NO COUNTRY for the faint hearted. Yesterday's humdinging, barnstorming, riproaring All-Ireland Hurling Final conferred indelible greatness on a courageous Kilkenny team who arrived at their fourth title in a row via an epic struggle. They stand this morning as perhaps the greatest side the game has seen, writes TOM HUMPHRIESin Croke Park
For some years now hurling has been like the fight tent at an old fair ground. Every county has stepped into the ring and taken their chances against the prizefighters of Kilkenny. Some have been carried out with heels dragging on the canvas.
Others have gone the distance, but succumbed. Yesterday Tipperary had it all in their grasp. But . . . That the Kilkenny goalkeeper PJ Ryan took home the “Man of the Match” award tells its own story.
Tending goal for this Kilkenny team has long been dismissed as a sinecure. Yesterday he was required to produce five extraordinary saves to keep his side alive.
Tipperary were truly heroic but the loss of a player, Benny Dunne, to a red card and the concession of a dubious penalty were too much for any side to bear in a game of inches like yesterday’s.
In the end, Kilkenny won by five points, a gap which grossly distorted the difference between the sides and yet offered testimony to Kilkenny’s experience under pressure.
The three substitutes introduced by Kilkenny in the last 20 minutes or so contributed precisely five points, the winning margin.
On greasy days like yesterday, hurling of the quality served up by Kilkenny and Tipperary just shouldn’t be possible. The challenges were so brutal in their frankness that you felt bruised just watching them from the stand.
The scoring was sublime and the pace was helter-skelter from the throw-in. Kilkenny absorbed the bruises and threw themselves into making this a wonder of a game. In the end the breaks came as they knew they would. They were relentless, furious and yet majestic. In the end they took their place in the pantheon with a style that defied begrudgery.
“It feels outstanding! Terrific. Same as it always does” said Brian Cody who had just managed Kilkenny to an All-Ireland for the seventh time. “No feeling on earth like the feeling you have when the final whistle goes and you have won the All-Ireland final.
“Four in a row? It’s crazy to think that those players have done that in this day and age.” His mouth looped briefly into a rare smile which he locked away again quickly.
Not long till he starts considering five in a row.