Well, An Moltóir’s forecast that Clare would win this year’s hurling All-Ireland came an early cropper in Páirc Uí Chaoimh last Sunday...

It is of little consolation that Clare should have won the game. That they didn’t was due not so much to the quality of the opposition (though this was estimable) as to Clare’s own inadequacies and some inexcusable refereeing decisions by Wexford’s Own Dickie Murphy. Tipp supporters will claim that Murphy’s errors were not all one way, pointing in particular to Brian Lohan’s jersey tug which deprived Eddie Enright of a goal chance in the first half. At the same time, blatant match-deciding mistakes are by no means foreign territory for the same Dickie. Two years ago, he singlehandedly put Offaly out of the All-Ireland final by pulling up a player for overcarrying while subsequently ignoring an identical transgression by Ben O’Connor, and then disallowing an Offaly point when he appeared to be the only person in Croke Park who reckoned that John Troy picked up from the ground. But will these failings have any impact on Murphy’s refereeing future? Is the Pope a liberal lesbian leftie?

At the same time, Clare should not have allowed their fate to depend on Dickie’s poor eyesight or inability to count steps. They had six very bad wides to maybe two or three for Tipperary. Apart from these, several efforts at scoring never even reached the target, while McMahon was unfortunate to hit the upright with one of his long-distance frees. They were also unfortunate, like Cork, in losing two thirds of their much-vaunted halfback line before the match started. While Hoey and Quinn battled hard, there were few of the long deliveries into the full forward line that one associates with the Doyle/Daly pairing. Obviously, David Kennedy was also a huge loss to Tipperary, but they were able to bring him in to exert a huge influence on the eventual outcome of the game.

However, Clare’s biggest misfortune of all was the complete non-performance of Niall Gilligan. An Moltóir’s prediction of a Clare All-Ireland was largely based on the expectation that Gilligan would emerge as the leading forward in this year’s competition. Gilligan had been awesome in Sixmilebridge’s victorious Munster club championship campaign. However, whatever he ate for his Christmas dinner, his loss of form in the New Year was disastrous both for club and county. Last Sunday, he appeared to be lost in another world. He got clean possession on just three occasions: once he was blocked down and twice he unsuccessfully went for points from unlikely angles. In the past, Gilligan would have taken on his marker and made for goal in all three occasions; in his current form he is devoid of confidence and concentration. The decision to leave him on the pitch almost to the end was probably a reflection of the poverty of the Banner bench and the hope that he would produce one piece of magic, as he did in scoring the late equalising goal in the drawn All-Ireland club semi-final against Graigue-Ballycallan.

What, then, does the future hold for Tipperary? It may be that they have got over the biggest obstacle on the way to ultimate All-Ireland victory. They will be thrilled at the bottle displayed by teenage forwards Kelly and Corbett, and the excellent form shown by their defence and by Tommy Dunne at midfield. They will be concerned that, once again, Conor Gleeson and Mark O’Leary failed to deliver on the big occasion. If his injury is serious, John Leahy will be a big loss. Whatever he does on the pitch, his entrance as substitute has a major morale-boosting effect on everyone in the Tipp camp. Nicky English would have preferred if championship debutant Tom Costello had got a more serious examination. Barry Foley or Paul Flynn will presumably provide a sterner test of his mettle than Barry Murphy was capable of. And one wonders if a couple of handy points by Eddie Enright was adequate compensation for the succession of inspiring clearances effected by Seanie McMahon. But then, what options does Nicky English have on the forty? Overall, Tipp showed last Sunday that they are tough, committed and economical, but by no means unbeatable.

Apart from Dickie Murphy’s erratic decision-making, another feature of the officiating of last Sunday’s game which deserves public scrutiny was the time allowed for stoppages. It appears that Murphy only made allowances for injury stoppages. It was the same with Pat Horan the previous week. However, the new regulations regarding substitutions means that they are now more time-consuming than before. Last Sunday, the average time taken for getting players on and off the pitch was about thirty seconds. There were eight second-half substitutions (including those for blood injuries) which took almost four minutes in total to complete. There was no allowance for these in terms of added time. In soccer, 30 seconds are routinely added on for substitutions. Again we have an instance of the GAA borrowing a good idea from another sport without doing it properly.

Finally, one should make some comment on the fact that, this year, all the big games in the Munster hurling championship will be played in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. One could see last Sunday that the players regularly had problems with the playing surface in the bog by the Lee which appeared to have been given a thick coating of sand before the game. You never get that kind of problem on the Semple sward. More importantly, Thurles can take 13,000 more paying customers than Cork. This comes to almost 40,000 extra people between the semi-finals and final which, at maybe £15 on average per person, comes to a lot of money. Getting all these big games is undoubtedly a feather indeed, a complete headdress in Frank Murphy’s cap. It is also bad economics and bad customer service, and means that what is shaping up as one of the best Munster championships of all time will be played out on a bumpy, grassless sandpit while the best hurling pitch in Ireland, with a larger spectator capacity and an infinitely superior big match atmosphere, lies idle. Such