Brace yourself for another twist in modern hurling’s soap opera

The decade’s hurling sails off same as the decade’s hurling sailed in, Kilkenny and Tipperary about a broadside.

Those old ships needed to get close before firing a cannonade had deadly effect. Sunday afternoon will be as up close and personal as hurling gets. Kilkenny and Tipperary is the game’s fiercest rivalry, an example of human nature’s inability to develop. These two counties’ preoccupation with each other is part of a gamut that runs from stern Biblical material, Cain and Abel, to soap opera dynamics, JR Ewing and Bobby Ewing in Dallas.