New Hampshire Wolves Host Northeast Spring Tournament

GAA unveil the new Tailteann Cupp

GAA President Larry McCarthy today unveiled the new Tailteann Cup trophy at Croke Park and revealed plans for the inaugural competition which will commence next weekend and conclude on July 9.

The draw for the Preliminary and First Round games took place this morning and was followed by an event in Croke Park where representatives from the competing counties gathered for the official launch.

Last weekend’s provincial championships results confirmed the line-up for the Tailteann Cup and the GAA’s CCCC will finalise details for the games drawn earlier today.

The GAA President said: “This is an historic day for the Association. It is rare that the GAA announces new competitions at inter-county level but that’s precisely what we are doing today here at Croke Park in the company of some of the players who will be competing in it.

“The sole motivation for the establishment of the Tailteann Cup is to provide counties with meaningful games against teams of a similar standard and I believe that the benefits of this will become apparent in the weeks and years ahead and replicate the success of our tiers in senior hurling and in the club championships.

“We will promote the Tailteann Cup in tandem with the Sam Maguire Championship and we will work with our players, managers and supporters to make it the success that we believe it can be.

“This is a Championship with a final contested at Croke Park and I look forward to seeing the competition unfold in the coming weeks.”

The players in attendance at today’s media promotional event were: Conor Stewart (Antrim), Mark Diffley (Leitrim), Darragh Foley (Carlow), Killian Clarke (Cavan), Barry O’Hagan (Down), Declan McCusker (Fermanagh), Evan O’Carroll (Laois), Mickey Quinn, (Longford), Johnny Moloney (Offaly), Niall Murphy (Sligo), Teddy Doyle (Tipperary), Conor Murray (Waterford), Kevin Maguire (Westmeath), Martin O’Connor (Wexford), Mark Diffley (Leitrim) and Dean Healy (Wicklow).

Today the GAA confirmed that financial assistance will be made available to the winning county towards a team holiday and a ‘Champions 15’ will be selected to honour the best 15 players from the competition.

The Association also confirmed how it plans to promote and market the competition.

In addition to both the final and semi-finals being broadcast live on RTÉ television, GAAGO will stream a preliminary round game, a Round One game and two Quarter-Final games. These games will be available to the domestic and international market and will also feature on the local radio stations of the competing counties.

GAANOW will produce in-game digital clips from televised Tailteann Cup games and a Monday round up package of the competition’s weekend action will also be distributed on GAA.ie and official GAA social channels.

Tailteann Cup action will also feature on RTÉ’s Sunday Game programme and TG4’s Monday highlights show.

As well as selecting a gaa.ie Tailteann Cup Team of The Week, the GAA will also choose a game of the week to preview featuring participating players for media promotional activity.

A targeted national radio and print and local radio and print marketing campaign, similar to that supporting the GAA Football and Hurling Championship, has also been planned to drive awareness among participating Tailteann Cup Counties.

These channels will be complemented by paid digital display and social media match specific promotion throughout the competition. Digital out of home advertising will also run in select high footfall locations nationwide, as will on air radio ticket promotions.

Check out the schedule here

Macs and Gaels into Pat O’Brien Cup Final, Worcester win Junior B Hurling Opener

Northeast PRO, Rory O’Donnell reports on May 14th and 15th games from Canton as follows, the 2022 Pat O’Brien Cup final will be contested between the Connemara Gaels and Aidan McAnespies next Saturday, May 21.  There will be a new name of the cup as last season’s post-COVID revival saw two Donegal teams play the final, but this year the holders fell at the semi-final to the Macs.  The Connemara Gaels left it a bit later to see off the Wolfe Tones/Christopher’s challenge but pulled away with a convincing win in the end.

McAnespies held an eight-point lead by the break of the second semi-final.  With a healthy looking 1-7 to 0-2 lead at the break for McAnespies it was going to take a big turnaround from Donegal to turn the tide.  The Donegal men were without the engine of Shane Carthy on the field however, and it looked like it was going to be a tall order to get back into it.  After some nicely clipped Robbie Croft points a Tiernan Saul goal put McAnespies into the driver’s seat.  Chances were not as plentiful for Donegal, and a point each from Darren Grant and Kieran McDevitt had the northerners on the board.   The second half continued along a similar vein with Rory Brolly coming to the fore in the forward line, and scoring a great individual point.  Cory Gallagher converted a penalty for Donegal, but a Brolly goal canceled it out soon afterwards (no blown kisses for the crowd from Rory) and McAnespies will look to add to the Enda Hammill Cup that they won a few weeks ago, with the final score 2-13 to 1-4.

In the other semi-final the Connemara Gaels dispatched a combined Wolfe Tones/Christopher’s side on a final score of 4-10 to 1-7.  It was not until the second half that the Gaels pulled away to make it safe.  It should be a good final next weekend to decide the 2022 winners.

The Junior B Hurling championship also got off the ground with the opening game between Providence and Worcester.  Worcester earned the 2 points with some solid performances from Sean O’Shaughnessy, Tom Lind, Conor Greene, and a few clips of magic from the hurl of Jerry O’Connor.  Some nicely taken scores from Austen Clark frees and a couple from play filled the Providence column, but the Worcester sharpshooters were too much for the men from down I-95.  A second half goal from Clark would not be enough to eat into the Worcester lead as Andrew Engel and PJ Heffernan also netted for Worcester.  Final score, Worcester 2-24 Providence 1-8.

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