and for a while, with Gort having the advantage of the stiff breeze in the second half, it looked like they might have a bit of a fight on their hands. However, with Stephen Power (who had a really excellent game) and Peter McCarthy lording it over the opposition on the right side of the DLS attack, the scores finally began to flow coming up to half time.

Power scored the first goal when the ball came back to him after his first effort was well saved by the Gort keeper, McCarthy fired home number two and then cleverly put Brian O'Sullivan in for number three just before half time to leave DLS leading by something like 3-9 to 1-1 at half time. DLS were happy enough to play a holding game in the second half as the playing surface, already badly damaged by the first game and a heavy second half shower, deteriorated rapidly. Gort had neither the strength nor the game plan to seriously threaten the DLS rearguard, while Salle gradually added to their total (mainly through Power frees) before sealing it with a fine combination goal at the very end. The final score was something like 4-14 to 1-6 (the makeshift scoreboard was a bit numerically challenged towards the end).

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