Maher can star as Kilkenny and Tipperary sides prepare for first final clash
First-ever Kilkenny v Tipperary decider
“We finally got the breakthrough in 2017”
THE day of the AIB All-Ireland club hurling semi-finals turned into a tale of the unexpected.
If it wasn’t the sight of Derry champions Slaughtneil going toe-to-toe with All-Ireland and Kilkenny kingpins Ballyhale Shamrocks in a firecracker of a first game, it was the sight of Brendan Maher of Borris-Ileigh writing himself into club folklore by sticking the ball over the bar with a hurley whose bás had split in two.
And then the kicker, just to round the whole afternoon off: the result of the two games set up a first All-Ireland decider that splits along the familiar county lines of Kilkenny v Tipperary.
That information alone required a double take. Really? It was hard to credit that in the proud history of a competition that has been on the go since 1971, two of the game’s traditional ‘Big Three’ and who defined the last decade and more, had yet to meet in a senior decider. Until now.
It just shows how the club scene moves to its own rhythm.
There is nothing strange you might say about seeing a Kilkenny hurling team top of the roll of honour, the Shamrocks’ seven AllIrelands taking them well ahead of the rest, Birr (Offaly) and Portumna (Galway) on four titles.
But there’s a touch of new money to the old money Ballyhale story – the last four of the club’s titles have come in the space of 12 golden years – 2007, 2010, 2015 and 2019. It wasn’t that long since Birr had actually set the record themselves.
When the roll of honour is broken down alongside most wins per county, it becomes even more interesting. Galway top the leaderboard with 13 titles, spread across seven clubs. Then comes Kilkenny on 12 titles, across just four clubs. Next is Cork on nine titles – Blackrock (3), St Finbarr’s (2), Glen Rovers (2), Midleton (1), Newtownshandrum (1)
And there, sandwiched between fourth placed Offaly (four titles, all Birr), and Antrim (two titles, Loughgiel Shamrocks) is Tipperary on three titles, the self-declared home of hurling.
That low number seems out of kilter with even the last decade when Tipperary players such as Padraic Maher, Brendan Maher, Noel McGrath and Seamus Callanan would have been mainstays on any team of the decade.
Now Maher gets his chance to cap a series of wonder displays with the club by climbing up the steps of the Hogan Stand for the second time in five months after summer heroics with Tipperary.
What makes the strike rate so hard to fathom too is that Roscrea were the very first winners of the competition back in 1970-71.
In 1986, the success of Kilruane MacDonagh’s was followed up by the colourful odyssey of Borris-Ileigh, nobody in Tipperary knowing at the time that it would be 33 years before the champions from the county would even make another final appearance.
Someone with All-Ireland medals with Tipperary, Dan McCormack of Borris-Ileigh talked about how far away the club dream felt. ‘There were dark days in Borris-Ileigh hurling over the last 10 or 15 years. I remember when our biggest trouble was getting past a quarter-final. We lost to Drom on two or three occasions and there was a huge rivalry with Drom and Inch at the time, and there still is.
‘Then we finally got the breakthrough in Johnny Kelly’s first year in 2017 and we took a huge beating off Thurles Sarsfields so, again, just when you kind of felt we were making a breakthrough, we were well back down the ladder again but then this year things started to click.
‘Borris-Ileigh were the last team to actually win one back in 1987, so 33 years for a club team in Tipperary probably doesn’t reflect too well on Tipperary club hurling. We’re not here enough to form a rivalry with any club team.’
And yet the pitch tomorrow afternoon will be filled with so many recognisable faces that squared off against each other for their counties in the All-Ireland final last August. Ballyhale have TJ Reid, Colin Fennelly, and Adrian Mullen along with others like Michael Fennelly who have a wealth of county experience.
The Tipperary-Kilkenny dynamic will only serve to add another layer to this unique meeting.