Decisive rubber in modern version of old rivalry

GAA:The stakes couldn't be higher on Sunday – a fifth title in six years for Kilkenny, or a first back-to-back All-Ireland success in 46 years for ancient foes Tipperary

IT WAS all of 12 years ago, now. This column was, like everyone else concerned with the GAA, looking forward to the relative novelty of a Cork-Kilkenny All-Ireland. The concept of this “novelty” had to be put in context. After all, the recurrence of Cork-Kilkenny finals was and remains the most familiar pairing in September.

Back then it occurred once every six-and-a-half years. At this stage the frequency has risen to below six. But Tipperary-Kilkenny is fast catching up. Sunday will be the 16th All-Ireland between the counties – or a frequency of once every seven and a half years – and it is the only great All-Ireland rivalry spiked out across neighbouring county boundaries.

It has also made history by providing a third successive final between provincial champions, the first time since Cork-London over 100 years ago that the same final match has occurred in three successive seasons.

Another striking piece of history is the extended supremacy of hurling’s Big Three.

In that context it’s interesting to note the sentiment on this page in 1999 just before what was the first Cork-Kilkenny final in seven years.

“Whereas there has been great and genuine rejoicing in recent years at the emergence of Clare and the re-emergence of Wexford, it has to be remembered that the game needs to thrive in its strongest counties as well.

“After as democratic a decade’s football (1990s) as any could have imagined, the fact that Kerry, Dublin and Galway (top three on the roll of honour) also won All-Irelands was welcome if only for setting the various breakthroughs in the context of the game’s history and traditions.

“So it should be with hurling. Clare reserved their highest-voltage performances for the traditional counties, Cork, Tipperary and Kilkenny, for the very reason that Ger Loughnane understood posterity’s need to judge his team against the game’s leading brand names.

“Hurling’s rocketing profile in recent years was partially the product of new counties competing for top honours, but it is important in the broader scheme of things that the advances made in public interest are sufficiently well-grounded to survive a risorgimento in Cork and Kilkenny.”

Be careful what you wish for.

This will be the 13th season of that resurgence and there’s no imminent sign of it abating. Much is expected of Dublin, and validly so, but the county has yet to win an under-age All-Ireland in the modern era – albeit they have two opportunities in the coming weeks – let alone threaten a senior title. Progress at this level is an arduous process.

Like the Cork-Kilkenny rivalry between 1999 and 2004, the recent Tipp-Kilkenny engagement has been competitive to the point of gladiatorial. It has also resulted in two of the 10 highest-scoring finals on record. This wasn’t always the case historically, with Tipperary having recorded big, double-digit wins in a quarter of the finals.

There was also the historical anomaly when the counties met in 2009 that Kilkenny had beaten their neighbours just once in a final since the 1922 season.

They had actually met in just seven finals during that period but the sequence had also been accompanied by the view – bizarre as it seems now – that Kilkenny were physically soft and Tipperary had no qualms about asserting themselves.

This characterisation originated on a famous conversation between two famous hurlers Johnny Leahy and Sim Walton, captains of Tipperary and Kilkenny respectively after the 1916 All-Ireland.

Legend has it that Walton told his counterpart: “We were the better hurlers,” drawing the rejoinder, “But we were the better men”.

All-Ireland-winning player and manager Babs Keating, who faced Kilkenny in four finals during the 1960s and ’90s, made the point in his autobiography.

“When I was growing up there was a belief in Tipperary that you only had to show a Kilkenny man the blue and gold jersey and he would tremble. Very often that proved to be the case. The time was bound to come when a Kilkenny team would want to prove that they were different. It happened during the 1960s.”

The turning point came in the 1967 All-Ireland and in a particularly nasty home league final the following year, featuring scenes of violence including a supporter entering the field and hitting a Tipperary player.

A Central Council investigation culminated in six-month suspensions for Tipperary’s John Flanagan and Kilkenny goalkeeper Ollie Walsh, a punishment so resented in the latter county that withdrawal from the championship was proposed but not agreed.

Matters eventually settled and Tipperary won the 1971 meeting, which was to be the last between the counties for 20 years. Interestingly, those finals were both won by Tipperary but they also presaged the arrival of strong Kilkenny teams.

After ’71 three of the following four All-Irelands were won by Kilkenny. In 1991, it was said that Ollie Walsh, now managing his county, told an enquirer before the final that he felt his team mightn’t win the upcoming contest but that they’d take the next two or three All-Irelands, as they did in 1992-93.

Kilkenny’s is a remarkable story. With their tiny population base, they were the most enduringly successful hurling county of the 20th century and have dominated the first decade of the 21st.

Both Cork and Tipperary won a fistful of All-Irelands before the end of the 19th century and so have had to put up with periods of drought within the last 120 years.

Never having had to suffer more than 10 years without an All-Ireland, Kilkenny’s strike-rate since winning their first in 1904 (well, 1905 but championships seemed always to be a year late back then) has been better than one every three and a half years.

After last year’s feat of coming within 70 minutes of the GAA’s first five-in-a-row All-Ireland sequence, Kilkenny are still poised to emulate the record of the 1941-44 Cork team, whose four successive titles they equalled against Tipp two years ago.

After failing in Munster in 1945 – when the All-Ireland was also decided between Tipperary and Kilkenny – Cork bounced back to win a fifth All-Ireland in six years, a progression the Leinster champions will be hoping to match on Sunday.

On the other hand victory would give Tipperary a first back-to-back All-Ireland success in 46 years as well as victory in what could be the decisive rubber of the absorbing modern version of an ancient rivalry.