Munster hurling championship: The magic moments

This year’s Munster championship has diluted much of the yearning for glory days of the past. In the four-years of round robin in the province, it can be argued three of the best games have taken place this summer. And there's the climax to come...

EYES ON THE PRIZE: Cork's Ciaran Joyce. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady

Nostalgia is such a powerful collaborator in framing history that, in the popular imagination, time often reinforces the status of past players and past games, as if their feats from the past become more glorious as the years pass.

Every match is of its time and era, which always makes comparisons difficult, but, fully accepting that reality, trying to compare ‘great matches’ is still instructive in examining nostalgia. On the other hand, does that nostalgia often cloud what it’s front of us at the moment? The standard of the modern game has never been higher but the way the game has evolved hasn’t always made elite hurling as appealing for supporters as it did in the past.