Emotionless examination of a famous win

Right, let’s take emotion out of the equation. Discard too the unquantifiable levels of passion required. We’ll treat Carlow’s National Hurling League win over Waterford just like any other game, any other result. Notice your scribe even declined to use the adjective ‘historic’ ahead of the word win? To tell you the truth the victory is really a bit of an inconvenience?! You see this week’s column was to be a Colleges Hurling Special. It was all but written, an odd 'i' to dot, a 't' or two to cross. We had sourced our photo. Was half-thinking of e-mailing the copy to the Sports Editor Sunday morning, thus avoid burning the usual ‘midnight oil’.

Then Carlow go and beat Waterford. Asked during the week how did I think the hurlers would do I replied that Waterford, given their Munster Senior Hurling Championship experience, would probably win by six or seven points. Sunday morning arrived and I’m afraid I got one of those dangerous ‘maybe, just maybe’ premonitions and the expectation of an historic (I couldn’t resist the temptation to use the adjective this time!) victory was the source of butterflies not normally attached to a February fixture. Oops, sorry, we’re taking emotion out of the equation, aren’t we? And this was to be a Colleges Hurling Special wasn’t it? Yes and Yes. Alright, let’s compromise, we’ll construct this week’s column as if it was a Leaving Certificate Paper and ask questions which require answers mainly of a Mathematical nature: Our answers will be further down the column but try not to peek!

QUESTIONS: Topic 1: Starting Fifteens: Question 1: How many of Carlow’s starting fifteen in their 2025 NHL win over Waterford were also on the starting fifteen for Carlow’s Leinster SHC draw with Kilkenny in 2024?

Question 2: How many of Waterford’s starting fifteen in the 2025 NHL defeat to Carlow have played senior championship hurling with the Decies?

Topic 2: Munster Hurling: Question 1: Carlow and Waterford had clashed competitive ash on nine previous occasions ahead of the 2025 fixture. What was the overall score in the ‘rubber’? (Note: for younger readers we should explain that a ‘rubber’ in sporting terms used to refer to a tie-breaker in a variety of sports, including handball, but was also used by old journalists to reveal the win-loss ratio of previous meetings). 

Question 2: The Magic of Munster Hurling might be a topic for discussion given how the media’s sentimental glorification of the event irritates many followers of the game outside the province but that is not what we are concerned with here. What we want to know is Carlow’s record against Munster opposition (Kerry excluded) in inter-county senior hurling? In other words how have Carlow fared against Cork, Tipperary, Limerick, Clare and Waterford?

ANSWERS: Topic 1: Starting Fifteens: Answer 1: 8 (Brian Treacy, Dion Wall, Jack McCullagh, Tony Lawlor, Fiachra Fitzpatrick, Kevin McDonald. Marty Kavanagh and Chris Nolan) Comment: 8 out of 15 is, to use old GAA parlance, ‘half-a-team’. Those numbers add further merit to Carlow’s hurling standing given that two substantial results were written into the record book with so many changes. A rider: ‘The strength of the bench’ is crucial to modern hurling success and proof of this comes from the fact that all five subs called on against Kilkenny featured too against Waterford - Ciaran Whelan, Conor Kehoe, James Doyle starting against the Decies, Paddy Boland and Donagh Murphy coming on both days. That brings the number who featured on the two historic occasions to 13. Completing the jigsaw: Ok, so eight common starters plus the three subs who were promoted for last Sunday’s game adds up to 11, leaving Lorcan Doyle, Paidi O’Shea, John Doyle and Jack Treacy to complete the starting jigsaw with Jon Nolan, Ted Joyce and Evan Kealy entering the fray as subs. The men who started against Kilkenny but did not play against Waterford were Paul Doyle, Niall Bolger. Richie Coady, Sean Joyce and John Michael Nolan.

Answer 2: 11. Yes, eleven. Ok, there was no Aussie or Dessie (Gleeson and Hutchinson) but only Seamus Fitzgerald, Michael Mullaney, Conor Sheahan and Sean Walsh of the starting fifteen had not been steeled in championship hurling though Sheahan had pucks of experience given his sterling contribution to Ballygunner’s Waterford and Munster Club successes.

Topic 2: Munster Hurling: Answer 1: Yes, competitive ash was clashed on nine occasions and Waterford had a 100% record, eight wins in the league, another in the Open Draw Cup, a follow up competition to the 1984 Centenary Cup. Carlow had twice run the Decies to three points, a 4-7 to 4-4 defeat in Dr Cullen Park in November 1961, a 1-13 to 0-13 loss in Carlow Town Hurling Club (Dr Cullen Park was unplayable) in February 1990. There was also a highly respectable performance in Walsh Park, Waterford in November 1962, beaten 3-14 to 4-4 on a day wily Willie Hogan scored 4-1 for Carlow. Alas, there were also some painful days against the men in white and blue, scorelines of 6-8 to 1-5, 6-10 to 1-7, 5-9 to 0-5, 4-9 to 2-5, 5-16 to 0-5 and 3-15 to 0-10 clear evidence of the gulf that existed. But that gulf didn’t exist on Sunday. Indeed, if anything, Carlow could have won by more than the sweet 2-21 to 1-19 final score. Oops, sorry again, no emotion, remember!?

Answer 2: Ok, ok, we didn’t expect an accurate numerical answer here. But we are going to give you an accurate numerical answer! Against Munster’s Famous Five, against the Southern traditional powers of Cork, Tipperary, Limerick, Clare and Waterford, the figures ahead of last Sunday read Played 27, Lost 25. There was one win, one draw. The draw was against Clare in Dr Cullen Park in April 1961 (2-9 to Clare’s 3-6), the win, and what a win it was, came on October 21, 1962, also in Dr Cullen Park, when Rebel Cork - Christy Ring and all! - were beaten 1-17 to 1-12, the home county’s first game as fully fledged seniors having won the All-Ireland Intermediate Championship the previous month. Since that famous win and prior to last Sunday Carlow had clashed ash with the Munster ‘Big 5’ on 19 occasions, 19 straight defeats. Yes, there was an odd ‘moral victory’, like going to Roscrea in the winter of 1959 and running the great Tipperary team team of that era reasonably close (4-7 to 1-9) and then there were the ‘moral victories’ that were actually two agonising narrow defeats: against Clare in the County Grounds in 2010 (1-9 to 0-11), a late long range free for the leveller narrowly missing the target, then against Limerick in their Gaelic Grounds in 2013 (3-10 to 1-13), a late shot for the levelling goal narrowly missing the target.

Last Sunday, Chris Nolan found the target, (and twice located the net!) Mouse’ found the target (after a mini-yip episode!) and when Waterford were trying find the target late on who should respond to our roars of ‘get it out of there’ but rookie Lorcan Doyle, the pride of Burren Rangers, who put in a good tackle beneath the stand, then executed a flick to safety. His third year on the panel, confined to five appearances as a sub in the Walsh Cup, he was presented with a real baptism of fire by manager Tom Mullally and his selectors. But Lorcan had served his apprenticeship, learned the ropes and when the pressure was at it’s highest he had the application and skillset to rise to the occasion, an example for an aspiring young hurler of what is possible to achieve with hard work. And a victory too for the hurling evangelists who got the hurling going in Ballon, Kilbride and the Fighting Cocks, their first flagship hurler starring in Carlow’s first ever victory over Waterford and only their second against one of Munster’s ‘Big Five’. By the by the breakdown of Munster meetings is Waterford (10), Limerick (7), Clare (5), Tipperary (3) and Cork (3).

Examiner’s Note: Your scribe, sorry, your examiner was only two (and a half!) years old when Carlow beat Cork and has been finding it difficult to, as per instruction, keep the emotion out of it. So, feck this for a game of cowboys: the lads were brilliant, fantastic, they were fit, strong, resourceful, brave, courageous and skilful. “Woo hoo ho hoo, Come on the Scallionaters, Ceatharlach Abu!” 

College Capers: A shout out to Ruari Murphy who became just the fifth Carlow man to win a Leinster Senior A Hurling Colleges medal in Nowlan Park, Kilkenny on Wednesday, the Mount Leinster Rangers clubman coming on as a sub for St Kieran’s and scoring a lovely point, making a mazy run that almost led to a goal and putting in an important ‘hoosh’ in the heater-skelter extra-time against City neighbours Kilkenny CBS. It was a superb game, probably the greatest colleges hurling match I have ever seen and that ‘seeing’ dates back 54 years. 1-25 (Kieran’s) to 2-22 after extra-time, it was, alas, decided on penalties but them’s the rules, and the boys in black and white hoops dispatched their their first three shots with accurate aplomb, the CBS failed to find the target. What’s that I hear you say? Who were the other four medal winners? Dan Galavan (St Mullins) with St Kieran’s in 1948, ‘Black’ Billy Walsh (St Mullins), the team captain, and Eddie Aughney (Tullow) with Knockbeg in 1955 and Kevin Kehoe (St Mullins), goalkeeper on the the triumphant Good Counsel, New Ross team in 2009. What’s that, I forgot one? No, Donagh Murphy didn’t win a Leinster medal. He won two All-Ireland medals with Kieran’s alright but lost two Leinster finals. And was on the field when Carlow beat Waterford. And the Murphy’s father Fergal is the stats man with the Carlow senior team that beat Waterford. Did I mention the hurlers beat Waterford?!

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