Shedding light on 125 years of history
It was a striking tableau. The hair colouring darkened as the players’ big days became more recent.
The clothes became more cutting edge towards the start of the line as well, and with some current players involved, it was hardly surprising that the waistlines were tidier among the more recent captains.
It was a timely reminder that the men who make the Munster hurling final the gift that keeps on giving are men, after all, and not just legends who live by a single name.
Fenton. Kirby. Daly. Ken.
Whoever came up with the slogan ‘not men but giants’ deserves a medal for imagination and a shrug of the shoulders for stating the obvious.
Some things have changed, of course. There was a time when fleet-footed goalscorers and their iron-willed opponents were celebrated in ballads passed around on the train home; now their every move is scrutinised in the blogosphere.
Yesterday had a couple of clouds over it which wouldn’t have existed in past decades.
The GPA threat of media non-cooperation wouldn’t have been on the radar years ago. The helicopters touching down beyond the dome would have raised eyebrows among the men and women who sought out the meat tea in Thurles.
The absence of thousands of bicycles and men sleeping in hay-sheds along the road we file firmly in the progress column.
Tipp-Waterford yesterday wasn’t a classic of the genre, but that doesn’t matter.
The Munster hurling final is like a hyper-real experience that goes beyond lampooning or overkill.
Yet it still threw up moments. In the first half at one point Noel Connors executed a classic hook when the goal was yawning in front of Noel McGrath; when Waterford swept that ball downfield Eoin Kelly drew a superb save out of Brendan Cummins. Connors and McGrath are starting out; Kelly is at his peak; Cummins is a veteran. The three ages of the Munster final participant, expressed in a few seconds.
It exists so vividly that it becomes all things to all men. Every hurling county in Munster has a stake in it because every one of those counties has memories of the occasion which can never perish.
For Clare, it’s the emotion of 1995, when the decades of misery were swept aside.
For Cork, it’s 1984 and Seanie O’Leary upholding the contract of every corner-forward, staying close to goal.
For Limerick, it’s Ciaran Carey galloping from beyond halfway to score a matchwinning point.
For Tipperary, it’s 1987, and Nicky’s goal, and Richard Stakelum’s speech, the blood trickling out of his eye making it more real again.
For Waterford it’s the 14 men of 2004 holding out until Ken McGrath pulls down that last ball for the win.
That’s only from the last 25 years, by the way.
We have neither the time nor the space to get into the 25 before that, or the 25 before that again.
We’re too busy looking forward to the next 25.
