It was all we wanted and more.
It's Tuesday night as I write this piece. The Clare hurlers will most likely be in Ballyea, home of the legend and their captain Tony Kelly, to really start soaking it all in.
The day of the game, and even the Monday, will have been complete mayhem where they were pulled and dragged everywhere they went. Clare wouldn't have had a minute to themselves as a group.
But they should today as many will return to work and the real world. As players, they will get to enjoy it, to have a few drinks and a bit of time to themselves to reflect on this very special time for themselves and for Clare hurling.
Up to 1995 Clare had only won one All-Ireland hurling title. In the last 29 years they have added four more. These are times that Clare people would have only dreamed of 30 years ago and now they are living this dream and the expectation is, with the talent coming up behind these lads, that these moments should become more regular.
Of course that’s not always how sport works. These things are not given away, they are hard-earned and you get what you take not what you deserve. But that’s another story for another day and one the Clare public won’t be too hung up on this week anyway.
On the other side the Cork lads, I hope, got to go away to some quie part of the county and have their day together as a group, to share a few stories, have a bit of craic and just unwind after it all before they go at it in the club championships soon.
That first night back at training will be tough and it’s often here where you need one of your best buddies to nail you with a good slag, get a big roar of laughing and tear into the thing rather than tip-toeing around the obvious hurt of it all. Once you're back then it’s all systems go again for the players.
It’s the Atlantic Ocean between winning and losing but there’s nothing like the club to help you get over it and get you focused again. Time heals all, but it does take time to get over a hurt like that. Trust me, I know.
So let’s try and get into what was an unbelievable contest on hurling’s biggest day.
I won’t bore ye with facts and figures and I’m not going to sit here and say I called it. I genuinely thought that Cork would win this game. I thought Shane Barrett would be too much for John Conlon. How wrong I was on that one?
Conlon was a monster as he always is for his club and county. I thought Darragh Fitzgibbon’s running power and pace would be too much for Cathal Malone. Wrong again and what a performance the Sixmilebridge man turned in too.
The day was too much for Alan Connolly but he will learn so much from Sunday and I have no doubt he will come back a better, more knowledgeable player because of it all.
The duels around the ground were won by Clare and out of the 15 battles that started the game, for me, Clare won 12 of them. The three won by Cork were by Tim O’Mahony, Seamus Harnedy and Brian Hayes.
It came down to the fact that not enough of the Cork team performed to their ability on the biggest of days and the reason is they simply were not allowed to by the men in saffron and blue jerseys.
Clare were hungrier for the dirty balls in rucks. The breaking ball from Cork’s long puckouts, which yielded 1-11 against Limerick, was cut down to six points against Clare and the Banner men won the breaking ball 24 times from Corks long puckouts whereas Cork won just seven of the breaks from their own puckouts when going long.
The speed at which the game was played at was frightening. This was evident with the amount of players cramping, but it was also a very hot and humid day at pitch level with little or no breeze swirling around to help cool things down. Add all that into a game that was played at 100 miles per hour from minute one to 92 and it’s no wonder we had players cramping or just being wrecked.
Sure the people in the stands were wrecked and sweating just watching the thing!
The precision we witnessed with balls to hand, the first touch, it just had to be spot on or else it was punished - and severely punished at that. Perhaps none more so then when Ethan Twomey took a heavy touch, the ball went head high and it was flicked away by Tony Kelly, who still had a mountain of work to do in trying to flick it over Ger Mellerick, control it and get his shot off on the back foot.
As Jimmy Magee would say, different class. In fact I’d love to hear the same commentary for Maradona’s goal from the World Cup in 1986 for that very special goal we got to witness on Sunday from the man from Ballyea. Different class, different class.
That just sums the goal and Tony Kelly too. He is quite simply a different class.
What he did on Sunday was monumental and like people who got to see Lionel Messi on the biggest stage in the World Cup. I’m so lucky to have been there to witness this genius at work, with the pressure at its highest on the biggest day in that arena. You just can’t teach that. I’d hate to be marking him in the club championship this year.
Clare had heroes all over the pitch and the eight guys they brought on to finish the job all contributed in some way, as did the Cork subs and in particular Shane Kingston who, for me, should have been on the field of play a lot sooner than he was as things were just not happening for Alan Connolly.
Robbie O’Flynn also did very well and scored a great point and had a shot off for goal at the 85th minute of the contest but it was a nice height and the right side for Quilligan to save. Perhaps he should have carried it in a bit more or tapped it over to put Cork one up at the time but hardly anyone will speak about the chance David Fitzgerald had after a brilliant save by Collins from Kelly. The ball got flicked across, six yards out, and he blasted it off Ciaran Joyce’s leg.
Why? Because Clare won that’s why and all these things are fine when you win.
The man in the middle
I thought referee Johnny Murphy did a brilliant job on Sunday in helping to create the spectacle we got.
He got so many calls right, he let the game flow and he stayed going right up until the end which was not easy given the heat, the length of time of the game, the speed of the game and in fairness he always there or thereabouts to try and make the right call and not hoping he’d be right by staying 40 yards away.
Did he get it all right? Not at all, but who will in a contest like that? I do feel people should focus more on the 95% of calls he got correct rather than the few he got wrong or missed.
And I can say that only for the benefit of slow motion or freeze frames the majority or people in Croke Park did not see that jersey pull from Conor Leen on Robbie O’Flynn in real time.
The 65 decision should really have been made by the umpires. They got that wrong and the potential black-card incident had to be looked at around 40 times by the lads on The Sunday Game that night to decide if it was or was not a penalty.
So all in all well done to Johnny Murphy on a job very well done.
Highlight of the year
I’m going to show my bias here and go with that win for the ages by the Tipperary minor hurlers in the All-Ireland final against Kilkenny in Nowlan Park with 13 players on the field.
A show of determination, heart, desire and passion by a bunch of kids who wanted to win so badly for their county and were led by brilliant men on the sideline to achieve this.
This one will live long in the memory, not because we beat Kilkenny, but more so the manner of that victory that had grown men crying afterwards.
And when lads from Limerick, Clare and Offaly are texting you afterwards to say I was actually shouting for Tipp, well then you know it was something very special indeed.
I’m told they all quickly turned back to their regular feelings towards Tipp as soon as the final whistle was blown!
My team of the year
- Nickie Quaid
- Adam Hogan
- Dan Morrissey
- Eoin Downey
- David McInerney
- Robert Downey
- Kyle Hayes
- Darragh Fitzgibbon
- David Fitzgerald
- Gearoid Hegarty
- Shane Barrett
- Seamus Harnedy
- Brian Hayes
- Shane O’Donnell
- Mark Rodgers
Here’s my go at a team of the year. Not everyone will agree but isn’t that the beauty of these things and the debate it stirs up?
Finally I hope you have enjoyed reading these columns as much as I have writing them. It’s a great honour to be asked to give your opinion or insight into the world of inter-county hurling each week.
I hope you have enjoyed them and equally if you didn’t thanks for clicking on them anyway - we could have a pint some day to chat about our differences of opinions, your twist.
Enjoy the magic that will be the club championships and will shorten the winter for so many lucky clubs that will go on to achieve the ultimate glory in their counties.
Hurling - it's still the greatest game they ever put on grass.
Thanks for tuning in. See ye all in the next cartoon. Mise le meas.
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