Munster anxious to avoid heartache of inter-provincial defeat hat-trick

IT may not be Rome in October, but Munster’s hurlers are intent on making up for recent heartaches when they take on Connacht in the M Donnelly Inter-provincial final in Pearse Park tomorrow.

Two years ago, the southern men were zeroing in on a third successive title and a 44th in total when Henry Shefflin fired over a last-minute point to grab the garlands.

Last year, with a trip to the Italian capital on offer for the finalists, Munster had another dose of medicine to swallow. What the southern province are keen to avoid now is a very different three-in-a-row to the one King Henry denied them in 2002.

"Connacht beat us last year with a sucker punch in the first round in Limerick and that was really a bit of a disaster for us, especially after what Shefflin had done to us the year before," said long-serving Munster selector Donie Nealon yesterday.

"They will be basically a Galway 15 again and that makes it that much harder.

"Those guys will know each other's games inside out. They'll have a few subs from Mayo and Roscommon but that's it."

Playing the decider in Galway's own backyard won't make the job any easier, but both teams will approach the 2pm throw-in with an unwanted degree of ring-rustiness.

Originally pencilled in for a month ago, the game had to be postponed until now because a number of Munster players were hurling with their clubs in the provincial semi-finals.

Nealon, who has been a selector for most of the past 30 years, has never known an inter-provincial final to be played so close to the Christmas rush and a December decider does little for an event struggling to muscle its way back into the public consciousness.

Even still, the Munster players' commitment to this much-derided competition has been unstinting, meeting every week to keep the eye in during the unforeseen lay period.

"We kept together for the long lay-off," said Nealon. "We only missed out on the one week, but we're very pleased that this bunch of lads are so committed after such a long season. Fair dues to them really, last Wednesday over 90 per cent of them were there for training."

On the face of it, a repeat of Munster's semi-final performance against Leinster should more than suffice against Connacht. 1-21 to 0-13 was the result in Croke Park, but Nealon insists the scoreline only served to hide a few worrying failings on the day.

"We were disappointed with the first 10 to 15 minutes that day because we had goal chances that we thought we should have put away.

"Connacht were the same in their semi-final. It was fairly close there at half-time too but they pulled away to win comfortably in the second half."

Munster show two changes to the side that overwhelmed Leinster in the last four. Philip Curran comes in at corner-back for John Browne, who is in Australia, while Ken McGrath starts in the half-back line instead of the injured Diarmuid Fitzgerald.

MUNSTER (SH v Connacht): B Cummins (Tipperary); P Curran (Tipperary), P Maher (Tipperary), J Murray (Waterford); E Corcoran (Tipperary), R Curran (Cork), J Gardiner (Cork); T Browne (Waterford), O Moran (Limerick); D Shanahan (Waterford), N Gilligan (Clare), N Moran (Limerick); J Mullane (Waterford), E Kelly (Tipperary), J Deane (Cork).

CONNACHT (SH v Munster): L Donoghue; D Joyce, S Kavanagh, O Canning; F Healy, L Hodgins, F Moore; D Collins, D Tierney; A Kerins, M Kerins, K Broderick; D Donoghue, O Fahey (captain), N Healy.