Tipperary Hurling Tipperary GAA Premierview

Daly's retirement sparks much revisionism. 2002

I happened to notice the article on the retiring Anthony Daly in yesterday’s Sunday Tribune ? It was written by Enda McEvoy, and sickeningly sycophantic would be a fair description of the article. Kevin Cashman he ain’t! Even in Daly’s major weakness – his pace – there is apparent virtue. Apparently the classiest hurlers tend not to have pace as their forte. Ne’er a mention either of the (never to be described as classy) Anthony Crosse, waltzing past him in 1993 ! Only the more generally acceptable Timmy MacCarthy and Brian McEvoy are considered to have done this.

Neither was Mark O'Leary's capacity to pinch three of four points of Daly in 2000 considered a blot on his "great" performance. Then again when you're reviewing "Braveheart" maybe it's churlish to pick holes in the warrior defences. In this case, rather like Daly himself, it was more about visibility, brashness, and symbolism than such boring considerations as defensive solidity, normally the primary requisite for a wing-back, or any defender for that matter. The most striking inconsistency is that McEvoy, the writer in question, rated Mark O'Leary as his hurler of the year for 2001, for his ability to consistently do what he did against Daly in 2000, but conveniently ignores O'Leary's penchant in this testimonial. Sorry, Mark - wrong county !

Anyway, the bit that most caught my attention was this part which opens up the old sore of Daly's 1997 Munster Final speech :

“His Croke Park speech in 1995 was a masterpiece of articulateness, modesty and generosity. This was as close as All Ireland-winning captains come to a Gettysburg Address. It wasn’t Daly’s fault that his 1997 “whipping boys” opus, compounded by Rod Guiney’s ranting on the Hogan Stand podium seven days later, was deliberately misinterpreted by the begrudgers. There has rarely been a more crystalline instance of the sins of the manager being visited upon the captain. “We’re no longer the whipping boys of Munster hurling.” Parse that sentence. That subtext could scarcely be clearer. Clare had been the whipping boys of Munster hurling. They weren’t any more. No slur, explicit or implicit, on Tipp or Cork or anyone else, lies therein, except to the thin-skinned semantic contortionists determined to find one”.

It is remarkable that after all the acknowledged paranoia concerning Tipperary that has poured from the books of Loughnane and MacNamara, that there is still somebody who regards this speech as an affront only to "thin-skinned semantic contortionists". After reading this part of the article a few points spring to mind :

It is disingenuous to, on the one hand, attribute Lincolnesque qualities to Daly’s 1995 speech, and on the other hand suggest that the reaction to his 1997 speech was a case of the “sins of the manager” visiting the captain. Surely a man of such substance and “articulateness” can be held responsible for his own words ? Any Loughnane-watcher would know that suggesting that the “sins of the manager” were in play at this stage is inaccurate.

At is happened, it was this speech, and the reaction to it that precipitated Loughnane’s fall from the inspiring figure that we saw in 1995 to the bitter, uncontrolled, paranoid, self-obsessed caricature he was to become by the time of his exit. But at the time of the ’97 Munster Final, Loughnane hadn’t yet driven a coach and four through the parameters of good judgement.

In my schooldays “parsing” a sentence was a dull grammatical exercise involving predicates and such like. It didn’t mean taking a comment away from the emotional context in which it was originally made and revising the meaning of the remark in the cold light of day years later.

Nevertheless, if – as McEvoy suggests - the subtext of the comment was that “Clare had been the whipping boys of Munster” - fine. The difficulty is that the time and place for such a speech of liberation was two years before, after beating Limerick in Thurles when Clare made the initial breakthrough. Waiting until a match which Loughnane describes as the key Clare victory - and the emotional stakes were always sky-high - displayed - at best - poor judgement, assuming of course that McEvoy’s “interpretation” of events is accurate i.e. that there is nothing more to be read into the speech.

The problem with McEvoy’s thesis is that context, timing, and apparent motivation of remarks, are as important as the actual semantics employed. Bearing this in mind, McEvoy should realise that if, for example, it was a Tipperary captain who passed a supposedly harmless remark about “former Munster Champions” as Mark Landers did after Cork’s 1999 victory over Clare, the reaction of the vanquished would have registered on the Richter scale. Maybe McEvoy’s (a Kilkenny man) description of Rod Guiney's 1997 speech – which at face value was simply another declaration of liberation from tyranny - as “ranting”, suggests that at some level McEvoy realises that context does matter.

I have no problem with Daly’s speech, at least no more than I have a problem with the general concept of captains speaking after matches at all. As far as I’m concerned Daly can say what he likes, but – and this is key - inherent in that privilege is the flip-side, which is accepting the consequences of what you say. Perhaps McEvoy wants to avoid ruining his adulatory epitaph of Daly by taking a different angle on this speech.

This 1997 speech was classic Clare. It was indicative of the psychological tight-rope on which this Clare team needed to operate in order to perform. What I do believe though, is that the speech - rather than being offensive only in the minds of "semantic contortionists" and "begrudgers" as McEvoy simplistically contends - indirectly led to the post-95 Clare supporters hatred of Tipperary. The fact that this contingent lapped up the ill-considered outpourings of Loughnane and Daly, was in my view largely to blame for creating an artifical enmity which didn’t fairly reflect the historical relationship between the counties. They had no particular reason to hate Tipperary more than anybody else. Statistically they had and still have a worse record against Tipperary than against any other county, but how many of the post-95 brigade were even aware of that ? And even if they were aware would it matter all that much to them now that they had their own day in the sun?

In fairness to Daly (and McEvoy) it was the trenchant defence of the remark by Loughnane, rather than the remark itself that exasperated the problem. But to interpret the speech as completely harmless, is to fail to appreciate the unnecessary triumphalism behind it, and to fail to recognise its repercussions. In a peculiar way, the fact that two years after winning an All-Ireland, Daly still felt the need to vent his spleen on the “whipping boys” issue, suggests that despite all the bravado and declared liberation of the Loughnane era, Clare really deep-down still saw themselves as at best, in a sort of “lesser among equals” status, rather than genuinely standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Tipperary and Cork.
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THE DUAL PLAYER LIVES ON !
The development of the split between Eamon Cregan and the Limerick county board will bring to the surface once again one of the great sources of fascination in the GAA – the inter-county dual player. Many of the more remarkable features of GAA history are wrapped up in the achievements of the dual-player.

There have been fifteen players who have won All-Ireland senior medals on the field of play in both hurling and football. Cork ’s great contribution to the GAA over the years is emphasised by the fact that seven of these players hail from the rebel county. Four of these Cork men, namely Brian Murphy, Denis Coughlan, Jimmy Barry Murphy, and Ray Cummins were on the superb 1973 Cork football team. Of course, they were all part of the famous three-in-a-row hurling team, with Cummins already having won a hurling medal in 1970. Coughlan, like Tipp’s Tommy Doyle in 1949 actually came out of retirement to win three All-Ireland medals in the following three years. Cummins in 1971, achieved the unique distinction of being chosen on both All-Star teams in the same year.

The first Cork man to win become a dual All- Ireland medal winner was Billy Mackessy who had a pub in Cork for many years. A typically Cork story is told of a chancer down Leeside who – not being too affluent himself – liked to poach free drink in the hostelries of the city. One day he walked into Mackessy’s pub with his son, and quietly asked the owner how many All-Ireland medals he had, to which the reply came “two”. The resourceful pair them proceeded to the other end of the bar and told the barman that they were due two drinks “on the house”, which naturally received a quizzical look from the barman. The thirsty man then confirmed this by shouting down the bar to the owner “Wasn’t it two you said, Mr.Mackessy!”.

Christy Ring, despite being a capable footballer himself had a publicly declared averion to the game stating once that all footballs north of specified line splitting the county should be cut in two.” Fortunately this didn’t happen and we lived to see Teddy MacCarthy, a man from Glanmire – not classic football territory - achieve the “impossible” in 1990.

In Tipperary there is a huge history of dual players at under-age in the county. Many of Tipperary ’s most recent All-Ireland winning hurling teams contained players who played football for the county at one level or other. Cormac Bonner, for example, was a footballer of a high standard playing Sigerson Cup football for UCD alongside Colm O’Rourke and Gerry McEntee.

Tipp’s most famous dual player and certainly regarded as one of the dual players who was most comfortable at both games was Babs Keating. While Babs’ hurling performances in the late ‘60s were earning comparisons with Ring and Mackey from Paddy Downey of the Irish Times, he was also a regular on the Munster Railway cup football team.

Another Tipperary man, a Cloughjordan man by the name of Willie Spain became the first ever player to achieve the All-Ireland medal dual status but didn’t win either medal with his native county. Contrary to our modern-day expectations, his football medal was won with Limerick and the hurling with Dublin .

Mention of Limerick brings to mind the fact that Eamon Cregan himself, along with is 1973 hurling team-mate Bernie Hartigan, played for the Limerick senior footballers in the 1965 Munster football final against Kerry. Playing on home territory – after beating Cork in the semi-final – they lost a five-point half-time lead before Kerry’s experience told in the second-half. Many other great Limerick hurlers were also county footballers, such as Ahane men, Jackie Power, Mick and John Mackey and Dan Givens – father of soccer player Don, who all won a Munster Junior football championship with Limerick .

The list of players who were competent dual players is virtually endless. Nicky Rackard of Wexford was not only one the greatest hurlers of all-time but also a won provincial senior football medal in 1945. Gerry O’Malley of Roscommon, widely regarded as perhaps the greatest footballer never to win an All-Ireland medal, was also an accomplished hurler, holding his own with the cream of Munster and Leinster in Railway Cup games in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Greg Blaney of Down and Henry Downey of Derry have also proven themselves accomplished hurlers as well, with the latter playing in a Fitzgibbon Cup Final.

Dublin has one of richest traditions in dual players, with Des Foley being arguably the greatest exponent of the dual mandate ever. His famous and unique feat was winning two Railway Cup medals on the same day in 1962, playing a full part in both matches.

The kernel of Eamon Cregan’s disagreement with the Limerick concerns the policy regarding dual players. Cregan, adamant in his opposition to allowing players to mix the two games, and the county board equally determined to allow themselves to have access to the best players in the county irrespective of any cross-over that may take place. There are many ways to look at the argument. Some people would say that Cregan’s stance is hypocritical and unfair given his own dual status in his day. Cregan might rightly argue that it is exactly because of this that he is most qualified to comment on the issue.

Some people – usually the conspiracy theorists who like to label themselves cynics - might wonder how some county boards would frown on players playing soccer and rugby, thereby risking injury, but have no problem letting players mix both Gaelic codes when the risk of injury is at least as great. The obvious counter-argument here is that the performance of the football and hurling teams is the direct responsibility of the county board, and as such they are entitled – maybe duty bound - to promote both sports equally. Is the GAA the only sports organisation pilloried for not promoting other sports ?

What of Eamon Cregan’s assertion that it isn’t possible to juggle both games at the highest level ? The example of different counties suggests that there is disagreement on this issue. Historically, in many counties there was such a geographical divide between the hurling and football areas of the county, such as in Clare, Tipperary , Galway and Offaly that it was rarely something that exercised the thoughts of county officials. It would seem that much of the feeling on the issue is down to personal differences of opinion, rather than anyone being able to produce massive evidence either way. For example, in Clare, Joe Considine has decided to forego his football career in order to establish himself on the hurling team. This seems to have been Joe’s personal decision uninfluenced by the county board.

Cork – as befits the most famous and successful dual county – have never stood in way of players playing both games at the highest level. The cases of Teddy MacCarthy and Denis Walsh are recent in the memory because of their successes, but the likes of Tomas Mulcahy, and Tony O’Sullivan played championship football for Cork in the 1980s. Tadhg Murphy also mixed both games with the accent being on football in his case.

At the moment Sean Og O’Halpin and Diarmuid O’Sullivan are flying the flag for dual players in Cork . I would consider that if – with their wide experience – Cork consider it possible to mix the two games, then a stance such as Cregan’s must surely be an idealogical one. It’s hardly being based on overwhelming evidence that playing two games at a high level necessarily diminishes the level of performance.

His argument holds that with the intensity of training these days that it isn’t possible to play both games. This stirs up another issue. There seems to be general agreement that the increase in intensity in training these days seems to be on the physical side of things, rather than the skills training having become so refined that the sports are mutually exclusive from a playing perspective. Maybe it’s time to ask questions on the physical training issue. Brian Corcoran, when announcing his retirement commented that walking off the pitch after losing in the 1997 Munster football championship to Clare, he asked himself what the 165 training sessions were for. Now I’m not too sure if Corcoran was in disagreement with the championship system which with its one-chance ethos of the time, or with the amount of training which brought no reward. The 165 sessions began on 16th September 1996 , and the championship game was played on 22nd June 1997 . This means that Cork trained almost 2 days out of every 3! I think this is a shocking statistic.

One of the more thoughtless and hair-brained solutions to these crazy training regimes is to pay players. People who suggest that with the effort players are putting in they deserve to be paid are rather missing the point. The fact is that no professional team in the world preparing for any sport would train this often, at the intensity with which I suspect a Larry Tompkins trained team would be likely to prepare. I cannot see any way in which a team which trained half as many times as this (3/4 times a week) would not be almost equally well prepared. Surely when you train more than say 3 times a week at a high intensity, the law of diminishing returns begins to kick in at a big rate? Is the extra 5% that might be gained from the extra 30% training with all the attendant time and cost involved really worth it? The amateur sports psychologists wopuld have you belive that thi s55 is all that matters. If so, why did Cork lose in the first round in the particular example I’ve taken. Why was Colin Corkery their most effective player in the last two championships when for health reasons he is unable to train with the same intensity as others ?

John Maughan is another manager who has a notorious appetite for putting players through monumental training regimes. Unfortunately many managers such as Maughan will only pick players capable of sustaining such torturous training schedules. Inevitably these managers develop the team’s style of play to ensure that the benefits of such physical fitness are optimised in matches. A player such as Colm MacManamon, the Mayo centre-forward of the time epitomised the appalling John Maughan vision of football. He spent the entire match against Kerry in 1997 between the half-back-line and midfield taking passes from his defenders and proceeding to carry the ball through midfield. It was so easy to defend against that it took Mayo twenty-three minutes to score, and the starting fifteen scored just one point in the match. What benefit was there in being able to run all day, when they guy hadn’t the confidence or ability to kick the ball?

Unfortunately many county board officials and supporters seem to judge managers to a fair degree on how physically well prepared they can get the team. This factor plays into the hands on managers who look to make progress in this easily achieved (at least for the manager) and easily measured way. This is having a chronic effect on players. It is putting unsustainable demands on players’ time and physical capacity. It is also responsible for fuelling the notion that the dual player has no place in gaelic games anymore. Throwing the “they deserve to be paid” argument at this is ignoring the fundamental issue i.e. that players are over-training.

Eamon Cregan is clearly a man of principle and to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher “the man’s not for turning” on this particular issue, though latest rumours may suggest a softening in his stance. He may be a man of principle alright. But is he right in this case? Firstly it has to be said that there seems to have been a serious breakdown in communication between the team manager and the county board. We are not privy to any verbal communication there may have been between the leading officials and the team manager, prior to the letter from the county board to which Cregan referred in his radio interview. Certainly if that was the first the manager heard of the county board’s position he has reason to be aggrieved. However, surely by allowing players to move between the two teams the county board’s position was implicitly made clear. This is not to rule out the possibility that it was also made clear to Cregan explicitly prior to the letter as well. However, written communication such as this suggests that the relationship between the two parties was under strain already.

Cregan has stepped down on a point of principle. However admirable that may be, people who get things done are generally those who are able to find middle-ground of some sort. This is evident in politics where those with the deepest and strongest held principles are usually those on the margins who don't have to make decisions affecting others. A big mistake that Cregan made was to fall into the trap of discussing the issue publicly, thereby making it very difficult to compromise privately afterwards. In that sense he was hoist on his own petard. It is ironic that this was the root cause of the problem given that he was so virulently anti-media when it came to the players speaking out. If June 2nd arrives and there are no dual players on the Limerick senior hurling team, it will have been a very dubious stance of the manager’s part. He will regret his stance in time if he maintains it. By the time June comes around Eamon Cregan will have been forgotten about as Limerick look forward to another tilt at the championship. That is to be regretted but is an unfortunate reality. The input of one of the few truly great hurling men will be denied to Limerick in June. Does Eamon Cregan want that deep down? The problem for Eamon is that Limerick will always be there, and everyone else is just passing through, no matter how significant their contribution may be.

He has said that he had to put up with horrendous indiscipline problems in Offaly when he was manager, but he stuck at it. After building the foundation for Limerick ’s current strong position he should have found a way to see it through as well. There are rumours that he may have reconsidered the position, but if he maintains his exit from the job, it's a very high price to pay for just two players, only one of whom would seem likely to make the team.

The players have made representations to Cregan and no doubt if the will is there a way around this will be found. However if Cregan is steadfast in his refusal to countenance dual players, then it looks as if there's no way back. If he does return - and presumably the county board will still insist on player's right to play both games - the we can assume that there was more to this split than simply the dual player issue.
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McCAGUE'S MEDDLING EXACERBATES DISCIPLINARY PROBLEMS 2002

The issue of GAA disciplinary procedures with perceived inconsistencies and "home-town decisions" within the disciplinary processes, has long been one of the great sources of controversy in an organisation, which scarcely needs to court controversy. Ger Loughnane has spoken at length with regard to perceived injustices at the hands of the GAA authorities, and though some of his lurid terminology such as “natural justice” and “human rights” may have undermined his profile as a serious commentator on such issues, there is lashings of evidence to suggest that a deep malaise in the distribution of “justice”.

An article in the Sunday Tribune recently, rather absurdly compared the contact made by Paul Ormond on the Antrim player Liam Watson, and the veritable assault perpetrated by the Antrim player in retaliation, when he struck Ormond on the head as he lay on the ground. The argument was that both incidents constituted striking with the hurley and therefore should both have resulted in sendings-off, and one presumes three-month suspensions. This argument may have a basis in the rule-book alright but is rather simplistic, as surely there are degrees of seriousness to such offences, which one presumes is why such terminology as “rough play” and “dangerous play” exist. This, of course, means that much of the embryonic stages of the disciplinary process are down to the referee, which means that - human nature being what it is - we will have to live with a certain element of inconsistency. However, some of the decisions, which have made the news during the year, were far more dubious and unpalatable than mere “human error”.

The GAA’s response to this problem has been pathetic. One of the pillars of Sean McCague’s reputation has always been a strong line on disciplinary matters. Unfortunately the sheer inconsistency of the GAA on “disciplinary” matters during recent times has been ridiculous, and casts serious aspersions on McCague’s tenure and reputation.
The matter is quite simple really when stripped down. The referee's report is normally deemed to be the ultimate arbiter on incidents that take place on the pitch. Crucially, of course, this means incidents with which the referee has expressly dealt in the report. Of course, this procedure was conveniently thrown out the window when Ciaran Barr – on the Sunday Game - highlighted the incidents in the 1995 Munster championship game between Tipperary and Waterford which resulted in the two Tipp players missing the Munster semi-final. Terence Murray booked the players there and then, and according the accepted principle that was that. Except it wasn’t. The Munster council took action anyway. That at least three or four players including Ryan and Delaney should have been sent off in the incident is neither here nor there. Consistency of application of rules is the issue. Of course, when Diarmuid O’Sullivan hit Brian Begley and was booked five years later the referee’s report was sacrocant. Precedent ? You must be joking !

Then we had the positively ludicrous situation in July when the Munster council did a Ger Loughnane on it and reinterpreted the rules by adding in their own words about “ordinary” substitutes into the rule. We knew they wouldn’t strip Cork of the title. We just didn't know how they would get around it. I was expecting some milk and watery solution with the words “natural justice” in there somewhere, as exemplified by Seamus Aldridge when the Leinster council bottled their responsibility, and failed to apply the rules when Na Fianna used an extra substitute in the Leinster club championship. But for Fr.Seamus Gardiner to stand outside a Munster council effectively quoting a rule that doesn’t exist (i.e. a rule which mentions “ordinary” substitutes) defied belief even by the reputed standards of the Munster council in this area. The silence from the presidential office was deafening. It would for course be far too messy to have Munster senior champions deposed on a technicality. The bottom line is, if you will not consistently enforce a rule, then get rid of the rule, or change the penalty to something you are comfortable with.

Then we had a farcical situation where Brian Lohan was given carte blanche by the authorities to sledge Eugene Cloonan. How the GAC could have looked at this incident and decided that Lohan had no case to answer defies belief. In 1998 Colin Lynch was nailed on the basis of evidence that was a lot harder to acquire and stand over, than the clear video evidence of Lohan striking with the hurley. Why wasn’t the will there to deal with Brian Lohan ? The fact that Cloonan virtually always provides mitigation for such actions - if one espouses the mitigation theory that is - by his horrendous gamesmanship, going all the way back to the All-Ireland quarter-final in Thurles in 1997, through Diarmuid O’Sullivan in June is irrelevant. Rules are rules, or so they say. Why was there no presidential phone call on this occasion as in the Colin Lynch case?



Dara O’Se was sent off playing for An Gaeltacht and caused consternation in Kerry football before the referee’s report predictably exonerated O’Se. However unpalatable that scenario may have been, at least it ensured that the referee’s report was upheld, as per the rules. Why then has McCague decided to go on a solo-run on the John Boland issue ? A softer target ? Is it because Tipperary does not have a GAA president-elect in the background ? Does the referee in Tipperary have less integrity than the one in Kerry ? Is it because Dara O’Se is one of the top senior footballers in the country, while Boland is a mere minor ?



The arguments against Boland simply don’t stack up. Boland was sent-off on August 14th, McCague’s ruling didn’t come into play until August 21st. Why was this ruling – which didn’t exist when Boland was sent-off – retrospectively applied to Boland and not Dara O’Se ? Dara O’Se was not due to play against Cork until August 25th, so he could have been prevented playing in that game. Why was the will to do so not there ? I don't believe that any rule can or should be retrospectively applied, but if it is done then surely it has to be done on a consistent basis?



Another argument is that Boland is “guilty” so he’s getting what he deserved. Guilty ? Not according to the referee. The referee has said that he was about to correct his card error when all hell broke loose. The fact that he may be deemed foolish not to distance himself from proceedings when things started to get out of hand in the match, does not justify him being the sole victim of an absurd ruling, and an even more absurd timing of its introduction. A rule it seems which was drawn up simply for the benefit of Sean McCague’s reputation..



McCague probably feels he is showing a strong presidential line on this issue, but in fact by making up rules as he goes along he is showing weakness. He is effectively saying that if a referee makes an error it cannot be rectified unless it occurs in the .005% of games which has a video camera present. This also discriminates against higher profile players, as distinct from those who play in lower level games where video evidence is inevitably non-existent. We all suspect that the Dara O’Se/Willie Ryan/John Boland incidents were all GAA solutions to GAA problems, but at least their was a consistency in upholding the referee’s report - however flawed we might deem it to be. Preventing John Boland playing in the minor final shows a disregard for accepted disciplinary norms, which is the greatest irony of all. The solution for McCague was to wait for the couple of weeks until the championship was over, and then separate county and club matches in terms of disciplinary procedures. Of course, in an ideal world they should not be separated, as doing so dilutes the whole area of sportsmanship. However, since we are somewhat removed from such a Utopia, at least a separation of powers would preclude board officials having to make late night phone-calls to referees, to discuss the contents of the ref’s yet-to-be-written match report.



Also it would prevent the like of Sean McCague feeling the need to turn boot-boy on soft targets. It would serve McCague’s reputation much better to streamline the rules and disciplinary procedures in a structured and non knee-jerk way to ensure that the farcical happenings of this year don’t become hardy annuals. By the way, where is the GPA while a player is being hung out to dry? Whinging about money and going on strike on the front of tabloid newspapers! Maybe John Boland hasn’t paid his membership! Why on earth does this organisation have such a strong view on many of the GAA's internal workings and no apparent opinion on this one? Perhaps Donal O'Neill will gate-crash today's court proceedings as he tried to do at the GAA's congress a few years back………after all there is sure to be some cameras there, so it would be justifiable.



As I write there Tipperary are taking legal action, in relation to the John Boland affair, and despite what people may think there is precedent where the courts intervened in the workings of the GAA, when a high court injunction enabled Derry Foley to play in a Munster football final in the early 1990s. Despite the fact that it is hardly the place to decide internal GAA issues ; I suspect that if the issue is seriously addressed by the court, Tipperary have a strong case. Surely McCague parachuting in a “ruling” in the middle of championship - particularly when a similar case which should logically be subject to the same ruling was completely ignored - would hardly stand up to any serious legal scrutiny in my view. Either way, it is time for the GAA to seriously address the rules and procedures, which have made a mockery of the association this year. As human judgement is involved a certain level of inconsistency and controversy may be inevitable, but this hullabaloo shouldn't emanate from the presidential office.

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A Century of Pride and Prejudice, August 2003


Folklore has it that the Tipperary-Kilkenny rivalry predates the foundation of the GAA, courtesy of the famous battle of Fenor Hill, whence sprang the legend of the ‘Stonethrowers’. In reality it is difficult to imagine that the protagonists in this incident were particularly aware of a county rivalry, and it is likely to have been purely a local spat. However, this area to this day remains in popular thinking, the focal point of the county rivalry, and it is fair to say that aspects of this rivalry are rather unedifying. For example the defacing of the signs into the counties is a disgrace and reflects well on nobody.



When the GAA’s first championship was organised in 1887, both Tipp and Kilkenny were in the pot, and they met at Urlingford – where else? – in what amounted to a championship quarter-final, when Tipp ran out emphatic winners by 4-7 to 0-0 on 27th October 1887. While Tipp had already beaten Clare, this was Kilkenny’s first ever championship game, having received walkovers in the previous rounds from Cork and Limerick, who got tied up in the crazy dispute/objection culture of the time, which may well have stemmed from the extremely adversarial political atmosphere in the country at the time.



Tipp won that inaugural championship, and by the time the county got around to playing in another All-Ireland Final, the opponents were Kilkenny, also playing in their county’s second final. This resulted in another emphatic win for Tipp, which was represented by a Tubberadora selection against Kilkenny’s Tullaroan team augmented by players from Threecastles. A 1-6 to 1-0 half-time lead was turned into a 6-8 to 1-0 final score for Tipp with Drombane’s Paddy Riordan being the scoring star. This was the first final to have been played at Jones’ Road, and is also the only occasion on which the hurling and football final were played on the same day, with Tipp also winning the football.
Three years later the same counties were back again in the final with Tipp enjoying a 7-13 to 3-10 win which is the seventh highest scoring final on record. The performance of Pat ‘Fox’ Maher for Kilkenny was the outstanding effort of the day, and the Tullaroan may be regarded as Kilkenny’s first great hurler.

Tipp beat Kilkenny in the 1900 semi-final (0-14 to 1-8), on the way to a third All-Ireland win in a row, by the time Kilkenny and Tipp met again in the final, Kilkenny had many great hurlers to stand alongside ‘Fox’ Maher in the pantheon of greats. In fact Kilkenny had legends around every corner in these days. Padraig Puirseal the famous GAA correspondent of the Irish Press, in later years recalled his father saying that anyone who never saw Kilkenny between 1904 and 1913 ‘never saw hurlers’. The record they achieved in that decade of seven All-Ireland titles in ten seasons included two wins over Tipperary, 1909 and 1913.

1911 is sometimes recorded as a Kilkenny win over Tipperary in an All-Ireland Final but Kilkenny were awarded this championship when Limerick pulled out in a dispute over the venue, while the game between Kilkenny and Tipp often incorrectly cited as the ‘final’, was merely a fund-raising game for the financially strapped GAA, to compensate for the loss of the revenue from the actual final. The 1909 defeat for Tipp was the first occasion on which the defending All-Ireland champions lost a final. The 1913 win, which was the first fifteen aside final, was a big one for Kilkenny as it completed a three-in-a-row for Kilkenny, and turned over an earlier defeat to Tipp in the Croke Cup Final, a win for Wedger Meagher’s ‘Toomevara Greyhounds’ which had the songsters busy for months. By the end of this decade Kilkenny’s team had an enviable record, with four players - Jack Rochford, Dick Doyle, Dick Walsh - who captained three of the teams, and the legendary Sim Walton, having won seven All-Ireland medals each, a record which was not equalled for forty years, and still leaves these players in extremely rare company. It was in this era that the Doyle brothers from Mooncoin achieved their remarkable record of eighteen All-Ireland medals, Dick – as already stated – won seven, Eddie won six, and Mick five. The Graces of Tullaroan, Jack, Dick and Pierce, also became a legendary GAA family in this era, and not just on the hurling field. The won eight hurling medals and seven football medals, with the football medals being won with the Dublin footballers. Jack, who died in 1915 at just 31 years of age, is still the only Dublin footballer to have won five All-Ireland medals. Pierce won two All-Ireland football medals with Dublin, and three hurling medals with Kilkenny, while Dick Grace won five All-Ireland hurling medals with Kilkenny. Pierce had the distinction of playing against Tipperary in All-Ireland Senior hurling finals for two different counties, Dublin in 1908 – when his brother Jack captained the team, and Kilkenny in 1913.

The next clash between the counties was in the 1916 All-Ireland Final and Tipp won it by eight points (5-4 to 3-2), a game in which Dick Grace of Kilkenny and Tipp’s Tommy Shanahan were sent off. This was the final which marked the start of Johnny Leahy’s remarkable captaincy record with Tipp, which saw him captain two All-Ireland winning teams, five Munster championship winning teams (a record), and Tipp’s first National League winning team. As we speak of the phenomenal achievements of a couple of Kilkenny families, it is worth noting that this 1916 final also marked the start of the Leahys of Boherlahan’s record of four brothers (Johnny, Paddy, Mick and Tommy) all winning All-Ireland senior medals. It is also worth noting that the Leinster Council granted £25 towards the Kilkenny training fund this match, which the Mid Tipp board granted Tipp £5!

The 1922 final was won by Kilkenny, the only title the county won between 1913 and 1932. Though Kilkenny ultimately deserved their win, from a Tipperary perspective this was a disastrous defeat, as Tipp had been leading until the last three minutes, during which they conceded two goals, to lose what was described by Phil O’Neill, an early GAA historian, as a game ‘which will be ranked as perhaps the best played in the hurling code of modern times’. Scorers were; Kilkenny – Dick Grace (2-0), Paddy Donoghue (1-0), Dick Tobin (1-0), John Roberts (1-0), Martin Lalor (0-1); Tipperary – Pat Power (2-0), J.J.Hayes (0-4), Joe Cleary (0-1), Will Dwan (0-1).

Fifteen years passed before the next meetings of the teams, and that game was the 1937 final which, due to a delay in construction work on the new Cusack Stand, was played in Killarney. Kilkenny had a great team in the 1930s, and the ’37 final was their sixth of the decade, but for this team it was a game too far. Many of the players were reaching the veteran stage and the half-time score-line of 2-8 to 0-2 didn't get any better for Kilkenny, with Tipp, captained by Jim Lanigan leading by seventeen points at the end. ‘Bunny’ Murphy and ‘Butler’ Coffey were the stars of the show up front for Tipp, with Jimmy Cooney – who was at the centre of the infamous ‘Cooney case’ a year later – starring at centre-field. For Kilkenny it was the last All-Ireland final appearance for great stars like Lory Meagher, Martin White, Tommy Leahy, and Matty Power of Dicksboro. A further indication of the stage of the life-cycle the ’37 Kilkenny team was at is that by the time Kilkenny played in the famous ‘Thunder and Lightening’ final against Cork just two years later, not one player from 8 to 15 was still there from the team of two years earlier. By this stage great stars of the future like Terry Leahy, Jim Langton, Jack Mulcahy, and Paddy Grace – all members of the successful minor teams of 1935/36 - had arrived, and would wait until the 1945 final to pit their wits against the Premier County.

In that ’45 final Tipp had a two goal win over Kilkenny in front of a massive crowd of over 69,000, which in the context of the time was particularly large as the previous years had been down due to travel restrictions during the ‘Emergency’ (WW2 to the rest of the planet). Eddie Gleeson of Sarsfields scored two goals for Tipp, and interestingly two of his forward colleagues in this team - Tony Brennan, and Tommy Doyle - went on to star in defence in the 1949-51 teams. John Maher who put the icing on the cake of a brilliant career by captaining Tipp, and giving an outstanding display at centre-half-back. Kilkenny, who were captained by Peter Blanchfield, found themselves with a remarkable four goal deficit to deal with at half-time, but the hurled splendidly in the second half to come right back into the game, with several brilliant saves from Jimmy Maher, the Tipp goalkeeper from Boherlahan, helping to keep them at bay. Jim Langton was perhaps Kilkenny’s best player, with the full back line of Paddy Grace, Mick Kelly, and the captain Blanchfield also outstanding. The Kilkenny left half forward was Tommy Maher, who later as Fr.Tommy Maher became recognised as one of the really great hurling coaches, being involved with countless successful Kilkenny teams. Many of this team were also involved with the Kilkenny teams which played Cork in the next two finals, with mixed fortunes, winning in ’47, in what is considered as perhaps the all time classic hurling final

Three years after that the Cats were back in the All-Ireland Final against Tipperary, who were defending the title. It was a tight game with defences on top generally, and Kilkenny looked in a strong position at half-time turning over with a two point lead at the break despite playing against the wind in the first half. However, Tipp turned the tables in the second half, and with great displays from John Doyle, Seamus Bannon, and Sean Kenny at centre half forward forged ahead by 0-9 to 0-8 late in a particularly low-scoring second-half. A Paddy Kenny goal two minutes from time seemed to seal the result for Tipp, but shortly after this a long range effort from Kilkenny’s right half back Jimmy Kelly, went through a forest of hurleys past an unsighted Tony Reddin, to set up a last minute scramble which failed to produce any further scores. Mark Marnell, ‘Diamond’ Hayden, and Jim Langton were among the stars for Kilkenny on the day, as was Mick Kenny who subsequently did a stint in the Tipperary colours, winning a National League medal against his native county four years later. Kilkenny’s right full back on this team was Jim Hogan of Tullaroan who is often referred to as one of the greatest hurlers not to have won an All-Ireland medal..

The next Tipp-Kilkenny clash was not in a final, but in the 1958 All-Ireland semi-final, in one of the years (1955 being the other) when Galway – ridiculously - got a bye to the final. Kilkenny were the defending champions, having beaten Waterford by a point the previous year, when the former Tipp player Mick Kenny achieved the remarkable haul of 2-5 from play in that 60 minute game. On this occasion though, Kilkenny had to give up their title, as the Tipp half-back-line of Finn, Wall and Doyle proved far less easily skipped around than the famed ‘Maginot Line’ after which they were named, had been eighteen years previously. The performances of John Doyle in particular and the young Jimmy Doyle, fresh out of minor ranks were instrumental in ensuring a Tipp win by 1-13 to 1-8, Jimmy Doyle’s own personal tally exactly matching the score of the defending champions. While the counties hadn’t met for eight years in the championship, they had played three league finals in the ‘50s, in 1950, ’54, and ’57, with Tipperary getting the laurels on each occasion. The 1958 Kilkenny team included future GAA president Paddy Buggy at wing-back while the other wing-back was the highly rated Johnny McGovern from Bennetsbridge, considered by Donie Nealon as one of the best defenders he met during his career. Tipp went on to win the final against Galway with a degree of comfort.

The next final between the two counties was in 1964, which was the first final featuring both these counties in fourteen years. In fact it was only the sixth final between the counties in fifty years despite an apparent belief nowadays that meetings were common in times past. Arguably 1964 was Tipperary hurling’s greatest year and the performance in the final was worthy of all else that happened that year. Despite a mighty struggle from Kilkenny, who were just two points behind early in the second half courtesy of a overhead flicked John Teehan goal, Tipp finished powerfully and won by a remarkable fourteen points. Borris-Ileigh’s Liam Devaney (was there ever a Tipp hurler more highly thought of locally?) made a major impact when he came on, and Donie Nealon achieved a feat which has been emulated just once since - by Cork’s Eddie O’Brien in 1970 - that of scoring three goals in a final. No wonder that Fan Larkin referred to Nealon in recent years as the most complete forward he had marked.

Far be it from us to speculate as to what Kilkenny hurling would consider to be its finest hour, but could we boldly suggest that its most enjoyable hour was the 1967 All-Ireland Final, when they enjoyed a richly deserved win over Tipperary. The performance of Ollie Walsh in goal is one of the regularly recalled highlights of this final, as was Pat Henderson’s masterful display at centre-back, while the desperately unfortunate career-ending injury to Tom Walsh is one of the shadows. Scorers for Kilkenny on a famous day were: Tom Walsh (1-2), Eddie Keher (0-3), Paddy Moran (1-0), Martin Brennan (1-0), Claus Dunne (0-2), Dick Blanchfield (0-1). For Tipp it was surely the end of an era, and John Doyle, Kieran Carey, Tony wall and Theo English all finished their careers on this day.
In what was the third final between the counties in seven years, the 1971 title went to Tipperary. Remarkably, only six of the Kilkenny champion team of four years previously was still around. One of the enduring feats in the 1971 final was the incredible score of 2-11 achieved by Eddie Keher. However, despite this huge score, as Padraig Puirseal stated in his Irish Press match report that “for most of the hour Tadhg O’Connor almost completely blotted out Eddie Keher in play” and “I rarely have seen him so ineffective from play”. 2-9 of Keher’s total was from frees. Roger Ryan scored two goals for Tipp, with John Flanagan and Noel O’Dwyer scoring one each. It was left to Dinny Ryan of Sean Treacy’s to score the decisive fifth goal for Tipp, and bring glory to a little area which has rarely enjoyed limelight commensurate with its love for hurling. Kilkenny’s goals – apart from Keher’s - came from Mossy Murphy, Ned Byrne – a future rugby international, and Kieran Purcell whose effort was the pick of the ten goals scored, in the only eighty minute final played between these counties. Tipp’s leading lights up front that day were Babs Keating, later to become Texaco hurler of the year, and Francis Loughnane of Roscrea, one of the really great forwards of the 1970s. Those Kilkenny and Tipp teams went on quite divergent paths over the next few years, with Kilkenny capturing three All-Irelands in the next four years with the core of the ’71 team still around, while Tipp got stuck in a six year rut of hard luck stories of replays and one-point defeats, a rut which got deeper and deeper.
By 1991, when the counties met again, the famed Blue and Gold, and Black and Amber were sporting sponsor’s names on the front of the jerseys, and while change from the previous time the teams met could hardly have been more obvious, the exchanges were as tense and tough as ever. It would be regarded by many as Tipperary’s worst championship performance of the year, in what was an exceptional year for Tipp in performance terms. However, when people judge performance they often fail to take due cognisance of the opposition, and on this day Kilkenny were very worthy opponents, who might well look back on this one as a final which got away. While Tipp recovered well to claw back and overtake an early Kilkenny lead, it took a fluke goal from a deflected Michael Cleary free to put real daylight between the teams. Pat Fox, who scored five points from play and was awarded man of the match, and Michael Ryan at left-full-back, were perhaps Tipp’s biggest players on the day, with Paul Delaney, Noel Sheehy, and the much maligned Declan Carr – who put in a sterling last twenty minutes of industrious hurling – not far behind.
2002 saw the latest clash and again it was a semi-final. It was a very attractive game as it featured the champions of the previous two years, and it is regarded as one of the great games of recent years. Tipperary had a number of chances in the first half to open up a gap, but at least two goal chances were spurned. When Kilkenny had their chances in the second half they took them with relish. The performance of Henry Shefflin heralded the arrival of a player who is surely destined to stand shoulder to shoulder with the all-time greats of the game. However, the strength of Kilkenny’s bench was also a major factor when Charlie Carter, and particularly Jimmy Coogan contributed handsomely to Kilkenny’s deserved win, the latter with the decisive goal which answered Tipp’s earlier one which had momentarily reined back Kilkenny, plus a superb point from under the Cusack Stand. This was perhaps the best game between the counties over the years, and it may well have marked the start of new epoch in this ancient rivalry. This is a rivalry which has the lot. It is boastful, bitter, begrudging, silently admiring, paranoid, fearful, and has always taken place a just enough of a distance – courtesy of the provincial boundaries, to keep it fresh. In Jane Austen parlance this rivalry is more about ‘Pride and Prejudice’ than ‘Sense and Sensibility’.