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Bartizan 3.09.09
Two Tribes
"When two tribes go to war,
A point is all you can score".
Frankie Goes to Hollywood, 1984.
The past is crackly vinyl for which you write your own sleeve notes from memory. The 2001 All-Ireland Final is a case in point: it opened with Tommy Dunne's liquid wrists throwing over a point as beautiful as ever emanated from the sideline at Croke Park. As soon as the flag was raised, a text message winked at me from my phone: "We are not worthy". And truly: we were not. What else can I summon from that day? There is Joe Rabbitte in a state of constant bewilderment due to the fact that everything he tried resulted in a free against him (the phrase "Rabbitte in the headlights" was never more fitting), when on a different day, and with a different referee, he was worth four or five points to his team. Then there was Kinetic Kevin Broderick - everything he touched raised the Tipperary pulse, but he alone couldn't push an otherwise static forward line up the steps of the stand. Imperious as ever was Declan Ryan, at the age of Christ, performing miracles for his third consecutive decade. Handpassing All-Star awards all around him, as the joke went. I was behind Mark O' Leary when his first exocet went in, and I knew no Galway goalkeeper would save it, not even Tony Reddan himself. The second was more like a stately torpedo from Das Boot, unstoppable in its own way, and more important in the timing of its impact: it was the one that sunk the Good Ship Galway.
The age profile of the 2001 Tipperary team was very similar to that of the current panel - averaging just under 25 - and, as such, were lauded as the future of hurling at the start of this decade. In many ways, their defeats to Kilkenny in the semi-finals of the two following years put paid to that ambition, and killed off a significant degree of confidence within both team and county. It is only under the stewardship of Sheedy that the cold-blooded confidence has returned. There was a brisk certainty to the Tipperay play towards the end of the semi-final performance - a dash of swagger, perhaps - that hadn't been in evidence since our performance against the same opposition in 2002. And as for the charge of being able to read nothing into their form because of the Limerick collapse, I'll bow to that line of wisdom when I hear the same qualification applied to any of ten equivalent Kilkenny victories this decade. 2001 was, of course, an anti-climax in another way. Two days after Tommy Dunne took the cup back to Toomevara, and before the weekend alcohol had a chance to clear our collective bloodstreams, some lunatics decided it would be a good idea to fly passenger planes into New York skyscrapers. While no Kilkenny involvement in this atrocity has ever been proven, I have my own suspicions, and will be in contact with Jim Corr in due course...
So, as the week before the final unwinds, there is little to read or write on a Thursday that hasn't seen form somewhere else already. But one precedent from the past - and one which rebounds on Tipperary - bears mention again. That is the final of 1967, and the manner of its unfolding. Tipperary, peerless that decade, and apparently flawless in form, but aging to the extent that John Doyle was going for his ninth title, ran into a Kilkenny team with a loaded history to avenge; a team coached to do a county's bidding. That final forced the retirement of four Tipperary stalwarts, and it proved that complacency is trumped by hunger every time. Perhaps it is an omen that this coming Sunday sees another fine corner-back, Mick Kavanagh (going for his eighth title), whose pace was earlier exposed as never before by Eoin Kelly of Waterford, marking a corner-forward who is among the fastest to ever scorch the sod. Mention of the Sarsfields flier reminds me...
It was telling to read Enda McEvoy's criticism of Lar Corbett in the Sunday Tribune recently. In this report, as in all things Tipperary that are refracted through his excellent hurling brain, Enda yields to the gravitational pull of his native Noreside. Neither he (nor his old Kilkenny mucker who spent a season as a columnist with the Old Lady of D'Olier Street) could ever hack Lar at all - not the 2 points from play in 2001, not the rings he ran around Mick Kavanagh whenever their paths crossed, not his cack-handed style, not his lack of an underage pedigree, nothing about him. McEvoy's most recent cavilling is typical of his form on Lar. For, in truth, when a man scores the equivalent of ten points from play in an All-Ireland semi-final, tis idle to care how he played. In truth, Lar at the moment is the one player Kilkenny most fear. They will probably slash Noel McGrath like they slashed Seamus Hickey in 2007, they figure Eoin Kelly has lost his mojo, but Lar in full spate bearing down on a square unmanned by Hickey: that scares the living bejasus out of them. I have held a suspicion since the semi-final last year that the game began to go away from Tipperary shortly after Lar tried to whale a Waterford man over the line, succeeding only in distracting himself with the resultant booking and argy-bargy. But if he keeps his wits on Sunday, he could be a game-breaker. His finishing this season has been exemplary in the strike rate and variety of options taken - high to the roof of the net, low to the keeper's weak side - and he has shown that he can fling a handpass with the best of them as well. It has become a truism that Tipperary cannot win on Sunday without all of their number playing to potential, but whatever the truth of that, I cannot conceive of a Tipperary win without Corbett having a say in a couple of goals, taking his seasonal total from 6-7 to 8-9, say. If he retires a few Kilkenny stalwarts, so much the better: they have done the game some service.
So who are we likely to hear numbered among the fifteen Tipperary starters on Sunday? It is anticipated that they will field as they did against Limerick, barring injury issues in the half-back line that have placed doubts over Declan Fanning and Conor O' Mahoney. If so, we can reflect that six of the starters will have been given their championship debuts by Liam Sheedy: Seamus Callanan, Pat Kerwick, Brendan Maher, Pádraic Maher, Noel McGrath, and Paddy Stapleton. Another pair, Conor O’Brien and Gearóid Ryan, are likely to feature among the five substitutes. That statistic alone gives this team a callow look, especially against an outfit which has over a hundred Celtic Crosses spread through their panel. This mismatch in experience would be a worry if these lads did not have the gumption and gamewinning ability to match their youth, but that is exactly what they have. Noel McGrath has the fastest hands since Jackie Chan, and is a greater master of misdirection than Derren Brown. But Kilkenny will almost certainly use him as a tacklebag, as they did with Seamus Hickey in 2007, so his seniors, the Class of 2001 - Lar, Eoin, and John O' Brien - need to protect him, by all means necessary. Pádraic Maher will not be bullied, though, that's for sure. It is a measure of Henry Shefflin's frustration - not to mention weediness - in the League Final that his last act before seeing the line for a yellow was a sly late pull on the Tipperary man. I trust that not even the Lucozade Sport that sustains him and his fellow ginger genius, Colm Cooper of Kerry, can take Henry through the last fifteen minutes to victory, because Henry will feel the heat of Pádraic Maher on Sunday like a Texas branding iron.
Of course, in all of this, there are the many imponderables that any given Sunday throw up. Will the Norman longbows on the Kilkenny team seize the middle third and rain accurate shots from all points of the compass? A Kilkenny points total in excess of twenty-two may make all talk of a Tipperary goal cascade redundant. Their total last year of 3-30 was notable in many ways, but what was most freakish was how few wides were racked up: two in total. If they replicate that accuracy, it will be hard to overhaul them. But two things militate against that: the first being the harrying to which they will be exposed by Tipp, which was one of the more notable features of the Limerick game. On one occasion in particular, Mark Foley, tried to clear his lines, turned inside to avoid a Tipp forward, and when he switched sides, found another man there to frustrate him. This resulted in Foley forcing his shot straight to a Tipperary wing-back. The other factor is that the Kilkenny midfield, and Cha in particular, are just not seeing and giving the early pass this year to the same extent. Nor are their men in the middle chipping in in with the same weight of scores.
On the other hand, can our middlemen, as well as the deep-lying John O' Brien and Pat Kerwick, unlock the inside line with accurate darts of their own? Can we turn their backs, none of them blessed with pace? Or will they foul and foul and foul some more, giving all the frees in the world, but no goal chances?
After ten minutes of last year's showdown, it became like a film in the Final Destination series, where the demise of Waterford was pre-ordained, but the manner of it - whether decapitation, or death by nail-gun - was not. In the end, Kilkenny went for the option of early death by beheading, then drove 30 nails into the body to be sure to be sure. This is what Tipperary most need to guard against: that this fabled four-in-a-row doesn't play out like a self-fulfilling prophecy from an early point in the game. That the destination of the cup is not final, in other words.
Two tribes go to war on Sunday, and the reward for victory will resonate in ways we do not even know yet. For Kilkenny, it will frank their greatness, and have Brian Cody repeating the word "five" like the deranged Count in Sesame Street. For Ger Canning, already a spent man having given the season eulogising his namesake Joe, it will mean having to administer elephant tranquilisers to sedate Michael Duignan during his Leinster love-in.
For Tipperary, it will be redemption of the sweetest kind. It will be a future episode of "Reeling in the Years" that you will never tire of RTÉ repeating. It will be succour to old men who have long since doubted any of the verities of their youth. It will be grist to the mill in Gortnahoe and Littleton. It will be an answer to the smug supporter who says that Tipperary were a force in hurling only when an Archbishop threw the ball in at the start of proceedings. Having beaten all the other Munster counties in finals this decade, let Tipperary be the team to stop that sequence.
Hon the Premier!
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Bartizan Article 13-08-09
I wouldn't be the first to note that the Portroe - parish and GAA club - has had a good year: pitted against Nenagh in the upcoming North Final, and with various septs of the Kelly clan doing great things in the Kingdom of Belgium (Brussels), as well as The Kingdom itself (Tralee). All this and Liam Sheedy bringing it all back home by cradling Kelly (his daughter, not his full-forward) in his arms on telly, and giving a cheeky shout out to his neighbour Alan, now an MEP. That, as well as delivering back-to-back Munster titles, franked as historically genuine by the fact that Cork were accounted for on both occasions.
The crests on the county jersies on Sunday will remind us that the GAA is 125 years old this year. (By the by, can I be the only one who thinks it ironic that Irish males have taken part in organised Gaelic games for a century and a quarter, but have been taking the finest Dublin porter from St. James' Gate for precisely twice as long?) But it is in many ways a fortunate twinning, as Guinness continue to support the GAA, and the GAA continue to support my consumption of Guinness. Fittingly, it is also 125 years since Portroe GAA club was founded, and in that time, aside from Gerry O' Brien's county involvement, its contribution to the Tipperary senior team has been Liam and his brother John. The centenary Munster final will forever be associated with John, for reasons rehashed every time Cork meet Tipperary in a Munster Final ó shin i leith, but it would no doubt be a source of great domestic, parochial, and county redemption if Tipperary could best Limerick on Sunday and set up the September showdown that hurling awaits. The "dream matchup" may imply disrespect to Limerick, and carries with it more than a whiff of what the French call "le snobisme", but if Limerick could not do it in 2007, I consider it unlikely that they can do it in 2009.
And so: to Limerick. As a mate of mine said the other day as we watched another Sky News Swine Flu report: "It's like Groundhog Day". This decade has been about Limerick and Tipperary; matches, replays, and threeplays. It would be inaccurate to say that Tipperary have been more often the bride than the bridesmaid, as neither side has consummated anything much apart from the sole title of 2001. The two sides might be better likened to young maidens fighting it out over the wedding bouquet thrown from the steps of the chapel. This year one of them might actually climb said steps.
Limerick have this year taken a scenic drive to the semi-final. Frightened by Laois, and stuttering against Dublin, their form would not suggest hidden brilliance, but they have some new names (new to many in Limerick too, would be the consensus), and in many ways are none the worse for the fact that they are no longer raking the entrails of the U-21 winners to see if any of them can still hack it for a full season, training included. In Justin McCarthy they are led by a man who sees around corners, and who can unearth ability others have ignored or simply did not believe existed. And in a strange kind of karmic collision, it was Justin's errant pupil, Dan Shanahan's cameo against Galway that brought Justin and Limerick to this pass. Given a choice, they would take Tipperary over Kilkenny in an All-Ireland semi-final any day, just as Tipperary would take Limerick over Galway. In fact, so great has been the glee in Murroe since the semi-final draw that it is not just the monks in Glenstal Abbey that have been pealing hosannas as dawn breathes over the Slieve Felim mountains; all along the borderlands with Tipperary, there is a song in the throat of every Limerickman.
What is it with Justin that, like the Benedictines in Glenstal, he draws sweet honey from worker bees? The monks abide by the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the first word of the Rule, and indeed the watchword of the order is: "Obsulta" – "Listen". This year, Justin has become the still voice and the listening ear that a Richie Bennis or a Tom Ryan could not be. He has Limerick hurling within their abilities, and considering their litany of injuries and their grievous lack of depth, that is no mean feat. Ollie Moran, who took the brave fight to Kilkenny in the second half in 2007, has been allowed, like Pádraig Harrington, to find his drive again. He and his brother Niall will buttress the wing-forwards, and have talent dotted around them if they can win the primary ball to get the goals and fouls-for-frees they will need to beat Tipperary. Because, let us be in no doubt, this Limerick unit is not, was not, and never will be a points-machine. In Gavin O' Mahoney they may have found the free-taker and sideline man that the other semi-final teams boast (though it is too early to say so definitively as yet), and they will weigh in with a few points from half-back and midfield if Geary, Dodge, and company come foraging, but it is hard to see the inside forwards and the Morans trump Tipperary with double figures from play. Which is why the ball will reign down on the square on Sunday afternoon like the Perseids that streak through the night sky at the moment. You could call it Route One hurling, but that would be to suggest that there is another route available to Limerick this time around, and quite frankly, I can't see it. Coincidentally, it may well be that Webster is deployed for a similar purpose for Tipperary, because from my vantage high in the Cusack, I do not expect to see a scoreline such as Kilkenny and Waterford served up. If the sports pages on Monday have a headline about a 6-goal thriller, it is more likely to have been between Spurs and Liverpool.
So, what can we say for certain? First off, Limerick will like the look of the stand-off before the semi-final last year when Waterford softened up Tipperary. The Olivia Newton-John track that was the biggest-selling American single of the 1980's, and that made headbands hip before Berbatov, could have been written for this showdown: "(Let's Get) Physical". However, this time, Tipp are primed, and it is believed that they are ready to respond with another nugget from the "Neutron Bomb" back catalog called "Toughen Up". Rumours from Shannonside suggest that there will be more ash flying than was seen in Pompeii in AD 79. One other certainty now is that the teamsheet on the Tipperay dressing-room door shows that the Mahers have been shuffled around the backs, and that Conor O' Brien, the sole representative from the West Division, and a man who would relish the salty challenges with his neighbours more than most, has been dropped to accomodate Paul Curran's move to the corner. This is, on balance, a good thing. While O' Brien is tidy (a Féile Skills runner-up to Cha Fitz), and is a very useful man to take a handpass and deliver a ball with a message, he lacks height, and would be dwarfed by his marker, David Breen, who would look at home on the Cork football team. Curran has a bit more niggle about him too, and has been included after his Munster Final setbacks because he is too good to discard.
What can we say is uncertain? Well, Justin McCarthy has named another dummy team, so we don't really know the personnel in the parade. The world and his wife know, or think they know, that Niall Moran will start, as bad as his finger injury is, but it will be interesting to see the matchups at the start. Will Reale (another who has recovered with more alacrity than Lazarus) take Kelly, or will he take McGrath? Who starts at full-forward for Tipperary? It can be fairly assumed that there will be yellow cards issued in the opening quarter-hour, and it is not fanciful to suggest that one or two lads might see the line in this one, especially if it squally, and soft underfoot. We saw last week that Barry Kelly could easily have sent off a man on either side for persistent fouling, but kept his reds in his pocket (and wisely so). We need Brian Gavin to exercise the same restraint. The last thing Tipperary or Limerick want is a repeat of Brian O' Meara's unfair exclusion from the final, the one and only chance the Mullinahone man was to get.
I am a little concerned about Tipperary's five week layoff. A number of favoured football teams have been coldcocked by qualifier teams coming with momentum, and this is a factor on Sunday. The hope is that the team trainer has Tipperary at the right pitch, and that they come like Bolt from the blocks. This year, there can be no excuses. The U-21s have been blended into the team. There are no significant injury doubts. There isn't a peep of dissent from the panel. The spine looks strong, and there is a pleasing spread of scorers. The prize could not be greater - a tilt at the three-time champions; a reprise of the League Final; a chance to measure ourselves against the best for the first time since 2003. We all remember that day well, despite the therapy. Tommy Walsh bucklepping away from Cummins' goal after playing ping pong for what seemed an eternity. The second-half collapse of all collapses after leading by 2 points at half-time.
Guinness don't do dreams, but if they did, it would be a sunny Sunday in September when Tipperary run rampant, and Kilkenny fans file out of the ground mute and thunderfaced. As this dream spools to its conclusion, the CGI guys come in and scrub the legend on their jersies, so that instead of "Avonmore" it now reads "Avon no more". We have a sole All-Ireland title in each of the last four decades, and this year represents our last chance to nail a second in the Noughties. Having missed our Centenary chance, the 125th title would take our own total above 25, and would renew belief in the county.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves, and not for the first time. First, to Limerick. Let us show them the respect Babs showed to Bennis, and Bennis to Babs, but no quarter. Let us play through the whole seventy. Let us win, and win well. It is no sin to say so. The end of my Guinness dream is filmed in Larkin's of Garrykennedy, where a session is in full spate in the corner, a line of pints stand with proud, creamy, bishop's collars, and I am surrounded by other giddy eejits festooned in the blue and gold, carrying the Sheedy's into the pub.
Make it so, lads.
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Bartizan - 9-7-09
An Gad is Giorra...
Sunday offers the prospect of successive Munster titles for Tipperary for the first time since the 1988/89 seasons (need we remind ourselves that our Munster Final opposition in 1989 was also Waterford, or that Liam came back to the Square in Thurles
20 years ago?). That match in 1989 also marked the first live showing on television of the Munster Final, and what a lurid spectacle it was. Having taken awful hidings from Cork in successive finals earlier that decade, Waterford decided that timber was the answer to Tipp that day, and whaled into the game like extras from Braveheart. This was like Ulster football with added ash, but Nicky and his cohort took the belts and put 26 points on the board: two points apiece for every Waterford man that stayed on the pitch to the end.
Tipperary make their seventh Munster Final appearance this decade in Thurles on Sunday, while Waterford appear in their fifth, but with a markedly better return. The last time their paths crossed at this juncture was in 2002, and on that occasion, Waterford seemed to be communing with the angels. Every single shot went over. Every pass hit paydirt. Ken McGrath took seven from play, and Tipp failed to score in the last quarter of an hour. The All-Ireland Champions were humbled, and it marked the start of our Via Dolorosa, one on which we are still counting the stations. Standing on the terrace that day, congratulating Waterford fans as shellshocked as ourselves, we little thought that Waterford would become the team that held the hex over us for the next number of years.
Indeed, it is Tipperary and Waterford on the double on Sunday, as they meet in the Minor decider as well. It is fitting that, in a month of Michael Jackson hysteria, that Tipperary's star turn in both deciders against Cork is called Bubbles. But this lad is no monkey (or chimp, for that matter). A glance at the ticker from the live feed on the Munster GAA website on the night of the replay gives some idea of the value of John O’ Dwyer's contribution when Tipperary needed to score early and score often:
3rd minute – John O’Dwyer points a free for Tipperary
4th minute – John O’Dwyer with a good point from play for Tipperary.
6th minute – Cork open their account with a point from Eoin O’Sullivan.
8th minute – Tipperary wing-back Willie Ryan scores a long range point from play.
9th minute – Tipperary’s John O’Dwyer scores a point from play.
10th minute – Tipperary go 4 points in front thanks to a pointed free by John O’Dwyer.
11th minute – Sean Curran sets up John O’Dwyer for another Tipperary point from play.
Rattling over 5 points in 8 minutes is some feat. But this was a night when the Tipperary team drew its starting 15 from 14 clubs (with two Templederry lads), so it was not only about a chap from Killenaule whose family motto reads "Virtus Sola Nobilitas", or "Virtue alone ennobles". Even if the game wasn't a Thriller like the first Cork game in which Bubbles scored 2-7, it was a little Off The Wall that a Cork team that looked so Dangerous in the first installment could be so Bad in the follow-up (OK, OK, enough Michael Jackson puns...) More virtue is now needed against a Waterford Minor team who, no more than their Tipperary counterparts, have tasted significant schools success of late. What's more, despite the game being in Thurles, the presence
of a large Waterford crowd is guaranteed not merely by their seniors playing later, but by the fact that they are aiming to add to the three titles they hold at this level (Tipperary, by contrast, have 3 dozen titles).
The fact that Tipperary lie in their way at Minor, U-21 (semi-final), and Senior level will not have this generation of Waterford fans reaching for the smelling salts. They feel they have had our number since the day in 2000 when Ken McGrath cleaned Philly Maher's clock, only to hobble off in the first half with a wonky ankle. Ken is on crutches again on Sunday, and while his switch from centre-back to centre-forward is a work in progress, they have as replacement a man who holds a Hurler of the Year honour, and who has made hay from on high against Tipp in the past. I speak, of course, the double-dactyled name of Daniel Shanahan. While Dan's movement of late closely approximates that of the oil truck he drives for a living, he remains a clear and present danger to the wellbeing of the Tipperary goal, and showed in his cameo late in the Limerick replay that he retains a good nose for a pass, and will rain ball on the Tipp posts in the manner of a North Korean missile salvo.
The Munster minefield having been crossed, the great prize for the winners on the Glorious Twelfth is that they avoid Kilkenny until the All-Ireland final (all other things being equal - which assumption was the trip wire Tipperary snagged last year). This is a prize devoutly to be wished, because Kilkenny are showing signs of fallability since they blitzkrieged the Déise last September. What, pray, are these signs? Well, Exhibit A, Your Honour, is the display against Dublin. I fully expected the Leinster Final to be as a whale among krill. All that week we had listened to flabby sentiment emanating from Noreside and all other points of the Leinster compass about how welcome Dublin were to the top table. Rubbish. Kilkenny want to keep Dublin down for as long as possible, as in forever.
Their manager cares nothing for sentiment. Like his namesake William Cody, who won fame as Buffalo Bill because he slaughtered up to 40,000 of the plains animals, Brian Cody will not die happy knowing a team of his dished out a beating when a slaughter was possible. He sends his men out with goals on their mind, and he will not let them relax until 73 minutes of death-dealing and reputation-stealing have passed. He has Winchester repeaters in his forwards, held by deadshots who shoot on sight. I fully expected Dublin to get scalped. It gave me no pleasure to think it, but I have held hope for Dublin teams before - as in the U-21 final against Galway a couple of years ago - and I felt that they could not parlay decent League form into hard ground intensity at the required pitch of skill. I expected a drubbing from Kilkenny that would make them wonder if this is what progress tasted like. And yet, Kilkenny "stuttered" to the line with six to spare. While a neutral might have deemed them unconvincing - in the same vein as Tipperary or Waterford thus far, perhaps - Kilkenny have earned the right to have us assume that they have gears to spare, and that the rumbling power of their V6-engined forward line is forever available, even when some of the pistons may appear increasingly defective.
But back to Munster, and back to Sunday. As the Irish saying has it: "An gad is giorra den scornach, is túisce is ceart a scaoileadh" - the knot nearest the throat is the one to release first. Each team see significant changes in every line on the field, with only the keepers and the managers seeming constant from Croker last year. Icons have been eclipsed in Eamon Corcoran; totems have toppled temporarily in Ken McGrath. Central personalities from Tipperary have been, ahem, down in the mumps, and barnstormers from the semi-final last year - Shane Maher and Jack Kennedy - will not start. What can we expect? Well, Davy Fitz never yet sent out a team that hadn't something of his own pig-iron personality, as Clinton Hennessy running 20 yards to drive his shoulder into Seamus Butler's back could attest, but this will not be 1989 revisited, at least not after the whistle sounds.
Tipperary are improving, and may have more in a tight finish that before. Their fitness may favour them more than before; this is certainly the trimmest Tipperary team I have seen, a fact commented on favourably by Ian O' Riordan in the Irish Times, among other observers (and O' Riordan knows a thing or two about fitness, certainly more than he knows about hurling). Tipperary have trumps in Noel McGrath and Paudie Maher that last year lacked, and whose precocity seems to be of a greater order than that of the duo of Waterford debutants. Those of us who had misgivings about McGrath and Maher because of their ages were far off the mark. In the case of McGrath against Clare, let us remember that part of the reason he played so well was because Gerry O' Grady spent the whole day glued to Eoin Kelly. That is the value of Eoin. He takes the best man-marker out of the game; one question for Davy on Sunday is: who will Eoin Murphy mark?
For Waterford, much will depend on whether Molumphy lines out. Like his fellow Army-men, Eoin Larkin and Andrew O' Shaughnessy, he is a gamechanger on form. I expect him to start, and he will be deployed to sweep around his half-backs where John O' Brien and Pat Kerwick galloped unopposed against Clare in the opening half. The 6/11 tussles will, perforce, be central to the result as well. If O' Mahoney can tame Dan, and Callinan or Moloney get to grips with Brick, Tipperary will hardly yield the twenty scores that Waterford need to win.
I take Tipperary by two after a towering game. And Tipperary to double up in the Minors as well. Mark O' Leary, like his senior counterpart, Liam Sheedy, a Nenagh CBS man, to take the fifth underage title for Tipperary in Munster this decade. Liam himself to banish the family memories of Thurles a quarter century ago, a match it is impossible to recollect without mention of his brother John.
Homer (poet, not father to Bart) said it was sweeter far than flowing honey, and it is revenge we want on Sunday. Such a desire is hardly virtuous, and is certainly not ennobling, but then, my name is not O' Dwyer, and this year our motto must be different.