57 YEARS WAITING TO WAKE THE WEST
Emotion bubbled and then finally burst as the whistle was blown on a thriller and Galway got their hands on the title
THIS is what a 57year-old dam of emotion bursting looks like. Éamonn Cregan stands over the last significant puck of the game but at that stage he and Croke Park are already in danger of being swallowed up by a tidal wave of celebration.
From the very start, when Bernie Forde kicked the sliotar into the back of the Limerick net, the men from the west could smell the end of a hurling famine.
And long before this final came down the home stretch, they were clambering in over wire in scenes that, not least thanks to official Croke Park policy, we will never see again.
Come to that, they had not seen anything quite like it back then, either, and when the fans invaded the pitch (as Galway goalkeeper Michael Connolly pucked out the ball after Éamonn Cregan’s converted free) that dam burst.
‘The scenes that followed were never before witnessed at Cork Park, or any other sports field in Ireland — not even when Down won the All-Ireland football title in 1960,’ proclaimed Paddy Downey in the Irish Times, whose gift to paint pictures with ink served him well.
‘Within seconds of the end, the pitch was filled with thousands of delirious Galway supporters and the stands all around seemed to tremble with the sound of their cheering.
‘But that sound was a great rumble rather than a peal of joy, for all those voices were choked with emotion,’ he added.
None, perhaps, more than Joe McDonagh who became the first impact substitute before the wider GAA world even knew such a thing existed.
And it wasn’t because he was a game-changer — the previous year’s captain and the future president of the GAA stayed on the bench for the whole game — but when he got hold of the microphone at the end to offer up a rendition of The West’s Awake, it provided All-Ireland hurling final day with one of its all-time iconic moments.
It was the start of a fire that would burn brightly for Galway, as later that decade they would return to win back-to-back All-Irelands.
In that sense, this 1980 win, it could be argued, blazed a trail for a whole new generation, but at the time they were more concerned about doing it for themselves.
With good reason, too; this team had been coming for an age, losing to Kilkenny by 12 points in the 1975 final and by seven points in the 1979 decider.
It was a long way back to 1923 for the last time Liam MacCarthy went west and, on this day, they were determined to draw a line under their misery.
If Forde’s early goal gave them the perfect start, PJ Molloy’s second seven minutes later provided the kind of match-winning buffer they needed.
And need it they did, as Limerick came driving back at them with ferocious intent, sparked by Cregan’s 10th-minute goal.
As ever, he was the star of the Limerick show – Cregan finished the final as the top scorer with 2-7 — but despite his very best efforts the Munster men just could not rein Galway in.
They kept the lead right through and early in the second half when they stretched it out to seven — 2-10 to 1-6 — it looked as if they would cruise home.
In a perverse way, it would have been a bit of a mood-dampener had that happened — a 57-year wait demanded that the occasion should remain sauced with tension to the very end and a hard-fighting Limerick made sure of that.
Two second-half goals from Joe McKenna and a converted Cregan penalty nine minutes apart kept Limerick in the game, but those goals were diluted in importance by the impact of Forde.
In between those two potential hammer-blows, he struck for three points which allowed Galway to breath easily.
Those were the scores which morphed into a statement of defiance.
This time there would no stepping back.
The West was truly awake. GALWAY: M Connelly; C Hayes, N McInerney, J Cooney; S Linnane, S Silke, S Coen; M Connolly (F Gantly, 60), S Mahon; F Burke, Joe Connolly, PJ Molloy (J Ryan, 67); B Forde, John Connolly, N Lane. Scorers: B Forde 1-5, Joe Connolly 0-4, 0-3 frees), PJ Molloy 1-0, N Lane 0-3, John Connolly 0-2, J Ryan 0-1. LIMERICK: T Quaid; D Murray, L Enright, Dom Punch; L O’Donoghue, M Carroll (P Herbert, 44), S Foley; J Carroll, David Punch; P Fitzmaurice, J Flanagan (B Carroll, 34), W Fitzmaurice (E Grimes, 60); V O’Connor, J McKenna, E Cregan. Scorers: E Cregan 2-7 (1-5 frees), J McKenna 1-1, B Carroll 0-1. Referee: N O’Donoghue (Dublin).