Imokilly becomes the joy division

The little All-Ireland went home yesterday, the Cork county senior hurling final leaving Páirc Uí Rinn on the Boreenmanna Road, and landing down the hill in the refurbished Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

It’s a bigger stadium and more modern than its predecessor — the old park never flicked on the floodlights half an hour before throw-in, as happened in Páirc Uí Chaoimh II yesterday.

A time-traveller from the original opening in 1976 wouldn’t have been surprised to see Blackrock feature in a senior county final, even if the relatively recent decline of the ‘big three’ city clubs would have come as a shock. No matter. The pairing of a blue-blood urban outfit with a side combining the smaller clubs in the east of the county was one that both embodied the history of the occasion and indicated its present competitiveness.