No sport mythologises itself as thoroughly as hurling both in the willingness to be impressed and the constant desire to update those impressions. That’s not to be snide about it. The enthusiasm that swept Thurles on Sunday was more heartening than the polar opposite musings a week previously with many unsure whether they’d ever seen a worse Ulster football final.
In the hierarchy of myth, Munster hurling finals are in a category of their own. After the electric Waterford-Cork encounter in 2004, the match was hardly over when a head appeared around the corner of the press box: “Was that the greatest Munster final ever?”
Unlike football, which is mulishly prone to seeing no improvement in the game since the 1970s, hurling is constantly open to rethinking and re-evaluating its priority list.
Into this process came Sunday’s Munster final between Limerick and Clare. Its “no holds barred” drama and the phlegmatically taken hits clattered around Thurles.
Nicky English, this newspaper’s hurling analyst, pointed out that it had been his 50th final, in the different guises of spectator, official (he was linesman at the age of 16 for the 1979 Cork-Limerick final), player, manager and pundit.
“I have to say this one stands out, a special occasion and a special match and one that will bear comparison with any that I have seen,” he wrote on Monday.
Context is important. One, this was the first proper final – venue full and much anticipated – since the pandemic. That unmitigated involvement of the crowd built the atmosphere, decibel by decibel.
The prematch parade had that Colosseum energy: gladiators being roared on by their partisans, arrayed in the stadium at a safe distance.
They weren’t about to die, of course and John Kiely sensibly parried the “war” imagery afterwards but in a way the two teams were about to embark on a ferocious contest in the representing of their counties. It would be bruising and exhausting – and exhilarating.
Context two: the public desire for a rivalry. Limerick have been building a dynastic presence in the game. Win this year, as they are widely expected to do, and they will have landed four All-Ireland titles in five years. Only two extended teams have bettered that: Kilkenny with six from seven (2006-12) and Cork, five from six (1941-46).
In its own right, it would make Limerick one of the top eight most successful teams in history.
After the first in the current sequence in 2018, which was won by just a point, they have won the last two finals by an accumulated 0-29. Hurling has been eagerly looking for a credible rival. It’s one of the reasons Waterford had such a head of steam coming into the championship.
Clare have provided that this season. Sunday was the third draw (at 70 minutes) between the teams. Brian Lohan’s side haven’t taken a step back in that time and Limerick behave as if they’re well aware of their neighbours’ ambition.
They didn’t rest players before last month’s round-robin match between the teams even though they were effectively already into the provincial final.
Sunday’s thunder was further evidence of how seriously the Munster final was being taken by the counties and that wasn’t a given because provincial finals have an odd status these days.
Winning them is great because a team has only two matches left at most whereas the losers are back out in a fortnight but you can equally reach an All-Ireland quarter-final by coming third in the province and playing a McDonagh Cup finalist.
Clare are in the quarter-finals with a lot more wear-and-tear than their likely opponents, Wexford, something referred to by Brian Lohan when he spoke about the challenge of playing a quarter-final just a fortnight after Sunday’s bruising collision.
Context three: the narrative matters. Reaction to the match would have been off the charts had Clare won. An epic battle, which concludes in the underdog winning, lasts longer in the memory. It is an irritation in Kerry that so many accepted classic football matches are ones that they have lost down the years.
Similarly, on Sunday if Limerick had been successfully ambushed there would have been proof that the Clare challenge had counted for something.
The 2004 final had that. Waterford were outsiders against Cork, conceded an early goal to a goalkeeping error and then had their liveliest forward, John Mullane, sent off shortly into the second half.
They managed to survive and win by a point. Its claims as the greatest Munster final didn’t appear implausible. Great performances came from Ken McGrath, early in his redeployment at centre back, Dan Shanahan, who scored 1-3, and Paul Flynn, whose goal from a free turned the match on its head.
Sunday had as many if not more outstanding individual displays. Séamus Flanagan scored 0-8 from play, and there is the miraculous high-pitch frequency of Tony Kelly, who despite not being on a team which has reached an All-Ireland semi-final recently, is currently again in the frame for hurler of the year for the third successive season.
Accuracy was roughly the same. Although the second half at the weekend started with a rash of wides between the teams, they ended up with 19 (Limerick) and 15 (Clare). Adjusted to 70 minutes that’s 15-11, compared with 13 (Waterford) and 10 (Cork) in 2004.
Finally, the championship is organic. It changes as it unfolds. Limerick have shifted gear after the past two Munster finals once they got to Croke Park. The previous year, they lost to Kilkenny.
That’s a warning but with the potential return of two All Star attackers, Cian Lynch and Peter Casey, beating them may well become harder not easier despite the energies spent in creating legend in Munster.
sean.moran@irishtimes.com
