All Ireland Semi - Final.

Limerick V Clare

Ref: GAA ie

I wasn't going to go.
I had planned on watching it at home with a nice mug of tea.
Clare don't have much chance against one of the best teams to ever play the game.
We had no babysitter.
It's a big drive up to Dublin for the match and all the trains are sold out.

Fuck it!!!

It's the all Ireland semi final in Croke park. These days don't come around too often. Especially in the smaller counties like Clare. We have only five All Ireland titles in total and four of those were in 95,97, 2013 and 2024. The other was in 1914 so a drought can last a long time in this game.

And it's not like me to miss the big games. Win, lose or draw there is nothing like being up there so I bought five tickets and will load up the two kids, the wife and the father in law for the day and road trip it up to the capital.

Clare will be massive underdogs against a Limerick team that has already beaten us well in the Munster championship and has a case for being the best hurling team to ever play the game.

On the other hand we are a small bunch of talented players who are nearly all on the wrong side of thirty and haven't been playing to our best in any game so far this year.

Now if the team can fire on all cylinders and get the ball to our forwards then there is a slim chance we win the match. A very slim chance but either way we will load up with our hats scarves and headbands Sunday morning along with the rest of the county and hope for a miracle.

If we only went to the games knowing they would win it wouldn't be much fun at all.

And if we do get through to the next round it just gets even better. A big day out with either Cork or Galway waiting in the wings and there will be no kids coming to that day. That one is only for the adults and will be a different trip. It will still be busy for Sunday with at least 60K tickets sold for the match if not more by the weekend. When I went online there weren't many choices left at all and with Shane O'Donnell announcing his retirement and a few more almost certain to follow this might be our last chance to celebrate a great team for the county.

There are no guarantees of these big days out going forward and when we lose some of our best ever players quite soon then we could be in for a long spell back in the trenches.