Game of the 00's - Munster SHC Final 2004

KevIRL

Courtesy of The Sunday Tribune and Enda McEvoy

Explosion of a new symphony - A game of deft touches laced with sublime skills, fuelled to warped speed and always underpinned with a ferocity of human spirit


The day began oddly, with a picture text message of the ship on the Waterford crest accompanied by the words "Up the Déise" – odd in the sense that the sender was a young lady from Mooncoin, a permanently interested observer of the hurling soap opera from across the Suir but for obvious reasons not exactly a dyed-in-the-blaa supporter. Still, if nothing else it set the tone for the day.

As an aside, and merely for the record, there were two other contenders for the title of Hurling Match of the Decade. One was this year's All Ireland final, the other the 2007 club semi-final between Ballyhale Shamrocks and Toomevara. But the former, glorious and all as it was, was drained of suspense and excitement by the 65th minute, while the latter was a game of two halves played in front of a few thousand people in O'Moore Park on a freezing February day. The 2004 Munster final had drama, suspense and technicolour characters and it had them in front of 50,000 spectators in high summer in Semple Stadium. Great moments are birthed by great settings.

Also for the record, I wasn't contractually obliged to write about matters camán-and-sliotar. But the most striking thing about being an onlooker in Longchamp two months ago was not the acceleration with which Sea The Stars eviscerated the Arc field on his way to immortality but the speed with which it was all over. Zooooom, au revoir, fin. Gone in 20 seconds. Two furlongs of a flat race, even a flat race won by the reincarnation of Pegasus, or 70 minutes of a white-knuckle championship match: really and truly, there's simply no contest. Eclipse first, the rest nowhere.

Anyway. The bare bones of the 2004 Munster final as follows. Waterford, having murdered Clare and beaten Tipperary en route, were favourites but started badly and trailed by 1-3 to 0-1 after eight minutes. Goals from Eoin Kelly and Dan Shanahan steadied them, but Cork led by 1-14 to 2-8 at the end of an electrifying first half, had the wind to come and appeared set for victory when John Mullane was sent off five minutes after the restart. A Paul Flynn sidewinder from a close-range free at the three-quarter stage gave Justin McCarthy's side new hope, however, and a finish which saw the lead changing hands with, as it seemed, every new minute ended with Waterford a point in front, 3-16 to 1-21.

But that was only the half of it. That wasn't even the half of it.

Occasionally – just occasionally – one attends a match that not only fulfils or even exceeds expectations but that also transcends the occasion, that overflows its setting, that is immediately identifiable as a classic and that stirs in the spectator a feeling of gratitude for being present as history was enacted in real time. This was such a match. Sometime during the second half a hurling fixture slipped its moorings and set sail for Elysium. Nor is it every day that one witnesses a county achieving sporting maturity before one's eyes.

Highlights? Innumerable. Stephen Brenner's error – "Waterfordesque" would have been the relevant epithet at the time – for the opening goal. Big Dan, that summer's Martin Peters, ghosting in from the wing to the edge of the square to slam the sliotar home at the other end. The smoothness and give-and-go simplicity of Cork's possession game. The dawning realisation midway through the second half that Waterford were still in this, despite the loss of Mullane.

Shorn of their one attacker with the speed to run at and through the opposition, they'd endured a wretched 10 minutes following his departure, in trouble on their own puckouts and with Seán Óg Ó hAilpín imperious in the air. Far from Cork stepping on the gas and tearing off out of sight though, proceedings slowed from a gallop to a jog. This was the period in which the game was salvaged, the period in which Waterford were able to take a breather, check their pulse and regroup. When Flynn stood over that free, Kieran O'Connor, commentating for WLR FM and knowing what to expect, may have seen the sliotar hit the net before anyone else in the stadium did. Certainly he called it a half-second before the roar went up. I know. I've heard the clip.

It was only a generation earlier – the blink of an eye in hurling terms – that a Waterford team that included Pat McGrath met Cork in successive Munster finals and lost them by an aggregate of 50 points. Fitting, therefore, that it should be Pat's son Ken who caught the last ball above Diarmuid O'Sullivan's head with a salmon leap to make the game safe. If ballads have not yet been written about this catch they bloody well ought to be. there is still time. Joe Brolly and Colm O'Rourke were present in the TV gantry in the Old Stand for a Sunday Game double bill, entranced. Apparently Brolly was so captivated he swooned that every child in the country "should be made to play this game". And if he didn't, he bloody well ought to have.

That the presence of the extra man hindered Cork rather than helped them is undeniable, that the match wouldn't have entered the pantheon in the manner it has had victory gone to the defending provincial champions rather than their opponents equally so. Play it again the following Sunday with 30 men on the field for the duration and Donal O'Grady's team might well have won it going away. As it was, Cork would hit 1-21 again in the 2005 All Ireland final and win it by five points under a tight rein.

In celebrating this game we celebrate not only craft and wristwork and the application of the skills at warp speed but also courage and mental resolve and the durability of the human spirit. The excuses, the get-out clauses, the extenuating circumstances were there in abundance, screaming for gainful employment. Waterford chose not to use them. Instead they reached into themselves like they'd never done before and dragged their aching bodies over the finishing line. They didn't have a man of the match. they had 18 men of the match. They couldn't and wouldn't have won if they hadn't. Flynn, of all people, hit three consecutive wides as the race rounded the home turn but showed the moral courage to keep shooting anyway. Glorious as it was, Waterford's victory in the 2002 Munster final had been bloodless, spun from sugar against a Tipperary team with, although we didn't realise it at the time, their best behind them. What made 2004 infinitely more satisfying was that it was – and had to be – quarried out against a team with their best ahead of them. Where the 2002 Munster final constituted their breakout hit, the 2004 renewal was the day Waterford took their place among the successful hurling nations of the earth.

It was an afternoon notable too for the emergence of Michael Walsh, whose switch to midfield during the second half provided the ballast and direction his team so acutely needed. Walsh has hurled ever since like he hurled that day, always foraging and showing and leading. Sometimes the men in front of him have extemporised brilliantly. sometimes they've thrown shapes or sulked. Through it all, the bassline laid down by Walsh has never wavered. He has been as significant a part of what Waterford are as the Flynns and the McGraths and the Kellys have.

And yes, we all know what happened later that summer. Cork, being Cork, went on to win the All Ireland. Waterford, being Waterford, were beaten in the semi-final. But along the way Mullane learned how to become an adult, which was scarcely unimportant, and he and his pals have stayed around to amuse us, entertain us, confound us and not infrequently irritate us. We'll always have Thurles, all of us who were there on 27 June 2004.

Up the Déise indeed.

December 20, 2009

Power-surge

2004 Munster final was the best game I was ever at. It had everything!

Daysha

I was standing directly behind Stevie Brenner in the terrace when that incident happened; time stood still it was so bizarre, as if you had to rub your eyes and double check it actually happened. Most of the Cork crowd at the other end of the ground were a few seconds late celebrating because they didn't know what the hell just happened.

Had a perfect view of the John Mullane incident as well. It wasn't never fully caught on camera but I can tell you it was a clear sending off, no question about it. It was a disgusting thing to do on the pitch but he gained admirers around the country for his handling of the incident afterwards and rightly so.

Of course on top of all that I was dead in line with the Paul Flynn goal as well. It was really well constructed by the lads, the shot looked like it was sailing over the bar but it dipped just at the last minute given the almightly spin Flynner put on the shot. The Cork backs didn't know what to do and they had Shanahan on the square making a nuisance of himself just to make things more awkward.

But yeah, best match ever