By the end they were making Kilkenny look pretty ordinary.
This is the Kilkenny who Tipperary had managed to beat only once in nine Championship matches before this extraordinary All-Ireland final.
The Kilkenny who were seeking a third All-Ireland in a row and a 12th under the stewardship of Brian Cody. Instead they ended up suffering their heaviest All-Ireland final defeat in more than half a century. After Tipperary beat the Cats 5-13 to 2-8 in 1964, that wonderful side would return to Croke Park 12 months later to win a fourth All-Ireland in five years.
Only one team since, Cody’s Kilkenny of the last decade, has enjoyed such a level of dominance but could the first Sunday of September in 2016 signal a new age of Tipperary excellence.
They might already be hurling’s sole superpower if it were not for those pesky Cats across the border and their relentless thirst for success and silverware. But with this crushing nine-point defeat and Kilkenny’s failure to push back the blue and gold tide it would seem Cody’s next generation is not as golden as those that have come before.
The last of their 22 scores came, as 10 others did, from a TJ Reid dead ball. The 68th minute point was no use to Kilkenny but their desperate search for a goal had been brilliantly repelled, again and again.
The free came as the indomitable Ronan Maher shunted Liam Blanchfield towards the sideline after his team-mates Walter Walsh and Colin Fennelly had been previously denied. Kilkenny were reduced to asking the former rugby player Walsh to truck the ball up to the gainline, but he and Fennelly were just running into a blue and gold wall.
It was happening all day. Early in the second half Fennelly broke inside when James Barry slipped and played a pass to Kevin Kelly. Immediately the corner-forward was attacked by Pádraic Maher and Michael Cahill before Ronan Maher and Seamus Kennedy swarmed in and the latter escaped with the ball.
Kilkenny were looking uncharacteristically slow and ponderous. Tipperary, in contrast, were like rabid animals. A team managed by a former defender in Michael Ryan and coached by former defenders John Madden, Conor Stakelum and Brian Horgan were showing a steely edge, a hunger for battle and a desire to swarm their opponents.
It felt different to 2010’s 4-17 to 1-18 win. That owed so much to an attacking display powered by the hat-trick of Lar Corbett. Six years later you had a – dare we say it -Kilkenny like performance. A willingness to defend from 15 to 1 that allowed the talents of Seamus Callanan, the McGraths and John O’Dwyer to flourish.
The man, the myth, the legend #AllIrelandFinal https://t.co/aSLy2iCLVr
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) September 4, 2016
We have been here before, of course. In 2010 that victory, coupled with the Under-21s’ destruction of Galway in an All-Ireland final a week later, had many predicting a new age of Tipperary dominance. Instead Kilkenny added four more All-Irelands and Tipperary went from Liam Sheedy to Declan Ryan to Eamon O’Shea and then Michael Ryan to try and master Cody.
This time Brendan Maher will be able to celebrate properly. The Tipperary captain and four of his senior team-mates lined out for the U21s against Galway six years ago, but on Sunday night the Borris-Ileigh man was dining with Liam McCarthy and the minor side who had claimed the Irish Press Cup in the curtain-raiser.
First minor/senior All-Ireland double for Tipp since 1949, and just the third ever #GAA
— Jackie Cahill 🖐👍 (@cahilljackie) September 4, 2016
In 2016 the future also looks bright, with teenagers like Noel and John McGrath’s brother Brian, Jake Morris and Mark Kehoe looking like future senior Tipperary hurlers in the making.
Those teenagers dined with Maher and his team on Sunday night and they will have enjoyed their taste of success. In 2010 it was all too fleeting – there are plenty of reasons to believe this time it will be different.
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