Match preview: Tipperary can edge their greatest rivals

A Kilkenny-Tipperary All- Ireland final — wonders never cease. But taking the literal sense of that phrase, the indications that this duel, which has provided some of the greatest games of hurling, is not piquing as much interest as before is slightly troubling.

Ticket price increases and fatigue surrounding this pairing aside, the final couldn’t get a bigger billing. Not because it’s the best of three finals between Brian Cody and Liam Sheedy or that it could be regarded as the best of five finals between the counties this decade. Rather, it’s the fact that for the first time in their 10-year rivalry, both reach this stage with lingering doubts hanging over them.

The old guard they may be but this is only the third ever final between teams who have both incurred defeats along the way — the previous being the Cork-Kilkenny and Clare-Cork clashes in 2004 and ’13 respectively. Never before have each finalist lost to a county the other finalist has beaten.

It will also be four years at the earliest that either or both of these counties break their provincial title duck. So it’s understandable that there is certainty or at worst reluctance in most predictions about this game. Hesitancy forms this verdict too.

Both have been lethal, both have been lousy, but most importantly both have learned. Although they were in midfield three years ago, Brendan Maher would be familiar in tracking TJ Reid so a similar role close to the Tipperary goal wouldn’t surprise him here.

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Maher has executed fine man-marking jobs thus far this summer and his confidence will be high but Sheedy would have seen the price paid in devoting too much attention to Reid.

Indeed, it’s Kilkenny’s spine that Tipperary must break. Seamus Callanan will fancy himself against Huw Lawlor who has solved a troublesome spot but can be too eager. Pádraic Walsh will have as much an eye on cutting out ball in front of the Tipp skipper as minding his own patch, and in that regard Tipp may profit from putting a shooter at centre-forward.

Tipperary may have the better forwards but Kilkenny’s are in a better mood. Adding up the individual form out of 10 for each sextet and we make it Kilkenny 46, Tipperary 43. John McGrath and John O’Dwyer, who did improve against Wexford, aren’t due good games — they need to make it happen.

In contrast, all the Ballyhale men are in full bloom. Adrian Mullen will need plenty of minding as will Colin Fennelly who has rediscovered a lot of his mojo. Barry Heffernan has the strength and that initial burst of space to hold him up.

Kilkenny aren’t as inexperienced as they are made out to be yet in the middle battleground Tipperary’s fangs are that bit longer. If Bonner Maher was on the field of play our forecast wouldn’t be so tentative. Wonders indeed never cease.

Verdict: Tipperary.