The desperately poor fare in Croke Park last Sunday has provided plenty of ammunition for those who fear for the future of hurling, not just in Buffalo country or even Leinster but in Ireland generally.

These people may indeed be right, but An Moltóir would draw attention to the remarkable similarity between the score in the Kilkenny/Offaly game and that in another notorious hurling massacre of relatively recent times. We refer to Cork’s 5-31 to 3-6 destruction of Waterford in the 1982 Munster final. Converted to points, this gives exactly the same score on both sides as last Sunday’s 6-28 to 0-15. Incidentally, did anyone else who was in Croke Park last Sunday notice how, at one stage late in the second half, Kilkenny’s score on the scoreboard was the same as the time being shown on the clock (5-26)?

That Waterford team was by no means a bad team. They had beaten Limerick, Munster champions of the previous two years, in an excellent semi-final and recovered sufficiently from their hammering by Cork to beat Tipperary in the semi-final the following year in another fine game. However, when they imploded once again in the final they went into freefall and, if memory serves, spent a year in the third division of the hurling league in the mid-1980s. However, they recovered to produce another good team in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Indeed, were it not for the inept management which failed to fuse the best of that team with the up-and-coming stars from the minor and under-21 championship-winning teams of 1992, the current resurgence of Déise hurling would probably have started several years earlier.

The point being made here is that, over the last forty years, Waterford hurling has seen repeated doldrum years, but has always come back with renewed hope. At least the Déise had seen some glory years in the past. If Offaly were able to keep the hurling flame burning through 100 years of repeated disappointment, then one trimming is unlikely to quench it. And remember, they should have beaten Wexford in last year’s Leinster final.

There are some who are saying that, once they realised they had no hope of beating the Cats, the Biffos simply threw in the towel with one eye on next weekend’s qualifiers. Maybe if they had known they would have to play Waterford, they would have taken a different attitude. If they play like last Sunday, what chance have their corner backs against Paul Flynn and John Mullane? And what about Ger Oakley contesting high ball against Seamus Prendergast or Dan Shanahan?

The ease with which the Offaly defence allowed Kilkenny through for their early goals was shocking. Remember, this is the county which had turned glue-like man-marking and the bottling up of players into an art form. What was perhaps more worrying from an Offaly point of view was the total absence of a game plan. If you want to beat Kilkenny one thing you must do is keep the ball low. This was the ploy Wexford used in last year’s semi-final and, although it is totally alien to their nature, they stuck at it and managed to stay sufficiently in touch to benefit from Michael Jacob’s last-gasp golden strike.

The great Offaly team of the early 1980s were experts at moving the ball quickly on the ground out of defence. Last Sunday, with Kilkenny winning everything in the air, Offaly not only had no Plan B, they had no Plan A either. Brian Mullins’s second half puckouts were particularly clueless and guaranteed a continuous stream of traffic in the direction of the Canal End goal.

Wexford v Laois

The game between Wexford and Laois was marginally more interesting, mainly because, for most of the game, the scores were sufficiently close that a Laois goal could have created a bit of excitement. Unfortunately for the game, it never came (and despite Jim Kearney’s protestations, Liam Tynan did overcarry before having his goal disallowed). Early on, this game looked like it could be close. Rather than freezing up, as is their wont, Laois started really well and played some excellent hurling in the first fifteen minutes. They also got the early goal that they needed, taken with great aplomb and confidence by Damien Culleton. Unfortunately, Culleton then spent the rest of the game looking for goals when a couple of points on the board were badly needed.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly what happened to Laois after their bright start. While Wexford obviously raised their game, there were none of the killer goals which would have wiped Laois out in the past. Instead, the Midlanders were largely the authors of their own misfortune. For some reason, they began indulging in unnecessary handpassing around the middle of the field instead of playing the direct hurling which had underpinned their good start. Three unforced errors in a row gifted points to Wexford, and one could see the confidence draining out of Laois. They lost their concentration and shape, their striking deteriorated and wrong decision-making became the order of the day. Perhaps because they are not used to playing hurling at the top level, they are simply unable to maintain the intensity and tempo which are required at this level. One could well understand the exasperation in Paudie Butler’s voice on the ‘Sunday Game’ that evening.

However, in the end one should salute the Laois fullback line, which stuck to its task and defended heroically to the end. And in Brian Campion (if I have got the name of the player with the red helmet correct) they had one of the best hurlers on the field.

Tipperary v Clare

A few words about the previous weekend’s Munster semifinal between Tipperary and Clare. There are some who are seeing in the result the end for Clare and the beginning for Tipperary. Yet the fact is that Clare owned this game for a long period in the first half and, if they had converted even half of the clearcut chances they created, they could have been out of sight by halftime. And even though Tipperary looked the more assured side after the interval, they still failed to add to the scoring advantage their first-half two goal burst gave them. While Clare reduced the gap to five points on several occasions, they were simply unable to get the two scores in a row which could have brought them back into contention.

To write Clare off at this stage would be as foolish as the expectation which has suddenly been placed on Mícheál Webster’s shoulders by eager Tipp fans desperate for added firepower in their front line. We wish Webster well, but would point out that many a would-be saviour has appeared in the Premier county over the last ten years only to subsequently vanish without trace.

We are now hearing a lot of talk about an “old firm” Munster final between Cork and Tipp. While these two counties have definitely been to the fore in terms of final appearances, clashes between them at that level have not been as frequent as one might think. Over the last fifty years they have met each other fourteen times, or just over once every four years. This, however, is much more frequent than the second most common pairing – Waterford and Cork – which has occurred just seven times. In terms of final appearances, Cork are in the lead with 32, followed by Tipperary (26), with the other three then closely bunched as follows – Limerick (15), Clare (14) and Waterford (13).

Cork (63%) and Tipp (58%) have been most successful in turning final appearances into victories, followed by Limerick (47%) and Waterford (39%) with Clare bringing up the rear at just 21%.

Amazingly, Waterford have not played Limerick even once in the Munster final over the last fifty years, and they have played Clare just the once. For the record, the following is the full list of Munster final pairings since 1955: Tipp/Cork (14), Waterford/Cork (7), Limerick/Cork (6), Limerick/Clare, Tipp/Waterford and Cork/Clare (five each), Tipp/Limerick (4) and Tipp/Clare (3