Old story retold with new voice

HURLING:IN THE end, it was as if the hurling landscape had shifted shape so that the familiar and time-honoured seemed somehow new and unrecognisable, writes Keith Duggan

Last September, hurling people who have habitually attended All-Ireland finals left Croke Park and although they may have known the red-bricked back streets off Dorset Street like the back of their hands, they walked through a lost world. They had just watched set limitations and notions of infallibility evaporate before their eyes.

In a single afternoon, in destroying Waterford - everyone's favourite team - by 3-30 to 1-13, Kilkenny had presented the old game in a brand new light.

"It's a new game now," murmured Davy Fitzgerald, the beaten manager, that evening.

It wasn't simply about winning. Kilkenny had been heavy favourites to bring the McCarthy Cup back to the Marble City for another September of reflection and celebration and thereby complete the first three-in-a-row since the mildly-disputed run achieved back in 1911-13.

The surprise was not that they did it. It was that they did it with a show of such strength and furious artistry it must have sent waves of despair through the other counties where hurling is placed at the epicentre of everyday life.

It may be wrong to reduce a long hurling season to the events of a single match and All-Ireland mismatches have occurred before. But 2008 will always be remembered for the dramatic and ultimately crushing hour when the Suir River neighbours, the border rivals locked in vastly different provinces, met for what was supposed to have been a riveting clash of spirit, of temperament and of hurling tradition.

September 9th started out as Waterford's day. Here was a team who had grown up painfully and publicly, endearingly honest and emotional and, for all their unevenness, capable of producing dazzling off-the-cuff hurling. For sheer unpredictability and verve, Waterford had the stuff to wrong-foot the champions.

That was the theory at least.

In Gaelic games, teams often go on a run when they are responding to a feeling. The public loves nothing more than the outsider that starts winning. It was Limerick in 2007 - until they met Kilkenny.

In June of this year, Waterford had been ravaged by Clare and staged a remarkable putsch that culminated in the resignation of their manager.

Except Justin McCarthy was more than that. He had nurtured this bunch. He believed in them when few others did. McCarthy's departure was tough and unpleasant and it reflected the mood of deep unrest and impatience coursing through the heart of GAA culture all through last summer.

But there was no room for sentiment and quickly afterwards it was announced Waterford had picked Davy Fitzgerald, the pale-eyed firebrand and goalkeeping great who had not long left the dusty arenas himself. Waterford and Davy. It was the lightning storm the championship needed and sure enough, Na Deise began to rumble: Antrim, Offaly, Wexford and Tipperary: all conquered, dispatched and just like that, after 45 years of trying, Waterford were back in the big time.

So it was Waterford's day. And you think now of that long minute before it began - before it ended - when the band was playing its last note and Waterford gathered in a huddle and then John Mullane, always restless, always independent, broke early and ran out onto the field, completely alone in front of 80,000 people.

Maybe it was at the point that the first nagging sense of unease began to pass through the crowd, the troubling, unspoken worry that Waterford were innocents here, going into the unknown.

For the All-Ireland final quickly became a trip into unexplored country. From the fifth minute, when Henry Shefflin punched the air in triumph after landing a point of demoralising brilliance, it was clear Kilkenny were playing with a collective force that would not be denied. Their points came thick and fast and then the dam broke when Fast Eddie Brennan struck two goals in a minute.

The next 50 minutes would make for riveting and uncomfortable viewing. By the time the final was over, the long summer of hurling seemed distant and futile. Tipperary's spirit and endeavour during the National League and their fine Munster championship campaign was promising but, judged against Kilkenny's marauding ambition, no more than that.

Cork, the only team to stand up as verifiable rivals to Kilkenny throughout the decade, were by and large a troubled band of brothers. For one unforgettable afternoon in mid July, they escaped their worries and, after losing Donal Óg Cusack, their totemic goalkeeper, destroyed Galway's ambitions with an unstoppable second-half display in Thurles.

In defeat, the splendour of Joe Canning, who finished with a lion-hearted 2-12, was the one bright note for the Tribesmen as the enigma of maroon hurling deepened. Twenty years have passed without Liam McCarthy and Ger Loughnane became the latest man to try to crack the enduring puzzle and fail.

Cork dispatched Clare in the quarter-final and gave Kilkenny their only worthwhile examination of the summer but the Rebel County ends the year in a sad state, with some of its greatest hurling servants in exile and the county administrators implacable this time around.

In Leinster, Dublin tantalised their believers by conspiring to draw against Wexford when victory was within reach. The metropolitans' progress has been admirable and painstaking.

Yet again, the gulf between hurling strongholds and those counties where the game has thrived on precious little reward was exposed.

In Ulster, it took a whopping nine games to decide the championship. When Derry met Monaghan in late May in Celtic Park, they put 7-23 on the scoreboard in what was a facile win. A week later, they managed just 1-12 against Antrim, who went on to beat Down by 3-18 to 2-16 in the Ulster final. But just a fortnight later, Antrim hosted Galway in Casement Park and lost by 6-21 to 1-10. Antrim are one of the few marginal counties who have at least knocked on the door in the last 20 years.

Such scorelines are crushing rebuttals for those tasked with trying to extend the number of competitive games in the championship.

As it stands, the appetite for destruction and excellence shown by Kilkenny leaves the issue of genuine competition in question as the curtains close on another season. They are a team to be feared. Not only have they won their individual battles on the field, they have succeeded in colonising the minds of would-be All-Ireland contenders across the land. Second best was what the rest were playing for in the end.

You think back to John Mullane, gallant in what was a searing hour in his sporting life, shaking his head in wonder. "To get to an All-Ireland final. I'll never forget running out on that field 'til the day I die."

What We Already Knew

That all other serious contenders would have to raise their game in order to compete with Kilkenny.

What We Learned

That for various reasons, they were not able to. Tipperary, the form team of the league are still developing. Cork came closest to offering serious opposition but were distracted with internal troubles.

What We Think Might Happen

The likelihood is Kilkenny will win a fourth consecutive All-Ireland championship that features a weakened Cork team. However, Galways participation in the Leinster championship could set the season on a less predictable course.