Tomorrow's showdown carries echoes of the seminal semi-final of 2002 – after which Kilkenny became the most successful side in hurling history, writes SEAN MORAN

TEN YEARS ago this very day the modern hurling world began. It wasn’t immediately apparent at the time even if everyone knew something important had happened but things were about to change dramatically.

Like tomorrow the main event of the weekend was an All-Ireland semi-final between Tipperary and Kilkenny. The match would be the centrepiece of a year in which three things happened: the relationship between the counties was radically redefined, Henry Shefflin became the dominant influence on the team and by extension on hurling and Kilkenny created the spine of the team that would deliver the most successful era in the county’s history.

The semi-final was the start of the most intense period in the long rivalry between the counties. Tomorrow is the sixth meeting in the past 11 years – compared with the historical figure of 17 in the 104 championship matches before 2002. Going into that fixture, Kilkenny had won just once in 80 seasons; of the five meetings since they have lost just one.

The two sides had between them won the previous two All-Irelands and the winners were expected to defeat Clare, who had surprised Waterford in the other semi-final. Brian Cody and his selectors had tried out new players during the league and the team had picked up momentum and won the title in a close-fought final against Cork. The consensus amongst followers and observers was that the ‘real team’ would be reassembled for the summer but instead the new configuration remained in place.

A straw in the wind was the All Star count. Having won the All-Ireland easily in 2000, Kilkenny accumulated nine places on the selection. Of these, four would not start against Tipperary two years later and only one, Willie O’Connor, had actually retired. Three, Eamonn Kennedy, Denis Byrne and Charlie Carter were out of favour.

Peter Barry became the team’s centre back with Richie Mullally replacing Kennedy. Barry had served a long apprenticeship, his versatility taking him from wing forward to wing back via midfield. He was a key presence in the Tipperary semi-final, forcing the switch of his direct opponent and ending up Man of the Match.

“Peter Barry had a huge game for us that day,” remembers then selector Johnny Walsh. “He had been used to playing on the wing but he was great to catch a ball in the air. He was marking John Carroll, a burly, strong kind of guy but Peter was catching ball off him to beat the band.”

Brian McEvoy was moved from centrefield to accommodate a dynamic young player whose talents had largely escaped detection by the Kilkenny development system.

Derek Lyng had virtually never played underage for the county although he was a member of the 1999 All-Ireland under-21 winning panel. But his athleticism and appetite for work made him an exemplar of the new virtues, which Kilkenny would now extol.

John Power, a veteran of the 1992 and ’93 All-Irelands, was replaced at centre forward by Henry Shefflin, up to that season still effectively learning his trade in the full forwards, although so fluently that he had already won both his first All-Ireland medal and All Star award.

At full forward it was Martin Comerford’s first year. Like Lyng, he had largely passed under the radar of underage recognition but Cody had spotted the potential in the tall, thin brother of team captain Andy. His work rate and awkwardness posed a physical challenge but his hurling did the damage.

By the end of 2002, the new spine of the team had been so successful that Barry, Lyng, Shefflin and Comerford had all become All Stars and Shefflin was Hurler of the Year.

It was the year when Shefflin became the fulcrum of the attack and a leadership figure for the whole team – a year that also saw the crossing of the graph lines between his career and DJ Carey’s. For long the most dangerous forward in the game, Carey’s time at inter-county level was nearing its close.

No longer required to carry the bulk of the responsibility, he had a couple of good years still left and captained the All-Ireland winning team in 2003. His involvement in 2002 was peculiar and one of the big calls made by Cody before the semi-final against Tipperary.

“DJ had opted out a bit for the year,” according to Walsh, “and this was his first match back.”

His return, in place of club mate Charlie Carter, was a gamble. Tipp manager Nicky English recalled hearing the Kilkenny team as he left training and being concerned at Carey’s selection. The apprehension was justified, as the Gowran forward took on a couple of 65s and pointed them as well as adding two more from play. His most significant contribution however came on the hour, a spring-heeled break that opened up Tipperary.

“The goal that was the winning of it came when DJ went on one of his great solo runs,” says Walsh. Charlie Carter (on as a replacement) was waiting to his left and Jimmy Coogan (another replacement) on the other side. Tipp went towards Charlie and DJ passed it to Jimmy, who got the goal. It was only in the end that we pulled it around.”

If there was an iconic moment it was Shefflin, after a titanic match against his WIT colleague and house-mate Eamonn Corcoran, rising high with a few minutes left to fetch the ball from his marker and shoot the point that effectively ended the Tipperary challenge.

Coincidentally, All-Ireland opponents Clare had already played a significant role in Kilkenny’s year. The counties had been evenly matched in the league that season when they met in Ennis. It was Lyng’s first match at centrefield, as he recalled in an interview after his retirement last year in the Irish Examiner.

“That was a huge day for me, for us. I would have been in awe of Colin Lynch for years and honestly that day I remember just wanting not to be eaten alive. I look back on that day and wonder was God looking down on me?

“A ball broke between the two of us and I just let fly and we got a goal out of it. Another time then he went down the wing and I managed to block him and get the ball back . . . Henry came out to centre forward that day as well and that’s when things really started to click for us. Looking back that was probably the biggest match we had that year.”

Then Clare manager Cyril Lyons remembers the final and how Kilkenny “blitzed” his team early “as a statement of intent”. Clare did well to get to that year’s All-Ireland but their most inspirational players were the veterans of the great 1990s team.

One of them, Seánie McMahon, had been having a tremendous season at centre back but, after just two minutes, Shefflin took him on, ran through the centre of the defence and provided the pass for DJ Carey’s goal.

“I remember the intensity of Kilkenny and it was the first time I noticed the aggressiveness of their tactics,” said Lyons. “Usually teams try to get their best players onto the opposition’s weakest but this was different. They set out to man mark the other team’s best players with their best players – to nullify the threat. That was their pathway to victory.”

In the following years Kilkenny would claim seven All-Irelands in 10 years. Shefflin played on all of those teams, Lyng and Comerford had retired by the seventh. Only Barry bowed out before the four-in-a-row success of 2006-09.

Tipperary’s story was different. English resigned as manager after the semi-final defeat and when the counties met in 2003 at the same stage, Tipp were annihilated.

The spine of their team succumbed to injury and loss of form and they never came again.

Tomorrow – 10 years later – they are back in a similar situation, recent All-Ireland winners in a semi-final with a nearly even chance of winning but also stalked by the anxieties of what defeat might signify.

The only difference is that in the meantime Kilkenny have become the most successful side in hurling history.