Ranking the 15 greatest rivalries in hurling

With this being the busiest provincial hurling weekend of the year, Kieran Shannon weighed up both the historical and current relevancy of hurling’s various rivalries

Wexford-Kilkenny, Tipperary-Clare, and Limerick-Cork all feature on the list.

"The night prior to the game, I looked across Lough Derg as the lights flicked on in the opposite valley in Tipperary. Traditionally, because of complex reasons but mainly the counties’ proximity to each other, Clare and Tipperary have been strong rivals. These days, though, things are moving on. Tipperary are not the antagonists they once were. Most Clare players look at Tipperary as another team, another hurdle to prepare for in the great steeplechase that is the All-Ireland championship.

"But most of our management were drawn from the period of time when the sole function of Tipperary hurling was perceived to be to keep Clare down. So we had to hate Tipperary. They were the enemy of the week, until we played Cork or Waterford or Limerick, and then they would become the great monsters of the world. So I looked across Lough Derg and ripped myself to pieces. 'Bastards. Nothing but bastards. That’s all you are over there across the river.' That was the doctrine all week. 'Hate Tipperary. Stand up, lads. Be men. Get the poison going.'’"

- Tony Griffin, Screaming At The Sky

Maybe they don’t crackle like they used to. Maybe the same voltage isn’t there.

Twenty years ago Clare-Tipperary was the hottest ticket in the GAA, a June clash between the pair certain to have them reaching for the full house sign in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. On Sunday, and not just because of Covid and the safety net of a backdoor, it’s fair to say the LIT Gaelic Grounds will be a more sedate environment and no Clare player will wake up in Killaloe, staring venomously at the inhabitants of Ballina across the water, as Tony Griffin tried to a dozen years ago under a dictum from Mike Mac.

Players and supporters now mix in college and on social media in a way unimaginable to even the previous generation. All the familiarity has led to less contempt.

And yet…

Don’t think whichever side of the Ballina-Killaloe bridge is the victorious party Sunday evening won’t refrain from reminding the other.

Or, for all their reputed meekness, the current Cork team have any great fondness for Limerick and that it doesn’t stick in their craw that a side they’ve continuously troubled have gone on to win so many honours.

Or that beating Kilkenny in Croker on Saturday would feel to a Wexford person like jumping any other hurdle in this championship steeplechase.

As anyone from around Urlington or Mullinahone will testify, 21st-century hurling still does rivalries with all the intensity and occasional insanity that comes with them.

True, since Tipp finally got over their Kilkenny hump, the sport hasn’t had a standout or headline rivalry as it has had at almost every other point in its past; since Limerick have ascended to the throne, we still have not quite yet found their Frazier. Though both Tipp and Galway are possibly just one game away from being that and providing the thrilla in the Marina or somewhere else which hurling history demands of every classic rivalry.

This might be the year where they do. Win this weekend and Tipp and Limerick will be squaring off in a Munster final. But should one or both of them trip up, then that opens up other possibilities. Clare-Cork. Or Cork-Tipp, or Clare-Limerick. Even with Loughnane and Babs having long ago been decommissioned, simply the sound of such billings conjures up all kinds of memories and possibilities.

In all, there are 10 possible match-ups in Munster. But which is the greatest rivalry of the lot of them? Which is the tamest? And which non-Munster rivalries trump it?

With this being the busiest provincial hurling weekend of the year, we weighed up both the historical and current relevancy of hurling’s various rivalries to rank all 10 in Munster and the top 15 in the sport.

15. LIMERICK-WATERFORD

Dessie Hutchinson of Waterford is tackled by Limerick players, from left, Darragh O'Donovan, Declan Hannon, Barry Nash, and Seán Finn during the 2020 All-Ireland SHC final. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

It’s a peculiar thing to say about the most recent All-Ireland final and Munster final and indeed proper league final pairing we’ve had, but there’s no real enmity or rivalry between these counties, and not just because Limerick won all but one of those games pulling up, as they also did in their 2018 and 2019 championship clashes.

It could be a geographical and historical thing; only Clare-Waterford live further apart and have met in fewer Munster finals.

When it was hottest: In Waterford’s first-ever Munster final appearance in 1933, a melee broke out with Limerick 11 points up in an already ill-tempered affair, prompting a pitch invasion by Waterford supporters and the referee to abandon a match later awarded to Limerick.

Where it’s hottest: As they don’t share a border, probably the crankiest they make one and other is a few miles outside Tipp town, trying to get to the other place and having to drive on inarguably the worst road between two cities in this country.

14. CLARE-WATERFORD

Clare's Mark Rodgers with Shane McNulty and goalkeeper Billy Nolan of Waterford last week. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie

It would be wrong to say that all the heat dissipated out of this one after 1998 or even Loughnane departing in 2000. When the sides met in the first all-Munster All-Ireland semi-final in 2002, there was still some simmering bad blood there; Brian Lohan cuttingly remarked afterwards how Clare wanted to see how the newly-crowned Munster champions would react “when they came under a bit of pressure and when it came to it, they didn’t react well”. Such jibes over Waterford’s big-game temperament fuelled the Déise’s ferocious hammering of Clare in Thurles in 2004, which in turn pumped up Clare to edge a 2005 game in Ennis.

Since then, for all the fun and games there were with Davy Fitz on the line, this one has returned to its normal civil narrative: if we don’t win it, we hope ye do. No two counties have met less frequently in a Munster final; other than 1998, there’s only been 1938 and that’s it.

When it was hottest: The first five minutes of the 1998 Munster final replay when Colin Lynch went swatting nettles.

Where it’s hottest: Again, probably the long and windy road either side of Tipp town which you’ve to navigate if you’re to make it from Walsh Park to Cusack Park.

13. KILKENNY-OFFALY

Johnny Pilkington, Offaly, pictured with DJ Carey, Kilkenny, during the 1998 All-Ireland SHC final. Picture: Brendan Moran/ SPORTSFILE.

A dormant rivalry now that’s been overtaken by Kilkenny-Galway but from Offaly’s Leinster breakthrough in 1980 to their swansong appearance in the millennium All-Ireland final, this one was undeniably active, packing in more than most others have in a century. To this day, no two counties from the same province have met more often in an All-Ireland final, by virtue of the pair of them meeting in two of the first four All-Irelands of the backdoor era.

When it was hottest: Possibly when it was wettest, the epic 1995 Leinster final. Then again, it probably has to be that hottest of hot hurling summers, ’98, when Kilkenny won the battle of Leinster but Offaly won the war in September.

Where it’s hottest: Maybe the staff room in St Kieran’s where a few natives have spread the word in Offaly.

12. CORK-CLARE

Cork half-back Denis Coughlan (right) tussles with Clare's Martin McKeogh and Pat O'Connor during the 1978 Munster Senior Hurling final. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

When it was hottest: For all the mischief and criticism Loughnane generated kicking away sideline balls and naming dummy teams in the summers of ’97 and ’98, the apex of this rivalry remains the Munster finals of ’77 and ’78; unlike in 2013 when the counties met in a magnificent series of All-Ireland finals, both were clashes of the two best teams in the country. On both occasions Clare marched upon a thronged Thurles as league champions, only to leave there disconsolately having been reminded who were the reigning Munster and All-Ireland champions.

That said, the most significant moment in the rivalry itself was the Loughnane era. After that, Clare never felt inferior to Cork or anyone else again.

11. TIPP-WATERFORD

A Tipperary goal during the 1963 National League final at Croke Park. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

It’s a measure of Waterford’s return to relevance that over the last 20 years no two counties have met more often in the Munster final. And while Tipp have won the last five of those, all those combined still hardly trump Waterford’s win in 2002 or probably the Déise’s sweet semi-final wins in ’98 and last-minute steal in 2004, also down in a sun-drenched Cork.

When it was hottest: 1957 to 1963 when they met in three national league finals, three Munster finals, and each won three provincial titles and at least one All-Ireland apiece. Either of them could win and anything could happen; in 1959 Tipp entered the Munster semi-final as reigning league and All-Ireland champions and by half-time were trailing 8-2 to 0-0 to Tom Cheasty and co who went on to win that All-Ireland.

Where it’s hottest: Carrick-on-Suir where Waterford folk are forever cruelly reminded that they passed on Mick Roche as a minor before Tipp snapped him up.

10. CORK-WATERFORD

Timmy McCarthy, Cork, is tackled by Waterford players Tony Browne, left, and Declan Prendergast during the 2004 Munster Senior Hurling final. Picture: Ray McManus / SPORTSFILE

Another one where for long stretches Waterford weren’t so much rivals as minions, only for them to sporadically rise and pull off some successful insurrections. The first was from 1957 to 1959 when Waterford won rare Munster titles, beating Ring and co, before their normal servitude resumed; Cork would only lose one of the next 20 championship clashes between the counties. Then it changed again in 2002.

When it was hottest: From 2003 to 2007 the sides kept serving up epic after epic in what was the first great hurling rivalry of the 21st century and remains one of its top two. And the amazing thing about it was that was it a rivalry without any real rancour. As Tom Kenny once put it, their games resembled a bunch of young fellas on a summer’s night not wanting to go home.

Where it’s hottest: Youghal, Tallow, Lismore.

9. CLARE-TIPP

Clare keeper Davy Fitzgerald scores a penalty against Tipperary in 1999. Picture: INPHO/Tom Honan

Another rivalry that isn’t quite what it was but for one stretch was the most electrifying — and even terrifying — in all the GAA; at one point, after a fractious 1999 U21 clash, there were calls for supporters to be segregated at future senior championship matches.

When it was hottest: Easy: 1997 to 2001 when Tipp, like the rest of us, were fixated with any date with Clare. No fixture has made a GAA venue quake quite like Páirc Uí Chaoimh did when Clare-Tipp were in the house in those years, while it also produced the first all-Munster All-Ireland final.

Where it’s hottest: Ballina-Killaloe. Mick McCarthy, who attended a league clash between the counties during his first stint as Ireland manager, has told the story of signing a hurley on the bridge there, only to have the recipient want to chuck it away after seeing he’d added ‘Up the Banner!’

8. TIPP-GALWAY

Tipperary’s Bobby Ryan and Michael McGrath of Galway during the 1989 All-Ireland SHC semi-final. Picture: INPHO/James Meehan

A rivalry only really born in 1987 yet within two years had grown into a monster, a precursor to Clare-Tipp a decade later. With Babs and Farrell in their managerial pomp, Nicky English and Joe Cooney in their playing prime, you had to go through these two if you wanted to win an All-Ireland from ’87 to ’91, a fact they and Cork knew well.

Funnily, the formula has remained pretty much the same for both ever since, 2019 being the exception: any time either of them has won the Liam McCarthy this century they’ve either beaten the other in an All-Ireland final or by a single point in an All-Ireland quarter-final or semi-final. The heat, or at least the hatred, may have gone out of this one, but as their chain of one-point All-Ireland semi-finals from 2015 to 2017 — and indeed last year’s Covid quarter-final — illustrated, the hurling has not.

When it was hottest: 1989 with the Keady Affair and all that. Only months after serving up one of the finest league finals ever, the counties produced the most ill-tempered and anti-climactic All-Ireland semi-final of modern times.

Where it’s hottest: Portumna, Lorrha.

7. CORK-LIMERICK

Steve McDonagh, Joe Deane, Pa Carey, and Alan Browne tussle in a 1998 clash between Limerick and Cork. It trails only Cork-Tipp as the most frequent Munster final pairing. Picture: Ray Lohan/Sportsfile

One of the most formative rivalries in making the Munster Championship the Munster Championship. Even after Mackey and Ring hung them up, it has had periods where it was the most relevant rivalry in Munster, like from ’79 to ’83 when there was always the threat and promise of a goal from JBM or Joe McKenna. It hasn’t enjoyed such pre-eminence since, but still it trails only Cork-Tipp as the most frequent Munster final pairing. Limerick are on top now but this current Cork team tend — and intend — to trouble them. Their clash on Saturday evening could be the spikiest of the championship.

When it was hottest: Those bicycle Munster finals we heard about came from the urge to see these two giants — with their giants Mackey and Ring — go at it. From ’39 to ’56, they offered up at least four stone-cold classics, a tradition in which the watershed 2018 All-Ireland semi-final followed.

Where it’s hottest: Charleville, Newtownshandrum, Ballyhea, Kilmallock.

6. CLARE-LIMERICK

Jamesie O'Connor of Clare and Gary Kirby of Limerick during the 1995 Munster SHC final. Picture: INPHO/Tom Honan

Although within the province itself it has had limited influence and appeal, there’s not a rivalry either county lives more. So, yeah, they’ve been the Munster final pairing only six times, but the pain of ’55 and the glory of ’95 has stayed with Clare people for generations.

Also, it’s the rivalry that gave us Ciarán Carey’s point. On the team bus to the Gaelic Grounds that day, Ger Loughnane grabbed the microphone to urge his team to look outside at the tidal wave of people along the Ennis Road. “This is the stuff that your fathers and grandfathers told you about. This is the Munster Championship.” They lost that day, but it’s a day they treasure still, just as they do the rivalry.

When it was hottest: Probably in that 1995 to 1997 period when initially Clare craved what Limerick had — Munster glory — and then Limerick resented and craved what Clare had — All-Ireland glory. Even their league encounters were wars, commanding crowds of 20,000-plus.

Where it’s hottest: Parteen, Cratloe, the work places of Shannon.

5. KILKENNY-WATERFORD, KILKENNY-WEXFORD

Kilkenny's Noel Skeehan in action against Wexford during the 1975 Leinster SHC final. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

Okay, so we’re cheating a bit here, but these two have so much in common that they’re nearly one and the same thing.

You could be cruel about it and say that while Wexford and Waterford may each think they have a rivalry with Kilkenny, Kilkenny merely have a relationship with them, having lorded over both for so long. But with them having met so constantly in the championship — Waterford-Kilkenny at the business end since the advent of the backdoor in 1998, Wexford-Kilkenny since the advent of the Rackards in the 50s — and Wexford and Waterford having each slayed the Cody monster twice apiece since 2017, both rivalries — currently and historically — trump most of those in Munster.

When it was hottest: For Wexford-Kilkenny, the 1970s. Every year that decade the two met in the Leinster final, the average score being Kilkenny 3-17 Wexford 3-15. In the case of Waterford-Kilkenny, 1957 to 1963 when they met in four gripping All-Ireland finals; the only one of them decided by more than a point was the one Waterford won.

Where it’s hottest: In one case, New Ross; in the other, the factory floors and offices of Waterford city where so many residents of Mooncoin and Glenmore have worked — and gloated.

4. TIPP-LIMERICK

Action from the 1973 Munster Hurling final between Tipperary and Limerick at Thurles. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

Although at times this rivalry has been one-sided, overall it’s a more equitable relationship than you might have thought: in head-to-head Munster finals, Tipp barely have the edge, 9-7. At times Limerick may not have had the hurling for Tipp but they’ve never had a fear of them. Now they have the hurling for them, and though Tipp won an All-Ireland sandwiched between John Kiely’s two, it’s obvious it rankles that they’ve yet to beat his troops in a meaningful game.

When it was hottest: Although their two-game saga in 1996 and three-game saga in 2007 were great craic, it wasn’t quite of the relevance, quality or intensity of the one-point Munster final encounters of 1971 and 1973 that gave us Babs’ dry ball and Richie’s disputed point.

Where it’s hottest: Around Newport.

3. KILKENNY-CORK

Kilkenny's Henry Shefflin reaches ahead of Cork's Diarmuid O'Sullivan during the 2006 All-Ireland SHC final. Picture: Des Barry

In the lead-up to the seismic 1931 All-Ireland final pairing of these two, The Irish Times remarked that the “purely scientific ball-playing” of previous Cork-Kilkenny finals set them apart from “the daredevil, rushing tactics” of the rest. It seemed all the more pertinent after an epic three-game saga that gave birth to the phenomenon of the GAA rivalry and a golden era for one of hurling’s most enduring rivalries.

When it was hottest: For all their encounters from ’66 to ’72 and ’78 to ’83 and those four taut finals between ’99 and 2006, the answer has to be all those legendary All-Irelands from 1931 to 1947, when, as Ring would say, Kilkenny tended to win the classics and Cork drew or won the rest.

Where it’s been hottest: On the discussion boards of the late noughties.

2. CORK-TIPP

A tussle for possession in the Tipp danger area between Cork players Kevin Hennessy, Tomas Mulcahy, Mark Foley, and Tipperary's Michael Ryan and Conal Bonnar during the 1991 Munster SHC final. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

Okay, so they haven’t met in a Munster final in 15 years and only once in Croke Park since the advent of the backdoor, but this one has so much credit in the bank, it remains Munster’s most cherished fixture, and a tradition which games like Cork’s shock win in 2017 and some recent U21 finals have continued to honour. It remains by a distance the most frequent Munster final pairing of the lot, with the head-to-head appropriately a dead heat, 17 apiece.

When it was hottest: Hell’s Kitchen was never hotter than when these counties met. Although my generation grew up on the classics from 1984 to 1991, even then we had an appreciation it was standing on the shoulder of giants, especially the scrapes and epics from ’49 to ’56.

Where it’s hottest: The square in Thurles.

1. KILKENNY-TIPP

Tipperary players, from left, Dan McCormack, John O'Dwyer, Michael Breen, and Patrick Maher, contest for possession with Kilkenny players, from left, Kieran Joyce, Paul Murphy, Conor Fogarty, and Cillian Buckley during the 2016 All-Ireland SHC final. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

And we said at the top maybe the 21st century doesn’t do hurling rivalries? What Tipp-Kilkenny have served up the past dozen years has been probably the most complete rivalry in Irish sports history and in the process has helped it overtake Kilkenny-Cork as the sport’s most frequent All-Ireland final pairing.

Of course, this one didn’t start with Liam Sheedy assuming a bainisteoir bib; it’s much older and deeper than that. It was probably at its most spiteful in the 1950s and 1960s: although Tipp were the dominant side and the counties ‘only’ met in four All-Irelands during that period, they also clashed — and we mean clashed — in six heated league finals, and Tipp’s supporters weren’t shy to point out they won most of them.

Kilkenny have never forgotten or forgiven that. Jackie Tyrrell in his book talks of an uncle who as a mechanic won’t fix a car with a Tipp registration plate and seeing his nephew with a bottle of Tipperary spring water ordered for him to drain it. Tyrrell and his generation would bring that mindset onto the field but hurling would be the better for it, throwing up classics in 2009, 2013, and 2014 — and they were just the league finals.

When it’s been hottest: As hot and heavy as things were in the 50s and 60s, 2009-2016 was peak Tipp-Kilkenny and peak sport.

Where it’s hottest: Mullinahone, Ballycallan, Urlingford, Tullaroan.