Hurling reaches a new level in greatest final of all time

Sometimes hurling people can come across as pious when preaching about the unique qualities of their sport, but there can be no doubt that after last Sunday’s epic All-Ireland final between fierce rivals Tipperary and Kilkenny at Croke Park that the game is in a league of its own when played with such unrelenting power, pace and skill.

This was the greatest game of hurling I have ever seen. Never mind the heart-stopping drama and the fact that the result was in doubt until the very end, Sunday’s pulsating showdown was also laced with extraordinary individual deeds, the greatest exhibition of score-taking ever seen at this level in September and players pushing their bodies to the absolute limit in pursuit of victory.

Maybe, we thought the same when these two teams also served up extraordinary battles for supremacy in 2009 and ’10, while last year’s drawn All-Ireland final between Clare and Cork will live long in the memory too, but those great matches were all eclipsed by what unfolded at GAA headquarters last weekend. This was as close to hurling perfection as made no difference.

Ultimately, it was the brilliant, sustained accuracy of the rival combatants which stamped the 2014 decider apart. Tipperary, for instance, created 31 point-scoring opportunities and, incredibly, converted 28 of them, often under serious pressure. I can never remember a team only having three wides in an All-Ireland final, but Tipperary took their marksmanship to a new level last Sunday.

Kilkenny only registered six wides on a day they landed 22 points and engineered three goals of the highest quality. They needed them too such was the damage the Tipperary snipers were doing at the other end, but hurling’s greatest team again came up with the answers to survive a Trojan effort from their neighbours in a magnificent contest which had the capacity crowd of over 82,000 enthralled from start to finish.

The accuracy of both teams was just out of this world, with a quartet of players shooting four points or more from play in an All-Ireland final for the first time ever. Tipperary’s John O’Dwyer, Seamus Callanan and Noel McGrath raised 14 white flags between them, while Man of the Match Richie Hogan, who really cut loose when moved to the forty, had a half dozen points to his name at the finish. O’Dwyer and Callanan also added two frees each to their tallies in a decider which set a new benchmark for overall hurling artistry.

In one way, Tipperary did so many things right in amassing a superb tally of 1-28 that they must be wondering how they still didn’t manage to win the game and, in the process, end the county’s recent torment against the Cats, but this generation of Kilkenny hurlers don’t confirm to normal standards even if a couple of their longer serving players were out on their feet at the finish.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.