Kieran Shannon: Cork winning a Munster title behind enemy lines would be extra special

You have to go back 50 years ago to when it was a pairing other than Cork beating Tipp in Thurles for a visiting side to have beaten a home one in a Munster final. That year, Cork beat Limerick at the Gaelic Grounds. 

Should Cork beat Limerick on Saturday, they will be far more jubilant than they were in 2006. No team from Cork or anywhere else has won a Munster final on the opposition’s home patch since. Pic: by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

We don’t tend to think of them this way but there are three categories of Munster final wins.

The most common is to secure the title a neutral venue; back when the competition’s legend was being formed, relations between the province’s three aristocrats were too fierce to enter something as civil as a home-and-away arrangement while even since the Clare and Waterford uprisings those two counties still haven’t a house of their own big enough to host the finest gala in all the land.