When it's Cork v Tipp, best to expect the unexpected
When it comes to sport, it feels like we've reached our saturation point. It is impossible to keep up with everything. Would you even want to? How does a sport manage to keep itself relevant when there is so much going on? For the most part, it seems to be clips, clicks and giggles. Scroll through whatever social media that you've chosen to annihilate what's left of your brain cells and you're overwhelmed by nonsense. Apologies, content.
The streets won't forget this, that was the best game ever of that, SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh is a great venue, but I can't park on the halfway line. Hyperbole has been the chosen weapon in the race to find the lowest common denominator. However, we saw something very different in Thurles and in Ennis last weekend.
The occasions and the action were able to speak for themselves. It was impossible to distill what we saw into something bite-sized. There was a purity to it. Yes, the Munster Hurling Championship is alive and well. Where would we be only for it? To paraphrase the greatest hurler of them all, would the GAA only be half-dressed without it?
I'm not one for hyperbole, but tomorrow the next chapter of the greatest rivalry in sport will unfold in front of a packed Páirc. A Cork juggernaut that was as good as derailed last Sunday in Ennis will lock horns with a rejuvenated Tipperary who held the greatest team of modern times to a draw a couple of hours later in Thurles.
Like all great rivalries, the fortunes of the protagonists have fluctuated over the past 136 years. Go back over the history of it and it's surprising how little tit-for-tat there is from year to year. When a team wins one, they tend to win a couple. Five is the magic number for Cork. They achieved that on four occasions while their longest streak is six, but that stretched out from 1976 to 1985. Tipp like the number four. They achieved that on three occasions but the hegemony they enjoyed over Cork from 1958 to 1968 is their high-water mark, the high-water mark. Seven games, seven wins.
What of Sunday, then? Well, after the League Final three weeks ago, many pundits may have mentally accrued the points in Cork's favour already. However, to quote the great truant Ferris Bueller, 'life moves pretty fast.' The second half of that game was about as false as our secondary national competition gets and this rivalry has turned the formbook on its head often enough in the past to ensure that the future can never be written in stone.
Take, for example, 2007. Cork had beaten Tipperary in the Munster Finals of 2005 and 2006. They'd beaten them on that famous day in Killarney in 2004. They'd also beaten them in the 2000 Munster Final and the 1992 Munster semi-final. Interestingly, Cork haven't enjoyed back-to-back championship wins over Tipp since.
Anyway, both teams had fallen in the Munster semi-finals so this game was to decide who would top the qualifier group. A post-Semple Gate Cork lost a thriller to Waterford while Tipp had drawn twice with Limerick before falling at the third attempt. Tipp were mired in controversy. Brendan Cummins didn't start, neither did Eoin Kelly. Cork were hell bent on getting into a fifth successive All-Ireland Final.
Some 53,286 souls were present the previous year when Cork won the Munster Final, but only 12,902 bothered to show up to this. Cork raced into a 0-8 to 0-3 lead, but from there, Tipp grew into it and 2-3 from Willie Ryan gave them their first win over the old enemy since 1991. Both sides went out in the next round, Tipp with a whisper to Wexford, Cork with a scream to Waterford. I worked with a man from Cahir at the time. It's 26 miles from Thurles to Cahir. It took him three days to complete that particular marathon. Sometimes a game is just a game.
Try this one for size. A young team loses an All-Ireland Final that they certainly could have won, perhaps should have won. They're expected to push on and surpass one of the all-time great teams and be the next big thing for years to come. They beat their nemesis in the league but when championship comes they ship three goals in their opening game and are faced with the same questions that haunted them from the previous campaign.
No, this is not Cork 2025, but Tipperary 2010. In what turned out to be the last kick of a once great machine, an Aisake Ó hAilpín inspired Cork beat Tipp by ten points. The year, however, would belong to the Premier men. Cork haven't beaten Tipp at home since. Throw in 2017. A young and improving Cork showed great form in the league but nobody expected them to beat the All-Ireland champions in their backyard. Enter Michael Cahalane.
And then there was this one. Cork hammer Tipperary in Thurles in a game that they must win to reach the All-Ireland Series. The loss sparks an existential crisis within Tipperary and the consensus is that the rebuild will take years. However, 349 days later Tipperary closed that gap and draw a game that they should have won. No, that's not tomorrow, that was 2023.
The moral of the story? Expect the unexpected. More than anything else, as Public Enemy told us back when Tipp were beating Cork by nine points in Limerick in 1988. Just don't believe the hype.
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When I watched Limerick emerging from the Cusack Stand dressingrooms, it struck me how strange this was for them – so used to arriving in Croke Park on semi-final weekend. Limerick's Cian Lynch dejected after the game. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho Their big players had strangely little impact. In the second half Kyle Hayes was on the attack and got dispossessed – Conor Burke immediately scored at the other end – and shortly afterwards was replaced at centre back by Declan Hannon. Gillane didn't take the goal chance and missed a late free. Cian Lynch did as much as anyone but the middle third, for so long Limerick's territory, turned into a fiery contest they weren't winning with only Adam English flying the flag. They may also question their use of the spare man, as it looked as if Dublin had the man advantage. There was also a draining Munster final with extra time and penalties and just two weeks to recover. That schedule killed Clare three years ago and although they stumbled through the quarter-final, they had almost literally nothing left in the semi-final against Kilkenny a fortnight later. For me, this was the best Dublin hurling performance in adversity that I've seen. In the other quarter-final, Tipp supporters were probably a bit anxious at half-time. They were 0-16 to 0-11 up, not a great lead having played with the wind and Galway had created goal chances. They needn't have worried. Tipperary's Seamus Kennedy signs autographs after the win over Galway at the Gaelic Grounds. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho Tipperary might not have been as neat as Liam Cahill would have liked but they were sharp. Their touch was far superior to Galway's and so was their use of the ball. He also got a great return from John McGrath and Jason Forde in the first half. The best of the goal chances they conceded fell to Kevin Cooney but Rhys Shelly made a routine save. Galway were putting in a lot of effort but there was always over-elaboration, one pass too many and they ended up again relying on Cathal Mannion, mostly from frees. When the match came down to it in the third quarter and when Galway got the goal from Colm Molloy that they had been threatening, the result briefly looked in the melting pot, the margin down to two. In the next 10 minutes though, Tipperary put their stamp on it. Andrew Ormond scored the next point, after an outstanding catch from the puck-out by an outstanding player. He was fouled for the next one and all told, Tipp put up five without reply while Galway hit five energy-sapping wides. That, as they say in America, was the match. Right there. It's been a disappointing year for Galway and Micheál Donoghue has a lot of work to do to revive things. Liam Cahill on the other hand has already had a successful season by getting to the All-Ireland semi-finals. Thanks to Dublin, Tipp now avoid Cork. Cahill will know that Kilkenny are a different level of challenge to Galway but equally, he is not afraid to change things around a bit. They also have a strong bench. Most important of all, though is that Tipperary have momentum.
