The best place to begin any appraisal of Tommy Walsh’s career is not with the All-Ireland medals, not with the All Stars but on a Sunday afternoon at Walsh Park in the summer of 1997.

Not a move endorsed by Julie Andrews, never mind rehearsed on the training field under the watchful eye of Joe Schmidt, but let’s start at the very end, writes Enda McEvoy. 

"It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills.

As the 64,246 paying spectators made their way to Croke Park that blustery day nearly half a century ago, there was not one burning question of the day but two.

Yes, you read the headline correctly and no, we’re not trying to subtract the urine. If we’re putting the cart before the horse it’s only by a few days, because rest assured that — hurling folk being hurling folk — within a couple of hours of the final whistle next Sunday the supporters of both teams will be already turning their attention to next year.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of one the most memorable All-Ireland hurling finals in history.

Six championship seasons and six consecutive Kilkenny/Tipperary clashes, not to mention the three National League finals they’ve collided in during the same period of time.

All-Ireland football semi-final day. Home in front of the telly.

Good job Paul Grimley wasn’t in Langton’s the other night. He’d have been in grave danger of choking on his fillet steak.

Not an epic match but an epic contest, a struggle of Old Testament proportions, with weather conditions to match, and only a plague of frogs lacking.