Eimear Ryan: Hearts are with Waterford in latest chapter of all-Munster final trilogy
James O'Connor of Clare watches his shot sail over the crossbar to score his side's winning point during the 1997 All-Ireland hurling final. Picture: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
I was in Croke Park for the first all-Munster All-Ireland final in 1997. I was 10 at the time, and fairly confident that Tipp would win, exacting revenge for their loss to Clare in the Munster final that July. I didn’t really remember or appreciate Tipp’s previous All- Ireland wins in my lifetime, 1989 and 1991, and I felt that I — personally, karmically — was due an All-Ireland victory.
This was the peak of the Clare-Tipp hurling rivalry. Though I couldn’t really remember its origins, I knew from diligently reading that it had something to do with the way Nicky smiled after a point during the Munster final in 1993, the day when Tipp wore yellow and Clare wore blue.
The following year, Tipp man Len Gaynor oversaw Clare in their transformative defeat of Tipp in the Munster quarter-final. By the time the ’97 final rolled around, things had gone full circle, and Gaynor was managing Tipp.
But oh, the bitterness.
I’d been thrilled when Clare won the All-Ireland in 1995 — in part because they beat Offaly, our local border rivals, but also because of the spectacle of it all.
Witches! Curses! Goalkeepers scoring penalties!
Of course, when Clare began regularly handing out beatings to Tipp, I became less enthralled.
But on September 7, 1997, I’d been picked to play in the Cumann na mBunscoil Mini 7s demonstration match on All-Ireland final day. Between the minor and the senior games, I and 30-odd primary school kids got to run out onto the pitch behind the band and play for 10 minutes in front of 65,000 people.
I was unfazed by it all, the way kids are. I got a few touches, took an indifferent line ball. Coming off the pitch, I bent to pick a fistful of the hallowed grass, which I later put in a ziplock bag and kept until it dried and crisped up.
We went back to our seats in the Nally Stand afterwards and settled in to watch the senior match — the same Nally Stand into which Jamesie O’Connor would strike the winning point in the game’s dying moments, breaking my 10-year-old heart.
I remember seeing Ger Loughnane standing behind the goalposts — you could do that in those days — polo shirt tucked into joggers, hand raised aloft. He knew. We all knew. I burst into tears.
"Declan Ryan got a point that was clearly over and the umpire said it was wide," I wrote in an inflammatory diary entry at the time. "It was a brilliant weekend except for the senior match. Still, we’ll trash ’em next time, please God!"
Reader, we did not.
Rivalries come in cycles, and if 10-year-old me couldn’t conceive of a feud more white-hot than Tipp and Clare, the trilogy of Tipp-Kilkenny All-Ireland finals from 2009 to 2011 put paid to that notion.
By 2013, I was once again in a place where I could enjoy and admire Clare hurling, and I was excited at the prospect of another all-Munster All-Ireland final, even if this one didn’t involve Tipp. To be honest, I always had a soft spot for Davy Fitz.
Earlier in the year, however, I had begun doing a line with a Corkman — one who had been dispassionate towards hurling before we met, but who took to JBM’s open, stylish Cork team with a glee that suggested he was born to it.Â
So I roared for Cork if, inwardly, I had the neutral’s privilege of being able to simply enjoy the game. I yelled at the big screen for Brian Gavin to blow it up once injury time had elapsed, and gasped with everyone else when Domhnall O'Donovan equalised outrageously from the left flank.
These days, members of the full-back line casually popping up for a score has become, if not commonplace, then perhaps no longer worthy of a ‘Holy Moses’. But that was then.
Three weeks later, I was at home in my Ranelagh rental, gearing up for the replay. One of my roommates, an O’Donnell from Ennis, had tickets for the match.
He had told me once before that his younger brother was on the panel, but I had filed it away as interesting trivia at the time, not realising the significance. The Corkman and I watched the opening few minutes in the flat but, having not eaten all day, decided to walk down to McSorley’s at the end of the street for a burger to go with the game.
By the time we got to the pub, Clare were two goals up, my roommate’s brother having run riot in the opening 12 minutes. More was to come. That’s the thing about All-Ireland finals: blink and you’ll miss it.
Depart for the pub at your peril.
Next Sunday I’ll be watching the latest iteration of the Munster Mash at home on TV, like everyone else. Thankfully, the full Limerick and Waterford panels will be allowed to attend in person for the first time in this strange year. All of us will be on the edge of our seats.
In terms of sheer emotion, a Waterford win would come closest to that breakthrough Clare victory all the way back in ’95. Clare ended 80 years of hurt on that occasion; on Sunday, Waterford might bridge 60.
Maybe at a certain point, this kind of history becomes an abstract thing anyway; we can only feel the weight of the years we’ve lived.
For the Limerick players, 2018 might as well have been their county’s first-ever All-Ireland, since none of them were alive for the previous one.
While my heart — surely, everyone’s heart? — says Waterford, I think the scoring power and range of Limerick, in particular the unrivalled consistency of Gearóid Hegarty and Tom Morrissey, will give them the edge.
And then there’s the Caroline Currid factor.
The sports psychologist with the Midas touch has four honorary All-Ireland medals to her name, due to her involvement with the Tyrone footballers (2008), the Tipp hurlers (2010), the Dublin footballers (2011) and the Limerick hurlers (2018).
Having missed last season, she’s now back with Limerick, and it’s clear the levels of calmness and confidence she brings to the squad.
Of all the dressing-room pep-talks, I’d like to eavesdrop on hers the most.
