Who will win the All Ireland U21 hurling championship? I watched Limerick and Clare a few weeks ago and Limerick are looking strong once again. They have a sprinkle of players from last year's team but I would say they're not as strong as previous years. Great to see Galway (and Antrim) in the Leinster championship which starts on Saturday with two games:

Leinster U21HC round 1
Antrim v Carlow, Parnell Park, 2pm
Laois v Dublin, O'Moore Park, 2pm

PortInFaithful (Offaly) - Posts: 472 - 23/05/2018 19:18:21    2103374

I would go with the most likely winners as follows:

1/ Galway
2/ Limerick
3/ Kilkenny
4/ Tipp

Killarney.87 (Tipperary) - Posts: 2513 - 23/05/2018 21:19:50    2103391

From a Galway point of view, an All Ireland win at this level would be most welcome. Even to be seriously competitive again would be a big improvement. Making our competitive debut at the All Ireland semi final stage was fine back in the day but it has definitely worked against us in more recent years as the intensity of the matches at provincial level, particularly in Munster, rose and left the eventual provincial champions well ahead of us in terms of match practice and preparedness for battle. Besides, when we were winning All Ireland's under the old system it was hard to gauge the real quality of the players winning them because they hadn't played enough games upon which to judge them. It goes a long way to explaining why we had to wait 28 years to win a senior All Ireland -- we were bringing through these U21 winners and perhaps many of them weren't as good as we thought they were. Anyway it's great to be in the Leinster championship now and to be starting off at the same stage as everyone else. It is a great development for Galway hurling.

As regards who will win the U21 All Ireland this year, I do not know but we won the minor final 3 years ago so we must have a decent chance. The team we beat in the final was Tipperary and they went on to win the minor final the following year so they should be strong. Other strong contenders I imagine will be Kilkenny and Limerick and I'm sure there are others as well.

PoolSturgeon (Galway) - Posts: 1902 - 23/05/2018 22:54:31    2103414

Cork

SlipperyDodger (Cork) - Posts: 93 - 24/05/2018 01:31:11    2103430

blackspot91 (Limerick) - Posts: 1055 - 24/05/2018 02:38:25    2103431

As a Galway man I'm thrilled to finally see our U-21s get their well overdue chance in Leinster, the previous system of Galway going in at the All Ireland semi final stage was a joke, and so unfair to leave a team training and playing challenge matches for the best part of six or seven months while everybody else was preparing for a championship. So I'm hoping Galway will be strong this year, it's always very hard to predict U-21s unless you have inside knowledge. Our only barometer is Minor success over the last few years, so you're looking at Galway and Tipperary as champions of the last three years, with the usual suspects of traditionally strong U-21 counties like Limerick, Clare and Kilkenny thrown into the mix.

gilly0512 (Galway) - Posts: 1176 - 24/05/2018 11:02:20    2103491