Culture clash adding spice to intriguing endgame...
WITH roughly ten minutes to go in the doubleheader at Semple Stadium, you could almost hear the hum of revisionism in people’s heads. Is Munster hurling the only show in town? Not quite. At that point, Cork were already dispatched from Championship 2022, the never-ending wait for a senior All-Ireland beginning to feel like exactly that.
A generation of players has passed by since Seán Óg Ó hAilpín lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup in 2005, pouring his heart out, as Gaeilge, in memorable fashion.
It was ever more galling that the team who knocked them out – Henry Shefflin’s Galway – deserved their share of criticism after their part in a scratchy, free-ridden Leinster final they lost to an off form Kilkenny team.
Cork’s missed chances will haunt them over the long wait for next year to come around – there was a potential 3-12 alone that went begging in the first half – Clare too almost came a cropper against the third-placed team in the Leinster qualifying group.
Approaching the hour mark in the second quarter-final, the memory of that epic Munster final against Limerick was fading fast.
Wexford were six to the good, mainly courtesy of a smash-bangwallop double-goal grab from
“At this stage,
there are no easy teams”
Mark Fanning and Lee Chin, the goalkeeper’s long-range free fumbled to the net by Eibhear Quilligan before the Wexford captain slammed the ball home as well.
Right then, it was easy to think that maybe, just maybe, the Munster championship hype hadn’t been fully justified.
And then Clare turned on the taps from there to the finish to remind the crowd – Bill Murray included – why they had been rightly hailed for their part in a Munster final for the ages.
Clare outscored their opponents by 1-9 to 0-2 from the hour mark on, to secure Brian Lohan’s team an All-Ireland semi-final meeting with Kilkenny on Saturday week with Galway meeting champions Limerick on the Sunday.
Tony Kelly and Shane O’Donnell caught fire when needed and the impact of Aron Shanagher and Shane Meehan off the bench was huge. At full flight during that run of scores, the feeling resurfaced that the championship could yet end with Part 3 of a LimerickClare trilogy at Croke Park on hurling’s showpiece day.
Clare manager Brian Lohan paid tribute to the challenge of Wexford as he praised his players.
‘They’ve put in a huge amount of work over the last while and were very disappointed with being beaten in the Munster final and it was always going to be a tough game for us against a really good opponent. I’m just happy to come out the right side of the result.
‘In this competition it’s tough. There’s no easy teams. Whether it’s Munster or Leinster or wherever, any of the teams that are in the competition, they demand so much respect and they’re working so hard. They’ve got such threats all over the field. It’s really tight margins,’ he added.
This pair had history too. Even when Clare went on that glorious backdoor odyssey to All-Ireland success in 2013, their title defence in 2014 came to an end in Wexford Park in another thrilling encounter that went to extra time.
The Munster versus Leinster culture war in hurling is a familiar one, especially when the former feels like it is the main event.
There is no doubting that the Leinster competition has lacked the same cut and thrust and quality this year, in part because the expansion to a six-team group has diluted things slightly and led to a few one-sided encounters.
But it also allowed Westmeath to develop and get a huge result in their modern history by drawing with Wexford in Mullingar.
And Wexford manager Darragh Egan was right to cut a bullish figure at his team’s contribution to the season. I’d say we did more than put it up to Clare. We had a 16-game run this year and we only lost three games.
‘But ultimately we finished the year with no silverware.
‘We’re bitterly disappointed we didn’t get over the line because we came here thinking we were going to beat Clare and we were very confident.’
The difference between the Leinster and Munster finals was something Shefflin even alluded to in his post-match interview as he contemplated the prospect of trying to dethrone a Limerick side chasing the county’s first hattrick of senior All-Irelands and a fourth title in five years.
‘We are drained after today, so the thoughts of Limerick straight away – it’s going to be difficult.
‘We know we are the underdogs, they have a fabulous team and we seen what they did in the Munster final. We were so disappointed after our Leinster final performance and to turn on the television and watch the Munster final, my God that’s what we want to try and achieve.
‘But we have a chance, we are there and we will learn a massive amount from today,’ he added.