What’s in a record?

Killinan End

Perhaps the finest tribute that can be paid to our successful under 20 team is that they made it look relatively straightforward.

Even allowing for the remarkable skill levels of the team, it is never going to be like that against our opponents in Black and Amber. They will always be good hurlers as well as extremely competitive and ambitious. That said, the precise form of Kilkenny ahead of the game was difficult to assess. It is now, and has been for quite some time, patently obvious that there is a gulf between the provinces.

This was clear back in the 2000s when Kilkenny were very successful but the other teams in Leinster struggled in the qualifiers against Munster teams. It has become manifest in a different way in recent times. Kilkenny have lost eleven of the county’s last twelve All-Ireland Finals in the three main grades. This suggests that they have been reaching finals with less than vintage teams. Nevertheless, reputation alone and a deep tradition will make them opponents to be wary of always.

Much was made of home advantage in the lead up to the game. While Tipp were regarded as favorites it was generally assumed that the venue would be a levelling force. Who knows, perhaps it was? Maybe a more comprehensive win would have happened elsewhere, but another view might be that home advantage is not all it's cracked up to be. It is not difficult to imagine that somewhere like Páirc Uí Chaoimh with 30,0000 Cork supporters baying for blood would be a challenging environment. However, Nowlan Park was a more relaxed setting with the Tipp support almost certainly outnumbering the home crowd.

This is a grade which our county can look on with pride at this stage. The county has played in some 21 finals, winning a dozen. Pound for pound it is probably the most impressive record. While Cork have won 14 titles, half of them were during the first decade of the competition's existence. This is not to suggest that a title won in 1966 is any less valuable than one won in 2025 because it most certainly is not. But it does imply a marginally greater consistency by Tipp especially when you factor in this Cork have reached only eighteen finals, again half of which happened in the thirteen years since the competition’s establishment in 1964. The other nine are stretched over almost 40 years.

Kilkenny’s record is very good too with a dozen titles won but it does appear that they have suffered from the condition alluded to earlier - the ability to reach an All-Ireland Final with teams that might not have made it through Munster. Another stark example of this surely is Galway who despite winning ten titles have lost a dozen finals, their All-Ireland semi-final placing down the years surely a factor here. No doubt when Kilkenny or Galway had a very good team their path to the final was no burden to carry but clearly they have not always merited the theoretical status of one of the two best teams in the country when they were in an All-Ireland Final.

One record stands out above all others which surely ends any lingering delusional argument that there is not a wide gulf between the provinces. Wexford has played in some thirteen finals and won just the once. Indeed, Wexford has won Leinster on seventeen occasions so have been beaten in a semi-final four times, including a 2013 defeat to Antrim to ensure that county’s only final appearance. It is in many respects a lamentable record at national level for a county that has done relatively well in provincial finals. For context, they have just one provincial title fewer than Cork but an All-Ireland record that could not be much further removed from the Rebel County who, as it happens, beat Wexford in five finals between 1966 and 1973.

However, if Wexford were to win just the one All-Ireland it was an impressive one. In September 1965 they lined out at Nowlan Park against Tipperary, the defending Under-21 champions. On a teeming wet day of chaotic crowd management in a now familiar venue – Nowlan Park – Tipp were dethroned quite comprehensively. It was a nine-point margin in the end. What must have made that sweeter for Wexford is that only the previous Sunday they had three Under-21s starting in the Senior final when Tipp team with a galaxy of stars plucked their wings mercilessly to fashion a twelve-point win.

There’s often much talk of what Seniors might emerge from under-age teams and posterity is good to Wexford in this respect as well. No fewer than seven of the defeated Tipp team – Len Gaynor, Noel O’Gorman, Babs Keating, John Costigan, PJ Ryan, Francis Loughnane, and Séamus Shinnors (for Galway) – would see service in an All-Ireland Senior Final subsequently. Len Gaynor and Babs Keating, of course, had already done so.

The Wexford team was replete with names that would leave a nightmarish mark on Tipp just a few years later in the 1968 All-Ireland Senior Final. Among them were Dan Quigley, Tony Doran, Vincent Staples, Jack Berry, Christy Jacob, and Willie Murphy. They even had a goalkeeper called Mick Jacob who made quite a name for himself in time to come. Their only title maybe, but if any county got as many stars from a winning team as that they’d be happy.