If Carlsberg did hurling…they would have done this

IF CARLSBERG did hurling… I always used to refer back to a memorable afternoon by the banks 21 years ago when Clare and Tipperary’s hurling rivalry was at its peak and they loved to hate one another. Those looking on loved it more. It was toxic masculinity, but in a hurling sense of the term and it was magnificent.

The back story was that it was the eighth time the sides had played against each other in the championship in as many years and time had marched on from the glory years of the 1990s when the team that Ger Loughnane built changed the hurling world. Forever.

It was Cyril Lyons’ time, with the Ruan man being the first member of the Munster and All-Ireland winning alumni of 1995 to step up to try and keep the train moving — other members of this famous club in Anthony Daly, Ger O’Loughlin and Davy Fitzgerald would follow that same track, all the way through to Brian Lohan in the present day.

Cyril’s first day was explosive, with the tone being set in the earliest minutes when Ollie Baker sized up young turk Eoin Kelly and hit him with a shoulder that should really have sent him hurtling back home towards Mullinahone. 

Instead, Kelly bounced up with the sliotar still in hand and hurled away — in the same way that Ali came off the ropes against George Foreman with his jaw intact and boxed away — and ultimately helped land the blows that knocked Clare out of the Munster and All-Ireland races that year.

It was an extraordinary cameo from an extraordinary duel that was about much more than hurling — it was more elemental and had a much deeper meaning than the sight of men and their camáns fighting over a sliotar.

It was intoxicating and suffocating in equal measure and seemed more like a duel to death than sport. This was what it must have been like when the great, the good and the commoners packed into the 50,000-capacity Coliseum back in the centuries.

There were nearly 50,000 in Páirc Uí Chaoimh that day and among them were a group of dignitaries from the Orient sitting beside the Press Box.

When Baker thundered towards Kelly they were open-mouthed and in awe — then they chattered in high-pitched excited voices, because they’d never seen anything like it and probably never have since, unless they’re now disciples of GAA Go and were looking in on Sunday.

I thought of those dignitaries from the Far East on Sunday afternoon in Thurles, because if Carlsberg did hurling — apart from the pints aplenty that were being sold and consumed from Liberty Square all the way down Semple Stadium itself — the director’s cut of a Carlsberg ad to the power of hurling would have much better material to work with when compared to 2001.

In the bowels of the Killanin Stand, where the hacks gathered afterwards to get the ‘cúpla focail’ from the victors and the vanquished, it was RTÉ’s Martin Kiely that summed it up best when he said, “it was like the old times”.

It was like old times in the sense that it was the Munster Championship in all its stripped-down and unvarnished glory — none of the sideshow antics that reduced the Leinster Final to a farce that was more about a handshake between former friends who are now foes and then the game itself played out in a Croke Park that wasn’t even one-fifth full and was awful to watch — as two teams squared up to each other like never before.

We didn’t think that would be possible after the game in Ennis, but this was on a different level.

The hits, the scores, even the misses — that overwhelming sense that every touch and every possession that was won or lost could win or lose the game. The 90 minutes was like the last 90 seconds of the famous All-Ireland football semi-final between Dublin and Kerry 45 years ago — I know this because I was at both.

Back then Micheál O’Hehir screamed about the “tension and the anxiety of the whole lot of them” as the Dubs worked that wonder move up the field from Sean Doherty in his own square that involved Bobby Doyle, David Hickey and Tony Hanahoe before Bernard Brogan drilled to the net to win the game.

On this day, “tension and the anxiety” was there for 90 minutes, and even before a sliotar was struck. It was during this preamble that Ennistymon’s very own troubadours, The Stunning, had their signature tune of ‘Brewing Up A Storm’ pelted out from the four corners of Semple — in truth it should have been left playing throughout the game on a continuous loop as a backing track to this contest, because the two teams did as the song title says. 

“This is the stuff your father and grandfather would have told you about. This is the Munster Championship,” gushed Anthony Daly on The Sunday Game, borrowing a line from his old boss and the professor emeritus of Clare hurling, Ger Loughnane.

Thing is, those fathers and grandfathers were nearly always talking about Tipperary and Cork; about Christy Ring or Jimmy Doyle, or Jack Lynch or Jimmy Kennedy……

They weren’t talking about Limerick unless they went all the way back to Mick Mackey or Jackie Power, while they were never really talking about Clare.

But Clare and Limerick 2022 has been better than anything our fathers or grandfathers saw back in their day and much better, because of where they’ve taken us over the two games in Ennis and Thurles. It’s been some ride.

There’s the shuddering intensity of it all — the collisions that make rugby and grid-iron players with their shoulder pads look like shrinking violets in comparison, but above all, it’s because of the skill on show.

For Limerick Seamus Flanagan’s eight points in his man-of-the-match performance, while the scoring contributions of Tom Morrissey, Gearóid Hegarty and Declan Hannon also wowed at various intervals.

Then there was David Fitzgerald and his five points and Ryan Taylor providing yet more proof that he has come of age this season and is Clare’s most improved player.

Then there’s Tony Kelly who hit 0-13 — there’s a video doing the rounds on social media of the sideline cut he scored to bring the game to extra-time. It was shot from the back of the Ó Riain Stand and as Kelly’s effort goes between the posts you can hear the Clare shouts echo. Hair-raising stuff.

Martin Kiely was right – “it was like the old times”.

“Tony is just one of those talents,” said Brian Lohan afterwards.  “He’s ours, he’s just massive for us; he’s our captain, he’s exceptional and we’re just lucky to have him,” he added. Hurling is lucky to have him and there’s nothing more to be said, because it’s been said many times — we can only hope that Tony the Great won’t be like Alexander the Great over 2,000 years ago, who began crying because he had no more worlds to conquer.

Tony Kelly has – Munster may be gone, but the bigger prize of the All-Ireland is still there. 

“We’ll see you in the All-Ireland final,” roared Limerick supporter Niall Hehir, who lives in Clonlara, when spotting his work colleague in the Limerick Language Centre and Clare supporter Deirdre Honan as they walked out of The National concert in Limerick Docklands the night of the match.

Others were saying it as they streamed out of Semple Stadium a few hours earlier.

Make no mistake, that’s what Clare are working towards now – it couldn’t and wouldn’t be any other way.

And by the way, Carlsberg have been making their beer since 1847- the same year that Citizen Michael Cusack was born, from where he went on to save hurling from extinction. 

It really should become the official beer to all the hurling supporters out there.

It’s probably the best game in the world, after all. 

Those open-mouthed dignitaries who came all the way from the Orient to see the game of hurling for themselves in 2001 would tell you that. It’s time they came back to see how much better it is in 2022.