Limerick v Clare: Can Munster hurling final deliver a game as good ...

IN the aftermath of the epic Clare-Limerick Munster final in 2022, Anthony Daly wrote in his Irish Examiner column that the match “will go down as possibly the greatest Munster final ever”.

Every match is of its time and era, which always makes comparisons difficult, but, fully accepting that reality, trying to compare ‘great matches’ is still instructive in examining nostalgia.

In the popular imagination, time often reinforces the status of past players and past games, as if their feats from the past become more glorious as the years pass.

That can have such a powerful influence on memory that some of those past matches will always occupy a certain status in the mind’s eye. The present becoming more relevant has altered that general outlook because access to old footage is so much easier now. Hurling may not necessarily seem better back then than it was often deemed to be.

GREATEST

Nostalgia has always been that powerful collaborator in framing history, but trying to ascertain whether the 2022 final was the greatest hasn’t stretched the imagination that much when the 2004 Munster final between Cork and Waterford occupied that space.

For many hurling people, that 2004 epic was regarded as hurling’s greatest game, a spell-binding classic which Waterford edged with 14 men. And yet, the multitude of brilliant games played ever since, particularly in the recent seasons has forced a revision of that 2004 final’s status in the minds of many of those hurling people who had always placed it at the peak.

The numbers game has certainly changed the whole dynamic. When Cork and Limerick played out an epic contest in mid-May, the highly respected and decorated writer Denis Walsh wrote that “a better hurling game than this is unimaginable”. It was hard to argue with that assessment.

The sheer volume of numbers backed up Walsh’s case. It was the highest scoring Munster championship match ever played. As well as having the highest accumulated score of 72 points, it also produced the highest number of flags – 60. Incredible.

Of course, it doesn’t always take high volumes of scores to validate a match, or to rank the overall quality or wellbeing of a sport. 

The 2004 Munster final had 41 scores, 19 less than the recent Cork-Limerick game, but only six less than the 2022 Munster final (after normal-time).

Cork’s style at the time marked the beginning of hurling’s new evolution, but it was a different type of game back then, with more 50-50 contests. Hurling is far more claustrophobic now but that 2022 final certainly felt like a throwback, with such a fusion of old-school man-on-man battles waged all over the field matched with skill levels that defied the logic and time in which they were executed.

It was chaos from the first whistle of that Munster final two years ago when the sliotar was as precious as a bar of gold. Anytime anyone had the ball, they nearly needed an armoured car to protect it.

And on it went, the game defined by relentless tackling, brilliance and intensity. It was physicality unlike anything ever seen before in hurling, which also demanded a standard of execution unlike anything witnessed before.

Seamus Flanagan was an obvious starting point. Flanagan had 17 possessions. He was only in possession for a total of 29 seconds, scoring 0-8 from play in that time. Flanagan had a whopping total of 12 shots. The total amount of time Flanagan was on the ball during his eight converted points was just 12.1 seconds.

Tony Kelly, who ran Flanagan close for man-of-the-match, scored 0-7 from play from 14 possessions. 

Kelly only had the ball in his hand for 26 seconds in total. Kelly scored six of his seven points within a timeframe of just 10 seconds.

Do those numbers fully show why the match was such a classic? Or is it because that level of crazed ferocity and intensity always appeals to the masses?

EPIC

Epic rivalries also appeal to the masses, like Cork-Waterford in the 2000s, and Clare-Limerick now. Cork and Waterford met in nine massive games in six seasons between 2002-’07, while Clare and Limerick have already clashed in five huge championship matches in the last three seasons, with Sunday’s final being a sixth.

However, the split was more even between Cork and Waterford, with both sides sharing four wins and one draw, while Limerick are 3-1 ahead, with one draw.

In the two finals they met in Munster, in 2003 and 2004, Cork and Waterford won one each whereas Limerick have won the last two finals.

Séamus Flanagan of Limerick is tackled by Rory Hayes and Conor Cleary of Clare during 2022 Munster final at FBD Semple Stadium. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Last year’s Munster final was nowhere near the quality, drama or intensity of the 2022 decider, but it was still absolutely compelling, tense, relentless, gripping and thrilling. A free that should have been awarded but wasn’t would have taken the match to extra-time.

Now as the sides face off again on Sunday, meeting in a third Munster final in-a-row for the first time, history is beckoning at every turn.

Limerick are looking to cement their absolute grip on the province with a historic sixth successive title. Clare are chasing a first Munster success in 26 years. Clare are also after something unique and rare; the 1995 Munster final win was the only time Clare ever beat Limerick in a Munster final.

Once the madness starts again on Sunday, Clare will hunt Limerick down with everything they have. And Limerick will desperately want to protect everything they have with all they have.