PREVIEW: Ard Scoil Rís in the way of Thurles CBS reaching back-to-back Harty finals

TUS Dr Harty Cup Munster PPS U19A Hurling Semi-Final

Thurles CBS vs Ard Scoil Rís, Saturday, January 20th in Kilmallock @ 12.30 pm

Thurles CBS continued their impressive form in the quarter-final win over St Flannans of Ennis last week, and it now sets them up for a run-in with another aristocrat of Harty Cup hurling in this weekend’s first semi-final in Kilmallock on Saturday.

These sides have fantastic pedigree in this competition and they look like the two favourites for the title at this stage, with just one game between them a final appearance in a few weeks.

For Thurles, they will be hoping to complete the first leg of a Tipperary double - Nenagh playing later in the afternoon - which would create another chapter of history in Tipperary schools hurling by making it an-All Tipp decider for the second time and in back-to-back seasons which is highly unusual in the modern history of the competition.

And it is a distinct possibility as Eamonn Buckley’s Thurles team are in fine form and look like a team with a point to prove this year, with the final loss to Cashel CS last year really fuelling their efforts.

They backed up their impressive group campaign with an equally emphatic defeat of perennial challengers St Flannans last week, and the margin of victory in the game didn’t do adequate justice to the dominance the Tipp lads had over their Clare counterparts throughout the contest.

It is hard to remember such a rounded team performance from a school in this grade, with no one player playing beneath themselves, but it is hard to look past the prolificness of the forward players in Robbie Ryan and Cormac Fitzpatrick who were in devastating scoring form, hitting 1-15 of the 2-21 scored.

In particular, Robbie Ryan’s form in the last six to nine months or so has been notable, and since the loss to Cashel in last year’s final, he really has taken his game to another level and he showed his brilliant eye for scores against St Flannans and he represents the overall skill levels that is pulsing through this team.

Adding into that mix the tireless work ethic of the likes of James Doyle, David Costigan, Bill Flanagan, and Euan Murray, along with solid foundations at the back with Evan Morris and Padraig O’Dwyer in the spine of the team and you have the makings of a team who will be hard to beat.

However, in Ard Scoil Rís they will face a team in a similar rich vein of form and no end of talent after they came out on top in their last eight clash against fellow Limerick school St John’s the Baptist in Kilmallock.

And talent they have in abundance, with a fair scatter of their team which started the quarter-final as nine of their starting team from Clare, including minor All-Ireland winners from 2023 in the form of Michael Collins, Marc O’Brien, Eoin Begley, Matthew O’Halloran, and Riain McNamara.

Elsewhere, they are bolstered by more experienced figures in Fintan Fitzgerald at centre forward who is a Limerick U20, while Danny Chaplin of Sixmilebridge has been a constant performer for them in a competition where they have been in scintillating form.

In their four games so far, they are averaging a winning margin of just under eight points, and if we are looking for some form of guidelines going into this game, we need only look back to Ard Scoil’s first group game where they faced St Flannans where they won with a small degree of comfort by 0-14 to 0-8.

Realistically, this does look like the tougher side of the semi-final draw, and no more so than in previous meetings in this fixture, there is little to choose between the sides and with the game on a Saturday, it should draw a substantial crowd to Kilmallock.