The day Galway stunned Rebels in another semi-final showdown

Cork fans didn't travel in great numbers for the 1985 All-Ireland championship last-four tie.

Sat, 22 Mar, 2025 - 07:19

Eoghan Cormican

Convenience and craving means Cork will turn up on this occasion. They’ll turn up in their thousands. They didn’t travel or turn up 40 years ago.

As of last Sunday, word from down the Páirc was that 14,000 tickets had been sold for the county’s de facto league semi-final against Galway. As of yesterday afternoon, the anticipated crowd had grown north of 20,000 and was headed for a figure similar to the 22,193 that watched the county’s Round 5 win over Kilkenny.

If such an attendance comes to pass, and don’t you know full well it will given the ravenous nature of Cork’s starved following, it’ll be almost three times the crowd of 8,205 that watched Cork and Galway in a different semi-final 40 years ago.

Cork came into the 1985 All-Ireland semi-final as reigning champions and fresh off a Munster final where Tipp, according to then manager Justin McCarthy, had tried - and failed - to roughen them up. Their opponents, meanwhile, hadn’t played a single championship fixture in exactly one year - and that had ended in an embarrassing 14-point skewering by Offaly.

Cork’s plate overflowed. Their appetite wanted for nothing. The collective attitude was to give the semi-final a skip and we’ll see Croker again in September. September, famously, never came.

Even the opening paragraph of the following morning’s Cork Examiner front page story saw fit to highlight the total absence of Cork supporters.

After Noel Lane had finished to an empty net on 56 minutes to extend Galway’s advantage into double-digit territory, 4-11 to 3-4, Michael O'Hehir, in what proved to be his last match commentary, offered a perfect summation of the shock afternoon.

“And what a marvellous reception Noel (Lane) has got from the people that are here. They're nearly all Galway, Cork didn't travel. They were waiting for the final. Now it looks a long way off.”

PJ Molloy played a neat one-two with Lane for the clinching green flag. In the days after the ambush, a Corkman called to Molloy at work and offered the same truism as first uttered by O’Hehir.

“‘I didn't go, I was waiting for the final', he used to say to me. It was a terrible day, awfully wet, but yeah, there was such a small crowd. The Cork people didn't travel at all,” Molloy, a decade-long campaigner at that stage, recalled this week.

“It was an upset because Galway hadn't done much from 1981 to that time. We were just fulfilling fixtures in the championship but weren't making League or All-Ireland finals.” Cork’s probable overconfidence was thus understandable, but not forgivable. Galway’s underage scene, as has not stopped since, was beginning to thrive. The All-Ireland minor and U21 wins of 1983 were beginning to filter up.

Galway’s entire half-back line for the semi-final of 40 years ago - Pete Finnerty, the late Tony Keady, and Tony Kilkenny - were making their championship debut. Joe Cooney and Anthony Cunningham were doing likewise further up.

“Those young lads were a huge impetus to the panel. They had no inhibitions coming in. They didn't go out feeling Cork were superior. They went out believing in themselves because they had won All-Irelands at both minor and U21 a couple of years previous, so they had nothing to be fearful of really. That day in '85, they immediately stepped up to the stage and delivered.

“I was privileged to get the chance of working with them and to win with them too in ‘87.”

Molloy wears the distinction of being the sole Galway hurler to start in each of the county’s first three championship wins - 1975, ‘79, and ‘85 - over Cork. His own attitude towards the Leesiders was that of a purist. He loved lining out against the blood and bandage simply because they were interested in nothing else but outscoring you.

“There was no negativity in their play ever. They didn't go out to stop someone from hurling. Against Cork, you threw in the ball and whoever got the most scores won the match.” That approach, he continues, remains unchanged 40 years later. As for their support, no weekends are now skipped, not when there’s a whiff of a team capable of ending 20 years without Liam and 27 years without league silverware.

“Anyone that watched the All-Ireland final last year could see the support this Cork team has built. And I think myself that Cork won the All-Ireland for Clare because I don't think Clare would have beaten Limerick, if Limerick had beaten Cork.”

Returning to matters maroon, Molloy sees many parallels between the current Galway group and the new-look outfit of ‘85.

Micheál Donoghue, like the county’s other All-Ireland winning manager, Cyril Farrell, before him, is in year one of chapter two. Donoghue, too, is attempting a rebuild. A new centre-back in Gavin Lee. A new-look half-back line. A new centre-forward in Tiernan Killeen. A new corner-forward in Anthony Burns.

“The underage in Galway is very healthy. But it is a big step up to senior. And I don't know have they enough mature players that would bring those young fellas on. And the change also in underage grades makes the transition to senior more difficult. That U17 and U20 is a pure joke. What was wrong with the competitions as they were? Absolutely nothing. A year makes a big difference in the maturity of a young player.

“If Galway could get a win over Cork, in front of a big home crowd, it would give them great confidence going forward. They mightn't do a lot in the championship later in the year, but a win like this helps to bring a team together.”

Molloy, and the small few that were there for the semi-final of 40 years ago, know that only too well.