Re-igniting past memories

KILLINAN END

Heading to Croke Park for the All-Ireland semi-final against Kilkenny on July 6th last was an exciting prospect given the promise of the occasion and the storied opposition.

For this writer there was a special edge to watching the Blue & Gold take to the field that day. As chance dictated, it was exactly half a century since the first recollection of seeing Tipp play in the Senior championship. Back in 1975 Tipp hosted Limerick in the Munster semi-final at Semple Stadium. This was a rawer stadium before the addition of the second stand and terracing in preparation for the Centenary hurling final of 1984.

Of course, in hindsight we now see this as part of Tipp's years in the doldrums. At the time though this wasn't apparent, at least not yet. No fewer than ten of the successful 1971 All-Ireland winning team started that day against Limerick. The three previous exits from the championship post-1971 had been a replay and a couple of one-point losses. Consolation taken in narrow losses to successful teams while seductive can be hollow. Maybe in its own way the writing was on the wall if with so many All-Ireland medal holders we had still not achieved lift-off four years on from glory days.

Nonetheless, there was reasonable optimism after a decent League campaign with just the one round-robin defeat in a rare visit by Kilkenny to Leahy Park, Cashel. Ultimately it fell short only at the final hurdle against Galway at the Gaelic Grounds. Traveling with a neighbour to Thurles for the Munster semi-final remains etched in the memory. On the journey it was remarked that Babs Keating said if Tipp beat Limerick, they would win the All-Ireland. A little fact-checking certainly clarifies a hazy memory. Back in 1975 taking exception to whatever Babs said had not yet become a stock response. Just as well. He was quite dismissive of Cork’s chances in the championship which at one level looks an absurd misjudgement given that that county was about to embark on a run of five consecutive Munster Championship wins.

However, we will do Babs the service of allowing for context. His argument against Cork was the number of dual players they had. At that time Martin O’Doherty, Ray Cummins, Denis Allen, Denis Coughlan, Brian Murphy and Jimmy Barry Murphy, had the potential to start on both Cork senior teams. This factor most certainly dates the events to long ago. Babs may have fallen into the trap, as did many others, of assuming Cork’s footballers would have a deep run in the championship. So high was Cork’s star that even Mick O’Dwyer was reduced to suggesting that “the better team doesn’t always win but the best team on the day does”.

Yet, a loss to Offaly in a football tournament played in Carlow on this very same day by Cork’s footballers might have been a straw in the wind. Another sign of the times is that both Offaly and Cork played championship the following weekend and lost. The emerging Kerry team would beat the footballing enthusiasm out of these players over a few years undermining the premise of Babs’ contention that dual demands would do for Cork hurlers.

Babs himself had not worn the county jersey since the Munster semi-final a year earlier against Clare when he broke his jaw towards the end of the game. His addition to the team engendered optimism. On a blisteringly hot day in Thurles he was electric, scoring 2-3 from play. Tipp’s other great star up front, Francis Loughnane, was no slouch either with 1-3 from play. Still, it was not enough as Tipp let a six-point half-time advantage slip and despite Tipp out-scoring the Shannonsiders by six points from play, two late Limerick scores drew the game.

The Irish Independent’ s John D Hickey was excited about the displays of Keating, Pat Hartigan – who drew comparison with iconic Wexford full-back Nick O’Donnell, Jim Keogh and Jack Dunlea, while suggesting that the Tipp selectors could feel smug at the performance of the recalled Séamus Shinnors. Incidentally that was John D Hickey’s last day as a reporter at a Munster championship game in Thurles, his retirement coming the following December.

Hickey noted that the replay was fixed for two weeks later with the Munster Final the following Sunday. In another comment that has aged strangely – not necessarily badly - he claimed that one-week gap “would be asking too much of amateur players”. Maybe he had a point as Limerick, deserving winners of the replay, failed to raise a significant gallop against Cork in the final. But you’d wonder what he’d make of the week-on-week nature of today’s championship. As the last man standing of those who travelled in that car fifty years ago to Thurles listening to wholesale admiration for Devaney, Jimmy Finn, and the Kennys, one can imagine easily how much that company would have gloried in the current bunch of Tipp players.