Croke Cup Preview: Cashel Community School face kingpins St Kieran's in semi-final

Croke Cup All Ireland PPS Senior Hurling Semi-Final

Cashel Community School vs St Kieran's College in St Brendan's Park, Birr @ 12.45

St Brendan’s Park in Birr will be the venue for an enticing double header for Tipperary hurling folk this Saturday, March 4, as the pick of the county’s school hurlers go into semi-finals hoping for a second all-Tipperary final, this time in the Dr Croke Cup.

This year’s Dr Harty Cup champions Cashel Community School are the first Premier County team in action as they face off against the kingpins of school hurling in Kilkenny’s St Kieran’s College.

The task at hand is a really challenging one for Cashel despite their stellar year to date, facing a team with such an illustrious history and having players from three different counties representing them in their famous black and white kits.

They have contested every Dr Croke Cup final since 2014 and have won the competition 23 times in total, topping the roll of honour and essentially dwarfing the next team on that list by nine titles.

STRONG OUTFIT

They come into this match on the back of a routine quarter-final win over St Raphael’s College of Loughrea, beating the westerners with plenty to spare in Nenagh two weekends ago on a 2-28 to 0-13 score line.

Essentially, the loss to Offaly Schools in the Leinster Schools final has been the only poor result for St Kieran’s, who are essentially the best team in Leinster aside from an amalgamated school in the Faithful county, and as usual, they have talent sprinkled all over the pitch.

Aaron McEvoy has been very good at midfield for the Kilkenny school, hitting his placed balls with accuracy all year, while they have plenty of danger men in their forward division through the likes of Harry Shine, Carlow man Donagh Murphy, and Ballyhale Shamrocks hurler Niall Shortall who started at corner forward in the recent senior club All-Ireland final against Dunloy.

However, this year Cashel have made a habit of making little of school traditions when facing more established opponents, having outdone St Flannans, Ardscoil Rís and Thurles CBS in their run to the provincial title month, so they will not be in the least bit perturbed by the sight of the black and white striped jerseys.

DEFENCE

Their efforts so far have been backboned by a very strong defensive unit and a maniacal physicality and workrate, so they will be looking to tap back into that well ahead of this game.

It has been a big break for Cashel since their historic win over Thurles CBS in the Harty Cup final on February 5 and they have endeavoured to keep the players on their toes with a few challenge games, in the hope they can rise to the occasion yet again.

Big performances will be needed again from the likes of Ger O’Dwyer and Jack Quinlan at the heart of the defence, while they will be hoping they can extract more from Ronan Connolly and Ben Currivan who were quiet in the Harty Cup final, based on their usual level, so there is room for improvement.

They will need to be at their very best here, and with the confidence they have garnered in the past three or four months, they should be in the game going down the home stretch against a strong looking St Kieran’s team.