Time for Tipperary to show their steel

It was an hour or so after the Cork/Tipp semi-final last month and we were hanging around outside the Blackrock clubhouse when a gentleman in a blue and gold jersey was heard to utter the following words.

“Hurling should thank God for Tipperary. We may not be the greatest team ever, but if it wasn’t for us, then nobody would have been challenging Kilkenny.”

Now far be it from any right-thinking person to encourage Tipperary hurling folk in their self-esteem. Let’s face it, this is not an area in which they were ever behind the door to begin with. In passing, Cork readers who’ve chafed under the black and amber yoke in recent years may care to reflect how much hotter this particular circle of hell would have been were it Tipp rather than Kilkenny who’d won five of the past six All-Irelands.