All Ireland Senior Hurling Championship 2026 (Munster & Leinster Championships, Liam McCarthy Cup)

Very big of you to say you like us after getting the boot into an 84 year old legend of the game for being "quiet". I thought better of you than this post tbh.

An how do you find us lovely Clare supporters😀

Tbh I thought it was a balanced enough post. Plenty cork fans reference that 09 game . But not many of them say they want to see kilkenny strong in return. Proc forum is most anti kilkenny forum I've seen.

Straight talker is one of the fairest and balanced contributors on here imo.

Nobody mentions Dublin's population? Are you joking?

Complaints about Dublin's population advantage got so bad that there's a note in the main Dublin thread telling posters to take any discussion to the dedicated Dublin dominance thread.

What happened in League game 09. My memory of games around then is poor as had a few toddlers so attention to sport was minimal. Wasn't 09-10 the Limerick strike, I thought Cork was earlier?

And KK greatest hurler of arguably all time "The dodger" and at least his generation has made a show of himself. That probably is a far worse legacy, than having a dip in hurling standard.

Fans wise I always found KK supporters very fair in their view of matches, etc. I suppose they can afford to be calm and analyse games they are used to winning so much. The poor auld Cork hurling supporter doesn't get that luxury. It must be hard to enjoy a match when each championship that passes by, the next one means even more.

Think there was a few strikes in that decade. Those cork and kilkenny teams had such a rivalry i Think it spilled over a bit.

True, although I think up until the 06 final it was a great ding dong battle, as well as a clash of two different philosophies (player power v the tyranny of the manager) and playing styles. Until the morning of the 06 final Cork looked like the future of hurling (only one pundit in any newspaper that week, including all of the players they asked for opinions etc, predicted all win, and that was Damien fitzhenry), and defined themselves basically in contrast with everything kilkenny supposedly stood for. The shock of that day was huge, and Cork are only coming out of the aftermath of it now, and our biggest rivalry of that era ended up being with tipp. Funnily enough the legacy of that Cork team is still felt in the style of play that the best teams are using now, limerick and Cork. (Could argue limerick combined the best aspects of both).

@gormdubhgorm A bit rich of you to have a pop at Cork when Dublin haven't won a senior all Ireland in hurling in almost 90 years.😉 Sure wasn't there only the one native Dubliner on the team as well?😄 The quote function never works on the phone for some reason hence the tag

Cork got to 4 allI Irelands on the trot, 2003 to 2006 having already won in 1999 and won minor and u21 before that. The two they won in that 4 finals in a row they won well, the two they lost were by a puck of a ball. So most of that generation of Cork hurlers won 3 and lost 2 all Irelands. No great difference to the great Limerick team now going for one more AI save Limerick won all their finals (and are obviously better for that reason). Cork and KK played in 4 AI finals in 7 years winning two each. Still say it wasn’t much of a rivalry?

I hope Limerick are going for more than 1 more. I had to look up the 2006 final score and was surprised it was only 3 points in the end. My memory of the game was a very flat Cork performance where nothing went right and a very good hard working intense Kilkenny performance, their blueprint to come over the next 10 years. I would have said the game felt like a 6-8 points scoring difference.

It was a cracking rivalry until 2008 when Kilkenny pulled away in the semi that year. If Cork CB had been stable and players happy it might have lasted a few more years.

Cork had excellent U21s in 1997 and 98 who backboned their team. Kilkenny got infussions of talent from the 2002/03 minors and 2004 and 2006 U21s. Cork didn't get similar talent to augment their team. That's my opinion on it. I loved the Cork innovation, how Kilkenny responded in 2006 etc.

With time these rivalries lose any bitterness. Like Meath v Cork footballers, 1987 to 1990. Kilkenny and Cork will respect each other more and realise they pushed each other to excel. As Tipp and Kilkenny did 2009-2016. Life and the first deaths of relatively young men from teams puts all into perspective. No team escapes that.

I think it's coming this year for Limerick. Very similar to the Dubs win over Kerry in 2023.

Limerick have a lot of mileage on the 2018 players. They come in and out of matches more than at their peak, 2021/2022. I think know how, desire and because they are great players on a great team they'll mine one last All Ireland out of it this year.

Cork looking best placed to take their place. However Clare and Tipp have a lot of underage talent and could skip the queue. Galway, I don't know. We'll see where they are Saturday. Huge game for them and the Dubs.

It looked like Cork and Kilkenny was going to be the defining rivalry of the era and I honestly thought after 2006 that we could be seeing them rob each other of 3 in a rows for years to come.

But Cork dropped off big time and it really became the Kilkenny out on their own era. Sheedy will be remembered as Cody's big rival but like Cork they were only around for part of the Kilkenny dominance.

it did tbf, Cork never looked like winning that day. Mind you, for as good as Kk were that day, their goal came from a defensive howler. But it was curtains after that and Corks late goal glossed things a little (albeit they had a free lobbed into the square in injury time so could even have knicked an undeserved draw).