A giant seesaw game of hurling we feared had gone with the dodo

Give or take the drawn 1993 Leinster final it was the finest meeting of Kilkenny and Wexford since the 1970s

Sun, 04 Jul, 2021 - 19:47

Enda McEvoy

Ran into a chap called Tony from near Fermoy on Friday afternoon. Shrewd hurling man, keen Examiner reader.

The ensuing conversation took lines that were not so much predictable as inevitable. You know what hurling folk are like when they get together.

Long story short, we arrived at a consensus on three issues regarding Saturday’s fixtures.

First, Galway were now scoring goals and looking formidable as a consequence. Dublin would surely pay the price.

Secondly, Kilkenny versus Wexford could go either way.

Thirdly, while Limerick would probably win, an upset by Cork would be no upset at all. The word on the boulevards of north Cork, Tony revealed, was one of cautious optimism, bolstered by the county’s auspicious recent championship record against the men in green.

All told it wasn’t peerless prognosticating on the part of the pair of us, was it?

Clearly we were miles out on Galway. Now when doing a post-mortem on a championship shock it’s traditional for the pathologist to concentrate more on the winners than on the losers. The winners are the story, after all.

Here Dublin were determined, well organised, secure at the back and incisive up front when they needed to be. Mattie Kenny sent out a team to do a job and they did it clinically.

Yet in the circumstances — circumstances that now include the substantially reduced possibility of a Limerick/Galway All-Ireland final — one also has to ask what the heck happened to the losers and why they couldn’t even get near Dublin’s 1-18, scarcely a target of Matterhorn proportions.

During the past five years Galway have been model citizens. They won one All-Ireland; lost another final by the puck of a ball; lost two semi-finals by the puck of a ball; and were squeezed out of qualification for the All-Ireland series on scoring difference. Beat Galway and you were almost certain to lift the MacCarthy Cup, basically.

This was a ghastly throwback to the noughties, a decade when the county might produce any type of performance on any given day — nobody could be sure, least of all themselves — and it was unlikely to be a pleasing performance. The proposition that too many Galway players have grown old together is about to reach a wider audience.

As for the second match at Croke Park. Hurling, bloody hell.

Give or take the drawn 1993 Leinster final it was the finest meeting of Kilkenny and Wexford since the 1970s, that long-off decade of classics between the pair. It was the kind of game one feared had gone the way of the dodo, the kind of game that restored one’s faith in the sport.

In some ways it resembled a contest from a bygone age. In one way, as a 1,500m race run at 400m pace, it was a contest that could only take place now.

The teams wired into one another and Fergal Horgan had the good sense to let them at it. The scores were earned, not flicked over the bar from 90 metres without an opponent in sight. This giant seesaw of a contest was exhilarating to watch and came dangerously close to inducing sea-sickness. It must have been beyond exhausting to play in.

Three of the four goals, incidentally, resulted from the failure of defenders to cut out a straightforward dropping ball. The importance of doing the basics properly will never go out of fashion.

To hold that neither side deserved to lose may sound the tritest sort of platitude but for once is unavoidable. On another day Eoin Murphy is not saved by Hawkeye. On another day Lee Chin, the most compelling figure on the field and a man who’d have been a leader of the pikemen on any of the great Wexford teams of yore, does not depart injured with the battle at its height.

It was the bench wot won it for Kilkenny, who sourced a total of 1-8 from players who didn’t start. And after the loss of double-digit leads to Dublin and Waterford last year Brian Cody will be reassured that his S&C regimen is of a high standard.

Murphy’s dismissal demanded that his 14 colleagues be more discriminating with their use of the ball. They were. In similar fashion Peter Casey’s sinbinning didn’t cause the MacCarthy Cup holders to break stride at Semple Stadium. They’re too long on the road for that.

Casey’s departure, though, was an indicator of the gusto with which Cork attacked the game. They scored the first goal, they forced a sinbinning and it was apparent from early on that Limerick were on one of their bad shooting days. All requirements for that upset that wouldn’t be an upset.

But the challengers needed to outgoal their opponents and they didn’t. They needed Patrick Horgan to convert everything he stepped up to and he didn’t. Two of the basic necessities were not met.

In real time it looked as though Cork were spending the second half hanging in there, ready to unleash a sucker punch in the last few minutes. Real Olde Cork stuff. In retrospect they were just hanging in there.

More from Tony and meself the weekend of the provincial finals. We promise to do better.