The most resonant detail of the season has yet to be resolved, but it’s as good a time as any to reflect on an interesting championship season, which may in retrospect be seen as peak Munster.

Yet again, the province’s box office did record business, amplifying Munster chief executive Kieran Leddy’s characterisation of the championship at last year’s annual convention as “the competition that keeps on giving”.

That 2023 figure has gone up again in successive years, and just under 329,000 spectators made their way through the turnstiles for this season’s fixtures.

It is hard, ultimately impossible, for attendances to keep rising, and that might hit next year.

In the meantime, the first All-Ireland senior final to transpose Munster’s most ancient rivalry to the national stage awaits at the weekend.

Back when the solution to hurling’s ills was the “open draw” championship, traditionalists argued that the game would be bereft without Cork-Tipp Munster finals. The riposte was that they could instead play All-Ireland finals.

It may have taken 29 years of formats in which this was possible, but here it is. At last, and only after four other Munster pairings have already made it to the big day.

Tús maith

Cork are in a position to become the third successive county to achieve the league and All-Ireland double and the fourth in six years of this decade. That day at the beginning of April, when Cork overwhelmed Tipperary may appear a distant thought but it gave the county a first league in 27 years and although a second-half fade-out troubled Pat Ryan afterwards, it proved a harbinger of good things and the county added Munster two months later. Just one more box to tick.

Defence in context

Last year’s champions, Clare, were widely seen as likely non-qualifiers from Munster. Results hadn’t been great and the injury list was unrelenting, starting with outgoing Hurler of the Year Shane O’Donnell. For all that, Brian Lohan’s team recovered from a listless first half in their opening match in Ennis against Cork to hit the front in the last minute, having trailed by 12 at the break and nine after nearly an hour. Had they held that lead, things might have been different. The next match, away to Waterford, had to be faced without O’Donnell or Tony Kelly, who was ill at the time. They lost, as they did in a rip-roaring encounter with Tipperary in Ennis before defeating an unbeaten Limerick. Two points adrift at the end, Clare weren’t that far off despite their infirmary list.

Eastern promise?

As can be seen below, these are troubled times for Leinster hurling. Galway and brand leaders Kilkenny look to be in the foothills of mountainous rebuilds. Dublin, propelled upwards by a sensational result against Limerick, hit the usual glass ceiling with unusual force whereas Wexford are desperately trying to get a team together before Lee Chin retires. Antrim’s recent rehabilitation came to an end with relegation to next year’s McDonagh Cup. Offaly retained their MacCarthy status but with just a solitary win over Antrim.

Banks rolled championship

Big crowds have been driven by Cork and their attendant support. It invites comparison with Dublin footballers 15 to 20 years ago and the phenomenon of a team on the rise being almost more attractive than a county which has turned into serial winners.

The hurlers will on Sunday play in front of a capacity crowd for the eighth successive match, going back to the league final in April and encompassing every fixture they played in Munster.

There is a view that the county hurlers might have been watched by the biggest ever supporting crowd, in the All-Ireland semi-final win over Dublin. A capacity of 82,300 attended, a vast proportion of whom were from Cork. The only rival would be Dublin in the 2002 football quarter-final replay against Donegal.

Small slips, big fall

Limerick’s league form was ambivalent. The one match they looked to have gone all out for a win was against Cork, who nonetheless forced a draw in injury time. Reservations looked to have been laid to rest when, in May, the same counties met on the Ennis Road and they blitzed Cork but 20 days later, at the same venue, they lost their Munster title to the same opponents, on penalties for the first time in a hurling final. So, incrementally, Cork deprived them of their shot at history last year and a seventh successive provincial title. A fortnight later, they were losing an All-Ireland quarter-final to 14-man Dublin.

Tipp tripping light years

Hard to believe that a county, which looked to have reached rock bottom 14 months ago, could bounce back as hard as Tipperary have done. Last year’s Munster meeting with Cork ended in an 18-point defeat. In Thurles, the home support was massively outnumbered by the visitors. Afterwards, manager Liam Cahill acknowledged the scale of the defeat, which ended any prospect of advancement, saying the county was “officially in a real rebuild job now”. Only six of the players who started that day lined out in the recent semi-final against Kilkenny. Lessons continued this year with big defeats by Cork in the league final and Munster championship, but after steady improvement, Tipperary are the last ones standing between Cork and a first All-Ireland in 20 years.

New record

Whatever happens next Sunday, there will be a new record set for the most consecutive All-Irelands won by a province. Munster counties set the old mark of seven in 1940-46 and 1948-54 – a sequence that has been equalled in the past seven years by Limerick, Tipperary and Clare. With two Munster counties back in the final, that will be extended at the weekend. Over the same period, 2018-24, 12 of the 16 finalists have also been from Munster with every county represented along the way.

email: sean.moran@irishtimes.com