Old rivals eyeing a return to centre stage

NATIONAL HURLING LEAGUE FINAL Seán Moranreports on the enduring rivalry between Galway and Tipperary hurlers which began with their memorable clashes in the 1980s

THERE WAS a time when this wouldn't have seemed such a novelty. Galway meet Tipperary in tomorrow's Allianz National Hurling League final and the mood in the counties is upbeat. Both have enjoyed unbeaten campaigns to date and there is a sense of optimism that better days lie ahead.

For the neutral there is interest in the two teams, which boast the prodigious forward talents of Joe Canning and Eoin Kelly, and the extent to which they can add to what has been a woefully thin cast on hurling's main stage this decade.

Yet there was a time when that stage belonged to these counties, their two-hander narrative the defining rivalry of an era. Even when that run had ended their contests continued, maybe on the fringe but with sufficient frequency to make Galway and Tipperary the most enduring national rivalry of the past 20 years.

The National League final has been notably accessible in that time and if Kilkenny have been in five of the last six finals the final pairings have shifted and changed constantly. This weekend is the sixth time these counties have met in the final during those 20 years.

Only one other pairing, Kilkenny-Clare, 1995 and 2005, has occurred more than once. That's not the end of it. During the late 1980s the MacCarthy Cup was for a while their own private joust.

In fact since the pyrotechnic semi-final of 1987, which established the rivalry and is still regarded as the best of all their matches, Galway and Tipperary have met 14 times at the pinnacle of national competition - six NHL finals and on eight occasions in the All-Ireland championship.

People head for Limerick tomorrow hoping for and reasonably confident about the prospects of a free-flowing match, showcasing some of the game's most promising talent. In a way it's always been like that but the history of the relationship is also marked by controversy and bitterness, maybe the result of a rivalry that became suffocating or maybe just because the stakes became so high.

In the beginning was Cyril Farrell's Galway Mark II, a collective built on the foundations of the county's historic 1980 All-Ireland victory but redeveloped with some high-quality under-21 hurlers from the mid-1980s.

Their apprenticeship was hard, as favourites they lost the All-Ireland finals in 1985 and '86 but fulfilment was sweet in the following two years. By then Babs Keating had launched Tipperary, one of the game's elite counties, on their emergence from an unprecedentedly barren spell.

It would become a nuanced rivalry. Galway might have established themselves as the decade's top hurling county but they also felt their isolation in the west and could be chippy about how welcome they thought they were at the top of the game.

Tipp's revival was a good-news story, the prodigal that returns. Keating was larger than life in his utterances and, to be fair, his ambition for a team that prioritised skilful hurling.

Galway - purists weren't sure about them. They had some magnificent hurlers right down the middle: Joe Cooney, Tony Keady, the centrefield of Michael Coleman and Pat Malone. But they also took physical fitness to new levels and used it tactically.

The old principle about being able to strike a ball 70 yards faster than you can run it at times looked under challenge. They used pace and hand-passing to open up defences. Two men's careers span the entirety of the rivalry.

Galway's All-Ireland-winning captain Conor Hayes played in the great days and managed the county to its most recent appearance in the final three years ago.

Nicky English played for Tipp in virtually all of the matches until his retirement in 1996 and when the rivalry resumed in the 1999 NHL final he was manager.

He takes vehement issue with derogatory characterisations of Galway.

"I would disagree 100 per cent with that. That was nonsense. They were super hurlers with a great half-back line and well managed. There was a lot of attention paid to the running part of their game but that was most obvious when they used it tactically against the likes of Kilkenny in Thurles.

"People said it was limited but try and mark Martin Naughton and you knew all about it. He was fast but he scored two or three points in every match.

"I'm not sure they got the credit. Tipp were beaten by them in 1987 and '88 and there was huge criticism in the county that we didn't win those matches, as if there was no reason for us not to be beating Galway.

"Largely style depends on what players you have. I wouldn't have described Galway's as a running game but more of a handling game. It caused difficulties for them against Cork when Cork moved the ball quickly. There wasn't a huge difference between Galway and Tipp but Cork were more direct."

HAYES SAYS having the aesthetic value of their game questioned never bothered Galway.

"That didn't matter to us. We concentrated on our own game. Cyril Farrell always emphasised that. We had two games every year and knew if we did it right in the semi-final we should win and get to the final. Our game was built on the speed of the players. Fellas like Martin Naughton, Éanna Ryan and Joe Cooney were absolute flyers and then there was experience in Noel Lane and Brendan Lynskey.

"Our game was never negative. We just went for it in matches. One thing stung us a bit and that was the envy of our situation, only having two games a year.

"Some people used to say: 'Ah sure Clare and Waterford could win All-Irelands if they got straight into the All-Ireland semi-finals'. But we were beating everyone in the league and were capable of beating any other team on a given day.

"After losing the finals in '85 and '86 people were saying that the short run was unfair on us. When we won in '87 and '88 they were saying it was unfair on everyone else. We always felt even if we had to play five or six counties we'd still have won All-Irelands."

Hayes says that whereas there was a doggedness about Galway it served them well at times when Tipperary were at their least resistible. "The funny thing about Tipp was that they played fantastic hurling and you'd be thinking we must be about 10 points behind and yet when you looked at the scoreboard at half-time there mightn't be much in it or we might even be ahead. Our forwards made something out of everything. A point here, a 65 there, just keeping in touch."

AS PLAYERS Hayes and English became a subplot to the 1988 All-Ireland final when selected as direct opponents. English carried an added burden in the uncomfortable circumstances of team captain Pa O'Neill being dropped for the final. Leading the team from full forward, he remembers playing poorly.

Hayes was well aware of the pre-match publicity and the less than optimistic conclusions being drawn about his prospects on the leading Tipperary forward.

"There was a lot made of it, him against me. Two nights before the '88 final at the team talk, Sylvie Linnane pops up with, 'have no worries about Nicky English', and I thought he was going to tell us that he'd sort him out himself. Instead he's telling everyone, 'Conor will take care of him'. I'm thinking 'thanks very much Sylvie for the vote of confidence'.

"What happened was that Michael Coleman and Pat Malone got on top of Tipp at midfield. Nicky was there looking for fast ball and he'd win at least six out of every 10. But our midfield completely cut back the supply."

Twenty years on the problems at centrefield don't afford English much consolation. "The '88 final passed me by," he says. "Conor Hayes started by sending over a couple of long-range points. I'd say for the first 20 minutes or so he'd scored more than me."

An onlooker might be forgiven for thinking that the shared border added to the rivalry, particularly as on the Galway side is prime hurling territory. But apart from the traffic in school-going and club challenges around Portumna, neither Hayes nor English believe that it added much friction to the relationship.

"It's the same for Tipp with everyone," according to English. "We share borders with everybody."

It's true. Only 14 senior All-Irelands in history haven't ended up either in Tipperary or just over one its county boundaries. If the tension between the counties had been no more than was expected from the two prime contenders for All-Ireland success over a period of time that changed in 1989.

The year started well with another classic between the counties in the league final, unusually staged in Croke Park. Not long afterwards, in an unaccustomed swoop on illegal playing in the US, Galway's All Star centre back Tony Keady was caught lining out in New York without proper registration.

His suspension and its ramifications poisoned the championship that followed and it may be Galway never recovered from the loss of focus going into their defining All-Ireland semi-final with Tipperary. "It was something that got out of hand," says Hayes. "People say Tipperary provoked it or that the GAA were down on Galway winning All-Irelands and all that sort of bullshit. The GAA decided to crack down on illegals in America and Tony Keady was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"There is still a lot of regret. We'd lost All-Ireland finals in 1985 and '86, won them in '87 and '88 so we knew we should be making the best of our chances. We'd still feel that we should have won at least another one or two."

The irony is the semi-final turned out to be close and current selector Seán Treacy gave a good display deputising for Keady and Hayes believes by forgetting about the suspension Galway could have won and had Keady back for the final.

"We played Antrim in a challenge the Tuesday night week before playing Tipp in 1989. Up to that we hadn't been going well in training. The Keady thing was up in the air and playing on our nerves but we'd a good game against Antrim. They were really good and went on to win their semi-final but we still won well and it was the first sign that we'd got over that oul' stuff.

"But the next thing Cyril's telling the papers that we mightn't play if Tony isn't allowed. I had John O'Shea on to me saying, 'what's going on?' I had to say I don't know. He said, 'you're the captain'. I pointed out that we'd been training all year for this and that but that that hadn't been discussed at all.

"Then Martin Naughton injured his knee. He was one of our key players and he was out of the semi-final. It all caught up with us; Keady suspended, not being sure whether we'd play and now the injury. We were wondering is this ever going to end. Fellas were coming up to you in the street and asking, 'will you play the game?' or 'will Tony play?' because there was some talk that we'd field him anyway."

The day arrived and passed in controversy. Tipperary won but not before an ill-tempered match which saw two Galway players, Sylvie Linnane and Michael McGrath, sent off. It was spiteful and rancorous and at odds with the tone of their previous encounters.

"I would have thought the atmosphere in the '89 semi-final was the worst I ever experienced," says English. "The whole mood around it was dark. The sky had turned black and threatening just before we started, like it was a portent.

"You also have to remember that no-one expected the stakes to be quite as high. Word came to the dressingroom that Antrim had beaten Offaly in the first semi-final. With respect to Antrim, both sides knew that they were now playing for the All-Ireland. We hadn't won one for 18 years and Galway were going for a three-in-a-row."

Hayes remembers the tension getting to him. "I took a free at one stage and hit it straight up in the air. It landed nearly down on my head. There was this terrible frustration in our play.

"It was badly handled by Galway. The GAA had the right to do what they did. We should have taken our medicine."

IN 1991 Tipperary won easily on the way to claiming another All-Ireland but the counties' fortunes dipped thereafter. There were false dawns with Galway reaching the 1993 All-Ireland final after ambushing Tipp in the semi-final and then Tipp winning the following spring's league final despite Galway's apparently emerging team being favourites.

If the same intensity wasn't present by this stage there was still an edge with John Leahy following his man of the match display in May 1994 by saying: "We proved something today. We proved a point. All their talk. They have no All-Irelands. We have two All-Irelands. When they learn how to win All-Irelands they can talk." Hayes says the world was changing in the new decade. "In the 1990s we hadn't a settled team. Other teams started training differently. We had always trained specially for championship and our fitness was always a big advantage. But everyone caught up."

English and Hayes missed each other's watch as managers but each could boast victory over the familiar adversary.

"When I was manager," says English, whose crowning success came in the 2001 All-Ireland final, "we met them more often than anyone else: in the four years two League finals, one semi-final and two championship matches including the 2001 All-Ireland. But they were in transition at that time and had two managers, Mattie Murphy and Noel Lane. If you're changing managers you're changing players. Before the 2001 final I was happy enough we were going to win. We'd three years of foundation and that bit more experience."

It wasn't the start of a new era for either county although Hayes took Galway to another All-Ireland in 2005. The stand-out display was the semi-final blitz of Kilkenny but the turning point in a hitherto mediocre season came in the All-Ireland quarter-final.

The match swung on a goal by Damien Hayes, who famously shrugged/wrestled off the attentions of Tipperary corner back Hugh Maloney, to bring Galway back into the match.

"We got lucky against Tipperary in 2005," says Hayes.

"We were being well beaten and if they'd got another couple of points they'd have won. Damien Hayes got the goal that kick-started our year. I'd pinpoint it to that. Ten minutes to go and we were gone."

The history of fine lines, significance and insignificance that runs through the past 20 years continues tomorrow in the Gaelic Grounds. It'll be a few years before we know whether this is the highway or another side-road but as Galway manager Ger Loughnane himself once said: "Enjoy the journey, lads".