After 45 minutes in Thurles on Sunday, Kilkenny were four points ahead when Tipperary got a run on their arch-rivals and began to press their boot hard on Kilkenny’s throat. Over the following 20 minutes, Tipperary created 11 scoring chances to Kilkenny’s two.
When Tipp had edged ahead by 0-15 to 0-13 with just five minutes of normal time remaining, the game was firmly within their control. Tipp were playing with a swagger and confidence and had built up a seemingly irresistible momentum.
Kilkenny hadn’t scored for 20 minutes and were desperately craving a spark to ignite a late charge. They finally found it. Mossy Keoghan staunched the bleeding with a point before Richie Leahy levelled the match within a minute.
As the sides traded punches down the home straight, Tipp got in front by one point with just 90 seconds of added time remaining. But that is all Kilkenny have ever needed to rescue a desperate situation.
Richie Hogan landed the equaliser from the puckout. As a scramble ensued on the deck in the dying seconds, Padraic Maher touched the ball on the ground, and Eoin Murphy nailed the winning free.
Tipperary were unlucky. On another day, that free against Maher would not have been given. Maher even argued afterwards that it wasn’t a foul. Tipp played some great stuff. They were right there at the end but the way the game played out still illustrated a very defining trend in Kilkenny-Tipperary matches in recent years.
When the sides met in last year’s league in Nowlan Park, Tipperary threw everything at Kilkenny in the second half when chasing down a seven-point lead. Tipp seemed to have momentum at the right time but when the heat was at its most intense in the last six minutes, Kilkenny did what has become encrypted into their DNA under Brian Cody.
Just after Michael Breen had levelled the match last February, TJ Reid won the subsequent puckout before laying the pass off to Richie Leahy for the lead score. Billy McCarthy and Breen had opportunities to score the equaliser in the closing moments but Kilkenny turned over both possessions.
When the sides met in the 2017 league in Thurles, Tipperary had Kilkenny over a barrel. They pounded them in the first half but Kilkenny chipped away and eventually reeled them in for a draw.
Another defeat to Kilkenny on Sunday underlined how hard Tipp have found it to beat their greatest rivals this decade. In their 18 league and championship meetings since the 2010 All-Ireland final, Tipperary have won just two of those games.
That 2010 All-Ireland final was expected to be a turning point in the relationship, but it wasn’t because Kilkenny continued to dominate it. Tipperary could have won the 2014 drawn All-Ireland final but a fourth successive championship loss since the 2010 final showed how Tipp’s ambitions and yearning for greater glory had repeatedly been slaughtered and sacrificed on Kilkenny’s altar of domination.
Tipp’s 2016 All-Ireland final victory though, was deemed to be more of a landmark moment than the 2010 final win. Tipp slayed the dragon that afternoon by nine points, while their age profile looked far more positive than a Kilkenny machine which was slowing down.
After appearing to shove Kilkenny into a shallow grave in that 2016 final, Tipp were expected to keep trampling down on them ever since. But they haven’t. The sides haven’t met in the championship since 2016 but Tipperary have now failed to beat Kilkenny in their four susbequent league meetings.
Apart from the physicality and intensity Kilkenny always bring, their composure, and decision-making under pressure, has been a defining factor in their modern history with Tipperary, especially late on in games.
The closing stages of the 2014 league final was a classic case study in those subtle margins. With time up in extra-time, Darren Gleeson tried to do the right thing when attempting to pick out a team-mate with a free but the ball went over the sideline. TJ Reid dinked the sideline cut into Richie Hogan’s hand, immediately ran for the return pass before slotting it on the run for the winning score.
When they met in the league in Nowlan Park two years later, Tipperary led for the majority of the match. They played the better hurling but just when Tipp appeared set for a memorable victory, it evaporated in front of them during a frenetic few minutes, with Kevin Kelly delivering the deadly blows with goals in the 67th and 72nd minutes.
Kilkenny have just kept finding a way to get the job done late on against Tipp. And despite all the positives from Sunday, Tipp have repeatedly failed to close out those games.
"When we got it to 0-15/0-13, we had the chances to get that to 16 or 17 and it could have been the defining moment in the match," said Liam Sheedy afterwards. "You have to give credit to Brian and his team. If you leave them in a match, 71st, 72nd, 73rd minute – no better team."
Failing to arrest that trend was even harder to take considering the make-up of both teams; Tipperary had 13 players which featured in the 2016 All-Ireland final; Kilkenny, without the Ballyhale contingent, and with a raft of new players on show, had only seven players from that All-Ireland final three years ago.
Yet Kilkenny have kept evolving, and have continued to do to Tipperary what they have been doing for the majority of this decade. Especially late on in tight matches.
