KILLINAN END - Irregular league final pairings

Anyone with a hurling heart could only be pleased that Limerick and Kilkenny have crossed paths in the National League Final.

So often the provincial system keeps counties of such pedigree apart for long periods. Sometimes the teams are not in the ascendancy at the same time. Consider that Tipperary and Kilkenny did not meet between 1971 and 1991, and that Cork and Kilkenny are looking like they might equal their 1947-66 gap between All-Ireland final meetings. Also, interesting to wonder at the fact that Cork and Galway have met in an All-Ireland final just once since 1990, and Tipp-Galway too have been paired in a final only a single time since Tony Keady’s tour de force in 1988. Not as if these counties have not been prominent over that time so it goes to show how easily time slips and these peculiar gaps emerge.

Limerick and Kilkenny should be a regular pairing on hurling’s festive days. Time was when this was beyond question. Back in the 1930s they played in three All-Ireland finals in four years and perhaps we are going back to the future and we’ll get a sense of what it was like in those years in the coming times. It has a landmarkish look about it when teams meet in the next League final after an All-Ireland final meeting. It happened with Tipp and Galway in 1989 and, while Galway won that day, a Tipp team without Nicky English showed enough in the form of Michael Cleary and especially Cormac Bonner at full-forward to show that they would bring a stronger hand to any championship contest. Funnily enough, this is the first time since that April day in Croke Park that the League final mirrors the previous All-Ireland final. Ominously enough for the other counties there are plenty of examples where the League final foreshadowed All-Ireland final meetings in the near future including Kilkenny-Limerick 2006. Kilkenny-Waterford 2007, several Kilkenny-Tipp games, and Tipp-Galway 1999/2000.

Right now, Limerick look poised for a few more years of plenty with Kilkenny being in the difficult position of being likely constant opposition for them. They will need to find a way to compete with a view to winning or frustration beckons. This final falls on the 40th anniversary of a vigorous and competitive League final between the teams. On 24th April in 1983 the teams met in Thurles at what would seem the more natural choice of venue for these counties. Kilkenny came to the final as defending champions and also All-Ireland champions. The Black and Amber had one trick Limerick could not quite master in these years which was the ability to get over Cork.

In 1983 Limerick would lose a replay narrowly in Páirc Uí Chaoimh to Cork. They lost by some misfortune in 1984 at the Gaelic Grounds and again by two points on Leeside in 1985. With a rub of the green this could have been a Limerick success story. The 1983 League final was another example of the Shannonsiders’ tendency to come up just a little short. Dick O’Hara getting to grips with Joe McKenna was a highlight of that game though the absence of Brian Cody at full-back was a hint at what was around the corner as his career came to an end a year later through injury. This certainly had the feel of a contest that deserved to be reprised on a bigger day as Limerick fell short by just two points. Under the current championship system you can imagine these counties playing out a few stirring contest in the early to mid-80s.

Even at that it was their first meeting in a final since 1947. This 36-year gap is more noteworthy when you note that Limerick played in five consecutive League finals 1970-74 while Kilkenny had the capacity to play in every All-Ireland final 1971-75. Their League semi-final meeting in 1972, won by Limerick, was as close as it got. That 1947 decider was a novelty as it was only the second League final since 1941. All National League activity was deferred during the years of the ‘emergency’ when petrol, and much else, was rationed. The return of the National League must have signalled a welcome return to normality. However, there was little normal about the circumstances of Limerick-Kilkenny in Croke Park for the 1947 National League final replay.

The match was played on 8th March 1948 as a longer-term consequence of the chaotic winter of early 1947 which lived long in the memory of those who experienced it. The fifty days before St Patrick’s day saw thirty days of snow, sometimes remarkably heavy snowfall. Only activity necessary for survival did not come to a halt. The knock-on effect on the hurling League is unsurprising in that context. Limerick’s corner-back Jim Sadlier had been part of the Cork panel that won the 1941 League though he was not alone on that Limerick team in having pre-war and post-war medals. Some relative old stagers like Jackie Power and John Mackey could make the same claim. The team also included John Mulcahy of Cappamore who died as recently as 2021. The current Limerick team would find little unusual in such a League final given that they played an All-Ireland final in December. Their challenge is to match their predecessors with a first League final win over Kilkenny since that day in 1948. History’s pen is poised.