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Content Zone
Mon 07-Sep-2009 23:31
More from this writer..
Chronicles
Been there Benny, Dunne that!
Whatever hope Kilkenny people may have harboured that their achievement of ‘four in a row’ All Ireland senior hurling titles would forever be associated with names like Cody, Shefflin or Walsh, it disappeared in the 54th minute of Sunday’s enthralling game, writes An Fear Rua...
That was the fateful moment when the referee, Diarmuid Kirwan, sent Tipperary’s Benny Dunne to the line for an unconscionable pull across Tommy Walsh’s face. But for the fact that Walsh was wearing his distinctive red helmet, his head might well have ended up somewhere around Row KK of the Lower Cusack Stand.
Some memories of the day will fade, others will linger on but whenever hurling people in the future recall Sunday’s momentous achievement, it won’t be long before the names Dunne and Kirwan will feature in the conversation. It may be unfortunate, but that’s how it will be.
An Fear Rua is always perturbed when a referee becomes a major part of the
après match
discourse, especially after a final. A GAA referee should be rather like a character in a Japanese
Kabuke
drama – almost invisible to the audience, an important part of the action but not actively interfering with it. If he had not awarded Kilkenny a controversial penalty in the 63rd minute or had not shown Dunne a red card, Diarmuid Kirwan was well on the way to being celebrated as the referee who played his crucial part in providing us with one of the finest exhibitions of hurling ever - by ‘letting the game flow’.
‘Letting the game flow’ was the right strategy but it was always going to be a high risk one in the context of the passions aroused in Sunday’s game. To work properly, it needed a modicum of co-operation from the players and for the referee to get his decisions right, every time. Even at that, the strategy was always going to be severely tested in the final ten minutes of what was anticipated to be – and turned out to be – a closely fought contest between these arch rivals.
But the player cooperation it needed to succeed was swept away in the 54th minute by a single, reckless swing of Benny Dunne’s
camán
. For another ten minutes, the strategy looked like struggling on – even one of those famous ‘fourteen men beat fifteen’ results looked possible – until, finally, the referee himself buried it well and truly with his inexplicable decision to award Kilkenny a penalty. A minute later, a psychologically shattered Tipperary team could only watch almost as spectators when Martin Comerford drilled home Kilkenny’s second goal. Game over. From that point onwards, that was an ex-game we looking at.
Kirwan’s penalty award was not the only puzzling decision made in Croke Park during that seething cauldron of a second half. True, it may have been necessary to replace an uncharacteristically subdued John O’Brien, but did Liam Sheedy have to do so with Benny Dunne? There was almost something manic in way Dunne raced onto the pitch – like a determined man on a mission. AFR felt a slight
frisson
of apprehension about what might happen. Benny was not the man to put on a scintillatingly in-form Tommy Walsh. Dunne’s role these past few seasons has been that of the ‘impact’ sub who tries to pick off a couple of points to secure the scoreboard as the match heads into end game. To say he made an impact on the outcome would be something of an understatement.
There was undoubtedly tussling between Walsh and Dunne from the off and Tommy’s reputation as a ‘niggler’ goes before him. Nevertheless, it was Dunne who drew one of the nastiest strokes it has been our misfortune to witness at any venue in many a long year. His red card was the turning point of the game.
The sheer, blatant stupidity of the stroke seemed to unnerve some of the Tipperary players. Here they were, beginning to coast to a famous victory and Benny Dunne goes and throws the mother and father of a ‘wobbly’. No team – not even this talented Tipperary outfit – could play Kilkenny with only fourteen players and expect to win. Kilkenny hauled themselves back into the game and then pushed on to victory.
Asking what might have happened if Benny Dunne had kept his head is as futile as speculating on the exact whereabouts of the crew of the
Mary Celeste
or those kind of excruciatingly boring documentaries the populist historian Dr Diarmuid Ferriter specialises in – like the recent RTÉ programme on ‘what if’ Jack Lynch had invaded the North in 1969. The
Marie Celeste's
crew were never found and Honest Jack never invaded the Wee Six. And Benny Dunne trotted to the line, more like a chastised puppy than a Toomevara greyhound.
Tipperary fans cannot blame the referee for the result. Of course he stands indicted over his penalty decision. But who fluffed those two or three excellent goal chances that would have been folded away on any other day? Was he the feline in the black jersey who sprang adroitly to make at least five cat-like saves when goals seemed certain? Even allowing for the controversial refereeing decisions, Tipperary had the winning of this game in their own hands but threw it away.
Neutrals will examine the entrails of this game to see if there is any sign of the Kilkenny juggernaut slowing down. Is it a portent of things to come when a Black-and-Amber
goalkeeper
wins ‘Man of the Match’ in an All Ireland final? Was Brian Cody’s replacement of his customary insouciance with sarcasm in his post-match interview with Marty Morrissey a sign that the sustained pressure of winning is finally taking its toll?
Whatever the answer to these and other questions, there can be no questioning of the contribution made by Cody and Kilkenny to hurling over the past decade. We don’t just mean all the All Ireland, League and Leinster titles they have won. We mean the way they are gradually forcing other counties to stretch themselves to meet and surpass that Kilkenny benchmark. That is their real, enduring legacy to the game. Tipperary, Galway, Waterford and Dublin are grasping in that direction. The game badly needs Cork to stop their navel gazing and do so as well.
One thing we can say for certain, though. Benny may have been there and done that, but he won’t be wearing the T-shirt, especially if it proudly proclaims
‘Kilkenny – four-in-a-row All Ireland champions’.
The end of the road... or just another milestone?
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