Adare are the favourites for hurling crown.

After a wait of more than 60 years, Croom have eventually came good and qualified to meet next-door neighbours Adare in the Live 95FM Limerick Senior Hurling Championship Final at the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday next (2.45pm).

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS: Danny Murphy, Captain of Ballylanders, the County Senior Football Champions 2007, holds aloft the trophy in the Gaelic Grounds following the final against Dromcollogher/Broadford last Sunday. Picture: Keith Wiseman

It must have been with excruciating pain that Croom watched last year’s final in which Bruree bridged a century-plus gap at the expense of scorching favourites Patrickswell.  Ahead of their semi-final clash with the eventual champions, Matt Daly’s Croom were the fancied side to come through but a below performance cost them a place in their first final since last victorious way back in 1941.

Croom’s patch to this year’s final wasn’t anyway straightforward.  After an indifferent performance in the opening round against lowly Killeedy many months earlier, the south side improved greatly when the championship restarted and peaked in their 1-13 to 1-8 defeat of favourites Kilmallock at the semi-final stage a few weeks back.  It was an afternoon in which some of their lesser known lights, in particular goal-scorer Stephen Moore, came into their own.

Outside of Moore, the old-reliable score-getters are still around for Croom, namely the Cregan’s of Marcus, Niall and Peter, and skipper Hugh Flavin.  Flavin is one of four players on the starting XV to have been part of Richie Bennis’ Limerick in what was a most successful 2007, the others being GPA All-Star full-back Stephen Lucey, Mark O’Riordan and Peter Lawlor.

New county recruit Stephen Lavin is expected to feature for Adare on this occasion, having been forced to sit-out the comfortable semi-final victory over Murroe/Boher, and most of the football tie against eventual winners Ballylanders the other weekend.  There is no shortage of inter-county experience in their set-up, what with the likes of the award-laden Mark Foley, Michael Clifford, Conor Fitzgerald, Wayne McNamara and Millennium All-Ireland winning U21 captain Donnacha Sheehan in their ranks.

Peter Lavin, Ross Kennedy, Liam Costello and impact-substitute Aidan O’Rahilly are others to have shone for Ger ‘Sparrow’ O’Loughlin’s team this very long championship season.   A real plus, however, for Adare is their experience of having been around the block a few times, winning this championship a couple of times in very recent years, and with many of those successful players still in their ranks.

If only on the experience, the vote of confidence to lift the John Daly Cup must go to Adare.