All Ireland Senior Hurling Championship 2023 ( Munster And Leinster Championships,Liam McCarthy Cup)

No Lynch played against Waterford,got injured against Clare went off 5 min into the 2nd half

John Keenan apparently getting the final

Personally no issues I feel he'll let if flow and it won't be a free taking contest

He's the best choice I think anyway, being reported in a few papers now as well

This is also thought to be his last year and they'll surely give him the final before retiring. I don't think he's reffed one before

Unfortunately yere all right ,definately one of the better ones and nothing wrong with his fitness levels either.Ffs Usain Bolt couldn't keep up with a hurling match,it's the umpires and linesmen that need to be looked at

Very little discussion/debate on here about the small matter of an All-Ireland hurling final in just seven days time, I'll try to get things rolling again..

I still cannot get my head around the continued media omerta around the throwing of the ball and how important it is to Limerick. Have they been penalised even once in the championship this year? I know some of their opponents have when playing against them this year.

Before I go on I'll admit that that all teams including my own are more regularly throwing the ball this year, so there is a greater spread on the throwing and it wouldn't make sense if there wasn't, it is mostly not penalised, but it still remains utilized by some teams more than others. Even though I think that the hurl is actually being used a bit more in this years Championship, the throwing when it happens has become even more blatant in its execution this year. 4 or 5 years ago when this really started becoming an issue, you'd often see some pulling back of the hand or similar after throwing the ball to at least make it look like a pseudo-handpass. Now players simply throw it with little effort to disguise it and we have even been treated to some new variations of throwing at times, the "hand grenade being thrown out of the trench" and the "basketball throw"

When Limerick put four players in the fullback line and work it out through a crowded middle third using their little triangles or do what they did to Galway, sit back and pack the defense waiting for the break, the throw is so important to the success of these approaches; for example at the breakdown it allows Limerick to escape the crowd quickly with minimum risk and they can get the ball moving laterally away from the crowd to Byrnes or whoever is in space at the other side of the pitch at the time. Likewise when the opposition use multiple players to stand up a Limerick player, they simply throw the ball like they're going for a three pointer in basketball over the heads of their opponents taking multiple players out of the game.

I don't think I have ever seen Will O'Donoghue or Dan Morrissey perform a legal handpass, I'd imagine they'd need a week in a Cúl camp to learn the skill at this stage. Some Limerick players perform a legal pass every now and again when they are not under pressure just to improve the optics a little but the vast vast majority of their handpasses are illegal. 

You often hear people dismiss discussion of this issue as not being important, I could understand this if there was no advantage to it, but these attitudes disregard the greater skill required for the handpass over the throw and the advantage that the throws bring over the handpass. Throwing turns a risky two motion striking action where you momentarily give up possession into a less risky single motion throwing action, much more efficient when working the ball through a crowded part of the field. The fact that throwing is an integral part to how teams like Limerick adjust to how the opposition are playing the game by shutting down space shows the importance of the throw and the advantages it brings

In the Clare-Kilkenny game, the sequence of play which resulted in the great last ditch effort block from Conor Fogarty consisted of Clare rapidly moving the ball from player to player, throw after throw, through a very crowded section of the pitch. It was a very exciting bit of play but this move would not have been possible if each pass in that sequence was an attempted legal handpass. Years ago this would have resulted in outrage, now it is just ignored. 

In the same game around the 38th minute Blanchfield dispossesses Galvin in the corner under the Hogan and sees Walter Walsh (I think) around 15 yards up the sideline. He proceeds to throw the ball up a few inches from the palm of his hand, then swings the same arm back and proceeds to use his arm almost like a bat to strike the ball with his palm, up the line to Walsh. This action actually is so rare now that it stood out as something different, yet all it was was the lesser spotted legal handpass

A final example from the same game, when Quilligan and Hayes were turned over leading to the Eoin Cody goal, Hayes was dispossessed because he thought he had time to perform a legal handpass. This gave Billy Ryan the window to get hurl in and break the ball. Hayes was severely punished for trying to execute one of the skills of the game, sadly he should have taken the much less risky approach, the approach that requires no skill; he should have thrown the ball to a teammate

Both teams threw the ball multiple times in that game, yet there was only one free awarded for a throw late in the game, a throw that was no more obvious than the many that went before it, so why couldn't most of the other throws be penalised? 

Limerick's ability to react to in game situations and adjust their play accordingly is possibly the best there ever has been. They have great hurlers who have the ability to play the game in a multitude of different ways but I don't see why their pioneering use of the throw as an integral part of how they play the game nor their role (along with Cork) in bringing the throw from something seldom seen to something that all teams are now using should continue to be ignored

In last years final Limerick had already thrown the ball twice within the first minute, one from each midfielder, and they somehow went the entire 75 odd minutes without being penalized once, yet their opponents who threw the ball much less were penalised. Limerick won by just two points against a team with arguably the best free taker the game has ever seen; unpenalised throwing made a difference. I expressed my amazement at this at the time, that it wasn't even discussed in the media and yet here were are a year later, nothing has changed, except even more reluctance to admit it is even an issue. 

I knew you'd struggle with it, but I was hoping there would be someone there with you to help you with all those big words.