More of this, please

IT’S IN the hottest fires that the best steel is forged – it doesn’t come any hotter in hurling than the cauldron that was O’Connor Park on Saturday.

Had this match been in Croke Park, as had been suggested by many, it’s possible Kilkenny and Galway would still have replicated the superb contest they put on here; impossible to duplicate, however, would have been the heat, the environment, the totality of what was happening.

Where a crowd such as we had in Tullamore would have been lost in the vastness of Croke Park; here there was a connection between what was happening on the field and off, players and supporters in absolute accord, everyone playing an active part. Brilliant, electric, long after the final whistle dozens of animated youngsters were still gathered outside both dressing-rooms, excited by what they had just witnessed, energised by it all.