AN estimated 8,000 people turned up at last Wednesday night’s Kilkenny hurling training session at Nowlan Park in the build-up to Sunday’s 125th all-Ireland hurling final between the Cats and Stone Throwers.
By any standards that is a remarkable attendance at a training spin, representing just under one tenth of the total population of this hurling-mad county, where a hurl is considered part and parcel of most four-year-olds daily school-going requirements.
The words hurling and religion sit compatibly in Kilkenny. Camán and sliotar command a reverence in the county akin to that of Mother Church. Hurling is an absolute obsession from Goresbridge to Geatabawn, from Mooncoin to Muckalee.
Come Monday and, barring a first drawn outcome in 51 years, it will either be tears of joy or sorrow in the land of black and amber. If it is celebration time it will mean a record 33rd all-Ireland for the Cats, a record 22 successive championship wins and a record five-in-a-row.
A Tipperary win would be their 26th success and the attendant honour of being the county which spiked Brian Cody’s five-in-a-row ambitions.
That all-Ireland replay of 1959, in which Waterford beat Kilkenny 3-12 to 1-10, was the first final I attended, having been considered too young as a nine-year-old to attend the Kilkenny-Waterford decider of 1957.
Since then I have borne witness to all seven championship meetings between Kilkenny and Tipperary, which stands at 4-3 in favour of the Cats. Noreside triumphed in 1967, 2002, 2003 and 2009 while Tipp held sway in 1964, 1971 and 1991.
I would pinpoint that 1964 thrashing by Tipp (5-13 to 2-8) as marking a watershed for Kilkenny hurling.
The next time the counties clashed on final day in 1967, Kilkenny prevailed by 3-8 to 2-7. Although Tipp won the all-Irelands of 1971 and ’91 by three points and four points respectively, the ’00s belonged to Kilkenny.
The black and amber recorded three straight championship wins over blue and gold in the semi-finals of 2002 (1-25 to 2-12) and 2003 (3-18 to 0-15) – before rounding off the decade with the 2009 final victory of 2-22 to 0-23.
It is a truly remarkable statistic that in the past 45 years of championship hurling, these counties – two of the three giants of the ash – have met so irregularly. In all they have met in 15 all-Ireland finals, another statistical imponderable given their pre-eminence in the game, with Tipp ahead by 9-6.
So Sunday’s meeting will only be the 16th time in 125 years of all-Ireland finals that these most serious of cross-county and cross-provincial rivals have met on hurling’s defining day of the year.
But as we stand on threshold of the 2010 final there can be no denying that Kilkenny and Tipperary are the country’s two top hurling teams.
Come Sunday Tipperary will have waited a full 365 days in search of redemption for last year’s sickening setback. Liam Sheedy’s men are dreaming of scalding the Cats of 2010 and parading Liam MacCarthy in Liberty Square, Thurles – the town which is cradle to the game – on Monday night.
Manager Sheedy has also expressed the wish that ‘King Henry’ will play for Kilkenny on Sunday, on the basis that a team has to measure itself against the best.
And the Ballyhale Shamrocks man is the best in the business.
Should he line out Henry will have played in all 22 championship outings since Kilkenny’s run of success started against Westmeath in June 2006.
He, and all Kilkenny, will be aware of his place in hurling history as he seeks to equal the eight all-Ireland medal haul of Christy Ring and John Doyle.
Together with other miracle man John Tennyson they underwent a programme of intense treatment with Limerick physio Ger Hartmann and have a fighting chance of playing.
If they do, you’d fear for Tipperary’s chances.
All-Ireland HC final preview: Kilkenny v Tipperary, Sunday, 3.30pm, ref Michael Wadding