Hurlers in Limerick have the edge over Tipperary in strength and conditioning

As Liam Cahill gathers his forces in preparation for the 2023 season, there’s an interesting speculation that pops to mind. Tipperary have never won an All-Ireland senior hurling title in a year ending in the digit 3. Twenty eight titles in total and every other year-ending is represented bar 3. Let’s call it the curse of the number 3.

At this time of relative quiet on the playing fields locally, it’s interesting to recall the losing legacy – and hope that it can be broken in the year ahead. For those of a superstitious disposition, I guess, it won’t do much to lift the winter blues, but here goes anyway.

The most recent one is easily recalled. 2013 was an odd season in many respects, one that stands apart in that decade. Previous years had seen Tipperary and Kilkenny provide the main narrative but neither would last too long in the 2013 championship. Dublin put Kilkenny out of Leinster and Limerick had too much for Tipperary in Munster.

The upshot then was that famous qualifier in Nowlan Park, one of painful recall for Tipperary fans. It was a huge task for Tipperary to go into the lion’s den.

Lar Corbett’s early goal was a bright omen but then came his withdrawal through injury and the unsporting jeers that greeted his departure. The contrast with the generous Tipp applause for Shefflin in 2010 has never been lost on Tipperary fans.

There was further ill-luck in the second half when JJ Delaney somehow got an arm in the way of a goal-bound Eoin Kelly shot. It was not going to be our day, though there was genuine praise for a really gusty Tipperary effort that fell a mere three points short.

It wasn’t going to be Kilkenny’s year either. Cork took them out at quarter-final stage, opening a gap that let Clare through for a final win. It was an isolated season, with the Tipp/Kilkenny story resuming in 2014.

A decade earlier, in 2003, we had Michael Doyle in charge alongside Kevin Fox and Liam Sheedy. Just two years after the 2001 All-Ireland success there was to be no reprise, Clare and Kilkenny featuring strongly in our demise.

Clare took Tipperary out of the Munster race and did it comprehensively, 2-17 to 0-14, in a game in Cork. There followed some rehabilitation through the qualifiers with wins over Laois, Galway and Offaly before Kilkenny stood in the way at semi-final stage. We’d already lost the league final to the Cats by a single flag but defeat in the penultimate tie in the championship was altogether more resounding.

We led by two points at half- time but in retrospect it was a mere mirage. An Eddie Brennan goal unlocked the floodgates in the second period. Kilkenny outscored a bedraggled Tipp formation to the tune of 2-7 to 0-2 in the final half hour. We lost by twelve and could be grateful for heroic goalkeeping by Cummins, which prevented even greater embarrassment. Kilkenny went on to beat Cork in the final and Michael Doyle’s brief tenure as manager was over.

1993 had the consolation of a Munster win, achieved emphatically against Clare at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. It was a game that Ger Loughnane and the Banner would use conveniently afterwards as a motivational tool, citing a Nicky English smile as an item of mockery. It wasn’t, of course, but became handy fodder when you wanted the play the persecution card later.

We were hotly fancied for the All-Ireland semi-final against Galway but came unstuck. Galway hit hard to ambush Tipperary and defy the odds. Seven-up at the break, they won by just two. Injuries to the likes of Declan Ryan hadn’t helped Tipp’s cause and there was plenty of criticism of management too. No matter, it was another loss on a year with a dismal digit 3 at the end.

As we delve back further into history, the accounts become briefer because of the lack of backdoors or qualifiers of any sort. 1983, for example, was a two-game odyssey for Tipperary, one that didn’t get beyond Munster.

With Centenary Year around the corner, ’83 was viewed in Tipperary as an important build-up to the historic ’84. However, the famine was still raging and there was no immediate indication of an end, despite extensive underage successes at minor and U21 levels.

There was initial encouragement when Tipperary took out Clare in a first round at the Gaelic Grounds. It was a first championship win in years. Poor consolation, perhaps, when Waterford proved too hot in the semi. The game was played in Cork and the concession of goals was a significant item in a four-point defeat. A Cork drubbing of Waterford in the final put the result in an uncomplimentary context. Another year of failure, another in the sequence of threes.

1973 will be easily recalled by many. It was an era of stiff Tipperary/Limerick rivalry. We’d frustrated them in 1971 and our paths hadn’t crossed in ’72. Now the pair were back in a Munster final, after Tipp had coped with Waterford and Cork in earlier rounds.

The final in Thurles ended in controversy with a late Richie Bennis “seventy” (as they were called back then) separating the sides. No Hawkeye then, just the eye of an umpire who felt the displeasure of Len Gaynor for raising the flag, a detail since acknowledged in print by the Kilruane man. In many ways that was the real end of Tipperary’s golden era. Thereafter the famine hit heavy.

1963 is keenly felt in Tipperary too. That’s the losing year sandwiched between the back-to-backs of ‘61/’62 and ‘64/’65. It’s the closest the county has come to five-in-a-row. A semi-final win over Cork set up a provincial decider with Waterford. It was played in Limerick and left Tipperary nursing huge regrets. Tipp neither scored nor conceded a goal but poor shooting let them down badly against a Deise side that scored a mere three points from play. Tipp led five-three at half-time but the concession of frees proved costly, as Waterford won by 0-11 to 0-8.

A decade earlier, 1953, Tipperary hit six goals to beat Waterford in a Munster semi-final but lost to Cork in the decider. The game was in Limerick, where Cork were dominant, even more dominant than the final count of 3-10 to 1-11 would suggest. It was yet another bleak year ending in that damned digit 3.

The story of 1943 is easily told. The season started and ended with a first round defeat to Waterford at Fraher Field, Dungarvan, on June 13. The Deise led 3-2 to 0-1 at half-time and won by 4-5 to 1-2. No further elaboration is needed.

The 1933 campaign was equally brief for Tipperary, with Waterford again the spoilsports. The sides drew initially at Walsh Park but Waterford had the better of the replay at Davin Park, Carrick-on-Suir.

In 1923 Tipperary had a runaway over Clare but then lost to Limerick in the Munster final. There was no luck either in 1913, Kilkenny once more the masters after Tipperary had taken a Munster title against Cork. In 1903 there was a first round defeat to Cork; Tipperary were represented by De Wets club from the north. The county didn’t partake in the 1893 championship, and so ends our stroll back the decades.

No point then in even entering a team next year; seasons with that tainted three are doomed, a curse as damning as anything that afflicts Mayo. I jest, of course, but it is an extraordinary oddity of history.

Anyway, back to more up-to-date matters. Roscrea’s defeat in the Munster intermediate final is a disappointment for more than just the club. Being the first premier intermediate winner to go forward, we had hoped for better, but instead it endorses a losing trend by our champion clubs at many different grades and in both codes.

Eoin Brislane was the Monaleen manager and his comments afterwards will have been well noted hereabouts. Essentially, he suggested that Tipperary are behind Limerick at all levels in terms of strength and conditioning. It simply repeats what others have been asserting for some time now.

Finally, the All-Ireland club series has thrown up a mouth-watering semi-final between Ballygunner and Ballyhale Shamrocks, the two modern-day, big-hitters of this competition. The Waterford champs drove through on the back of a superior second half after Tony Kelly and Ballyea hit them with all they knew in the first period.

It was of a pattern similar to the Na Piarsaigh game, where Ballygunner again came with emphasis in the second period. They know how to soak up an opponent’s best and then drive on when it matters.

Shamrock’s win was a strange affair: totally dominant in the first half but then scrambling to hold off Kilmacud in the second, as a fourteen-point lead all but vanished. Again, their experience got them through. So, two big dogs bare their teeth in the semi-final. What a prospect!

In the meantime, County Convention takes centre stage this weekend.