It's set to be a big weekend in the JJ Kavanagh & Sons Co. Senior hurling Championship with the Quarter-Finals and Relegation semi-finals taking centre stage.
Defending champions Ballygunner will continue their bid for nine titles in a row when they face Fourmilewater at 4:15pm in Fraher Field on Sunday afternoon.
The sides met at the same stage last year where the Gunners finished strongly to record a hard fought victory. Fourmile overcame Passage by 1-18 to 1-13 last weekend with Aaron Ryan striking ten points for Michael Ryan's charges.
Another impressive display from @NireFourmile as they beat @PassageHurling to advance to the @WaterfordGAA SHC Quarter-Finals, sending Passage into relegation play-offs in the process.
Full Time:
Passage 1-13
Fourmilewater 1-18 pic.twitter.com/4XeJg5OOWB— Clubber (@ClubberGaa) August 20, 2022
Ballygunner will be strong favourites to advance after topping Group A with comfortable wins over Passage and De La Salle. The opening game on Sunday's double bill is the clash of Lismore and Mount Sion at 2:30pm.
The Monastery men have put Abbesyide and Tallow to the sword in route to topping Group B and they do appear to strongly fancied to make it back to the last four. Lismore edged out Clonea in last weekend's play-off thanks to late points from Paudie Prendergast, John Heneghan and Jack Prendergast (0-22 to 1-17) as Maurice Shanahan went off at half-time.
Exhilarating final 15 mins between @CloneaGAA and @LismoreGAA in Fraher Field as Lismore just edge it in the dying embers of the match to march on to the @WaterfordGAA SHC Quarter-Finals. Watch the game back in full ⬇️ https://t.co/LwtwdRsBkA
Full Time:
Clonea 1-17
Lismore 0-22 pic.twitter.com/qgFyEBnmNI— Clubber (@ClubberGaa) August 20, 2022
Walsh Park will stage a double header on Saturday evening with proceedings getting underway at 3:45pm with the meeting of De La Salle and Dungarvan. The Gracedieu side made it back to back wins last weekend in a 2-20 to 0-14 win over Tallow. Dungarvan topped Group D by virtue of victory over Fourmilewater and a draw with Clonea. Speaking on Monday evening's "On The Ball" former Déise defender Brian Flannery (GAA writer with the Munster Express) thinks De La Salle will enter this one with plenty of confidence; "The momentum is right, they've two wins under their belt, I suppose Dungarvan struggled a little bit last time up and were fortunate to get the draw against Clonea so you'd nearly think that with the momentum that De La Salle have, playing in Walsh Park, they'll be a difficult team to beat".
Abbeyside and Roanmore will lock horns @ 5:30pm. Abbeyside have been hit significantly by injuries with Mark Ferncombe ruled out for the rest of the season after suffering a cruciate knee ligament injury in Sunday's play-off win over Dunhill in Fraher Field (a game the Villagers won by a point thanks to a last gasp Michael O' Halloran point). Brian Looby came off with a hamstring injury while Waterford captain Conor Prunty didn't start due to a quad injury. Brian Flannery admitted on Monday evening's Sports show that Abbeyside were lucky to overcame a plucky Dunhill; "Very little in it and I'd say Abbeyside are probably delighted to survive the scare. They have a lot of players and I suppose in recent years even at underage coming through they've had a lot of county minors coming through onto the senior ranks so in general they've quiet a strong panel but I think when you lose players of that quality it's going to have an impact. A lot will depend on the availability of Conor Prunty whether he can play next weekend or not. Difficult task again coming up to play a Roanmore team that has been very impressive in their opening games and I suppose again the teams that have qualified automatically for the Quarter-Finals have had that extra couple of weeks to prepare for it. I suppose it's great that we're playing these matches in the middle of the summer, suppose it's almost amazing that we're almost looking for a bit of rain into the ground which is very hard. I think players are beginning to pick up injuries, soft tissue injuries you know, if you get a hard fall on that ground you can certainly do damage so all to play for this weekend".
Our @JJKavanaghBuses SHC has reached the 1/4 Final stages!
This coming weekend we have 4 1/4 finals & 2 Relegation play offs!
A special weekend ticket can be purchased for entry into all 6 games for €25!🤩
Fixture & ticket details below⬇️
Tickets 👇https://t.co/HffetSRsDu pic.twitter.com/pZgbgYALJr— Waterford GAA (@WaterfordGAA) August 22, 2022
The Relegation semi-finals also take place this weekend. Passage and Tallow lock horns at 1:30pm in Fraher Field on Saturday afternoon while on Sunday it's an all-Eastern affair as Clonea and Dunhill go head to head for a 12noon start in Walsh Park. A bumper weekend in store, and we'll have live updates from all these games across the weekend here on WLR. We'll also have plenty more build up to a big knockout hurling weekend on our GAA show "Lár Na Páirce" from 6:10pm on Friday evening along with "On The Ball" from 12noon on Saturday.
