Don’t write the obituary just yet
One of those supporters was the universally esteemed Micheal Ó Muircheartaigh and his recollection was of another great Kilkenny team, another Leinster final, but an even bigger hammering.
“The current Kilkenny team I would rate as the best hurling team I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“Up to that I thought it was the Tipperary team of 1958 to 1965, a team that won five All-Ireland titles and six national leagues.
“The best Kilkenny I had seen until this team was the team of the late ’60s and early ’70s, very close to that Tipperary team. They won the All-Ireland in ’67, again in ’69. In ’72 I thought they were absolutely brilliant, the way they won that game.
“They were beaten by Limerick in ’73, a day when they were badly hit by injuries but came back to win in ’74, again in ’75, looked to be still at their peak. You’re talking about a team that had Eddie Keher, Pat Delaney and Kieran Purcell in the forwards, those two inter-changing at will — a great team to watch.
“At that stage they were being spoken of as the greatest team ever and when they won the league in ’76 they were hot favourites to do the three in-a-row in the All-Ireland championship.
“Then along came Wexford and the Leinster final of ’76. Wexford had been very good also right through the ’70s, had come close to Kilkenny on a number of occasions but no-one saw what happened in that final coming. It finished 2-21 to 1-6, and it finished that Kilkenny team. They never came back from that. It was a massive shock.
“In ’86 you had a similar shock. Kilkenny had won the league that year under Pat Henderson, great things expected of them, but they met a young Galway team in Thurles in an All-Ireland semi-final and were badly beaten [4-12 to 0-9]. I was covering the game and at one stage I remember looking down and seeing Pat Henderson just putting his hands on his hips and looking out at the pitch as if to say — ‘What can I do? There’s no answer to the hurling Galway are playing!’
“It was like that today. They were first to every ball, they tackled ferociously, they looked like a team desperate for a win, desperate to do whatever was needed to be done, and they did it.
“They didn’t have the same tempo in the second-half but they didn’t need it, but they did respond very well to the two Kilkenny goals.”!
“It’s great for hurling. I have great admiration for that Kilkenny team, as a team and as individuals, and what they’ve done for hurling can’t be overestimated. They were great for hurling but now this win by Galway is great for hurling too, even the fact that they won so emphatically.
“It’s not like it was in 1976 though, and I’m reminded of the words of the great John Doyle when I asked him if he liked the back-door rule in hurling.
“‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘Imagine going to bed on a Sunday night happy that you’d beaten Cork in a Munster final, only to wake up on the Monday knowing they’re still in the All-Ireland championship!’ Kilkenny are not gone!”
John Henderson, brother of Pat, member of that great Johnstown and Kilkenny hurling family and a star player himself in his own day, also remembers that ’76 loss.
“It’s kind of the same thing, the way that team was talked about then and the way this team was being talked about after the beating they gave Dublin. It all happened then in the space of about four weeks.
“Kilkenny hammered Clare in the league final replay, next thing you’re out and being hammered by Wexford in a Leinster final. Ger [his brother] was playing that day and he was on Johnny Murphy and Johnny kept saying to him ‘When is it going to be over!’
“In sport, no matter who you are you’re only one game away from the greatest kick in the arse and that’s what happened today. They were built up too much, a sitting duck if you like; we’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again.”
