WE’RE HERE TO tee up the All-Ireland hurling final, which is repeated on TG4 this evening. Watch on in celebration if you are a Clare person, in wonder if you are from anywhere but Cork. If you are from there and have never been waterboarded and are curious as to what that might feel like – then clear your schedule from 7.50pm.
A quick explanation of what follows. This was to be a kind of reflection on the game under a few different headings. But we made the mistake of starting with Tony Kelly and it kind of ballooned from there.
The game was too big for me to wrap my head around after a couple of watchbacks. Someday someone will write a book about what was possibly the most drama-filled and incident-strewn match we’ve all seen. This is not it, merely a stunned ramble; someone trying to get to grips with the enormity of it all, struggling, but persevering anyway. You’re probably as well off to just watch the game again yourself and meditate on it. In the meantime, here are some thoughts if you are kicking around for the day.
Tony Kelly gets Clare's third goal of the game. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
So, Tony Kelly’s star turn, five months on. His brilliance hardly went unrecorded at the time, but there may be room for more plaudits. So great was the game, so numerous the flashpoints, and so swift the pace of the split season, that perhaps we all undersold the magnitude of what Kelly did.
The goal was something you’d barely see in a video game for Kelly’s ability to inhabit the moment and react subconsciously to every challenge and moving hurdle placed before him. The marriage of instinct to skill with a bit of help from some generous defending has been played and replayed and will continue to be.
It’s the moment from what was perhaps the final when it comes to melodrama, with its paper-thin line between winning and defeat; elation that will endure for as long as any of the Clare players are alive and soul-crushing defeat for Cork.
The pain will one day lift for Cork’s players due to future All-Ireland success or, failing that, the plain old human capacity to suck it up and keep going, because what other choice exists?
Both sets of players and the tens of thousands of supporters have Kelly to thank for the feelings that will remain.
Clare needed him to be otherworldly, not just that once. Yet there was also plenty of good to go with the great from Kelly.
His first significant involvement led to Clare’s first point, when three down after four minutes. Kelly snapped in a pacy ball with a shallow arc towards David Reidy, who set up Mark Rodgers to score.
Seconds later, he assisted Clare’s next point. His speed of thought evident in how he moved to shoot from his own 65, but then dummied and jinked inside to hand-pass into the run of Diarmuid Ryan who had more space to get his shot away.
The most memorable exploits would come later but Kelly was quietly efficient during the first 35 minutes.
Shane O’Donnell did most to drag Clare back into the race with his stunning assist for Aidan McCarthy’s goal. To call it an assist seems reductive, ludicrously so. If anything McCarthy assisted O’Donnell by blasting to the net after O’Donnell had won a high ball he had no real right to against Ciarán Joyce, offloading to Peter Duggan, somehow gaining possession again when Duggan was mugged, driving at the Cork goal and occupying four defenders with his shape-shifting charge.
Shane O'Donnell on the burst. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
That brought Clare back to four points down midway through the first half; still with plenty of ground to recover.
From the puck out Kelly was onto the ground ball on the edge of his own D, picking up sharply before hand-passing to Conor Leen who got an attack moving which led to another Clare point, the comeback’s momentum now properly established.
There were times during the second quarter, with Clare moving the ball around and dominant on both puckouts, that it seemed they might pull away from Cork.
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Just the same, Cork’s first quarter suggested they could win with a few scores in hand, even though their early advantage came due to flawless shooting, which was never going to last, while Clare’s half-back line were on top from long before it told on the scoreboard.
Yet, in the moment and watching back now, it doesn’t really have the feel of a game that one side could seize and win decisively. It would be a draw or a narrow win for either, and would come down to moments and who could manipulate more of them to their will.
Mark Rodgers’ goal after 39 minutes was one such moment. Cork took the punch and kept coming with a point straight away from Alan Connolly.
This years #PwCAllStars nominee Mark Rodgers scored this outstanding individual goal in this years All-Ireland Final. 🎯
This was largely the story of the second half: the Rebels chasing. Sometimes they’d catch up and it would be set for them to kick on, only for something seismic to happen. From this point on Kelly was responsible for a lot of that.
His goal on 51 minutes put Clare three up but again Cork were relentless, Seamus Harnedy, who hurled a magnificent game, in on the break from the puckout to set up Patrick Horgan to score.
Harnedy drew Cork level again on 57 minutes with his fourth point from play. They seemed primed now to stride away having scrapped back twice from a goal down. Cork won the puckout but ref Johnny Murphy said Eibhear Quillgan had been too quick with it and ordered a retake.
Conor Leen went straight through the back of Patrick Horgan during the next play and it went unpunished. Murphy would go on to make more lamented errors later but this one was perhaps the hardest to miss. Leen passed to David Fitzgerald who put it over. A two-point swing, the lead again for Clare and Cork’s charge halted.
Who knows, perhaps Clare would have wrested back control anyway. They kicked on to lead by three again by the 64th minute. It would have been four and quite probably goodnight by the 67th minute had Aron Shanagher got the free when it looked like he was pulled by Eoin Downey, yet Murphy called it the other way.
Murphy’s let-it-flow approach to the final was credited with facilitating the incredible spectacle that played out. Perhaps that praise is due, perhaps not. One disadvantage with such an approach is that you have to decide many times in a game where the line that’s past the official line actually is. And naturally you won’t always get that one right. So there can be a bit of book balancing, which is perhaps what led to Downey and not Shanagher getting that free.
And which possibly led to the lack of a penalty and a black card for David McInerney after he pulled down Robbie O’Flynn during the next play when the Cork sub was through on goal.
Once again, though, Cork managed to chase down a three-point lead.
When Tony Kelly danced through to point on the pirouette, another intersection of lateral thinking, technique and spatial awareness, it felt like the winning contribution. The flourish on a timeless match. Yet there was still a minute and 42 seconds left, Cork would get more chances.
Kelly pulled up with cramp after his point and was signalling to the line to go off. His getting through extra time seemed unlikely. To do what he did then defies belief.
As great as the goal and point in normal time were, his two points in the first half of extra-time were perhaps more acutely needed. The sense by then was that Cork were getting a run on Clare. Threatening to do so at least.
Kelly’s point in minute 76 was the one for me. Moments earlier he’d had a shot at goal saved after running through and playing a one-two with McCarthy. There was a huge roar when Joyce got in front of the rebound from Fitzgerald. The Cork crowd, their team a point ahead for a change, sensed the tide ebbing their way.
This is where it takes a gamechanger to emerge. Kelly played another one-two with McCarthy from a sideline cut seconds later. He had fractions of a moment to receive the pass, swivel towards goal and get the strike away before the block which was coming in fast. All of this he did from an unsympathetic angle, tight to the line and just outside the 20 metre line. Teams level again, Kelly looking fairly wrecked with it all.
He tied up the scores again from the other line just before half-time in ET, having picked off a Mark Coleman cut. Again, it was the swiftness of strike while under pressure from a tricky position which marked it out. For another player to anticipate the sideline cut, intercept it and then fire over would probably be more impressive. There is a routine nature to Kelly conjuring this type of score.
His point in the second half of ET was more obviously great, in the vein of his opening 1-1 and something no hurler could understate the brilliance of. His persistence and ball-winning skills were to the fore again, first when he flicked it out of Ethan Twomey’s grasp following a Coleman stick-pass. When Coleman gathered and hand-passed from the break Kelly got the hurley in again to intercept. The next bit was instinctive and all the better for it. He knew that when he gathered the ball he’d be wrapped up by the looming Luke Meade, so he flicked the ball straight over his opponent, caught it and then struck for a point with two Cork players converging. His strike was so quick again, even if he was helped by Shane Meehan subtly getting in the way of the chasers. A small but telling assist to a masterpiece.
To bill this 90 minutes plus stoppages as the Tony Kelly Final is not reflective, of course. He contributed 1-4 from the day’s 4-63. There were standout performances all over the field, and even players who did not reach the heights of previous games, especially on the Cork side, gave all of what they had.
Yet Kelly was the difference, the one who did extraordinary things when the need was greatest; the carpe diem figure to it all. As the now 31-year-old lifted the Liam MacCarthy cup, you couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for a 32-year-old among the Cork ranks.
Conor Lehane stood with the rest of the players, still in his subs’ bib. He’d watched normal time cede to extra time and looked on as a bit of space opened up as the Cork bench continued to empty. Attackers such as Shane Kingston, Jack O’Connor, Robbie O’Flynn and Luke Meade. One by one they crossed the white line while Lehane stayed on the side where you can have no effect.
Lehane, with his sharp hurling brain and skill and burst of pace, could have turned the game Cork’s way. He’s the one guy in their panel who has the capacity to do some of the mad and brilliant things Kelly did. Which is not to say he would have done any of them.
You could imagine Pat Ryan thinking he could get the off-target Lehane who played against Waterford in the Munster championship opener, the game which put Cork on the back foot.
Conor Lehane buries a goal for @OfficialCorkGAA after just 60 seconds ⚡️
The Rebels are leading @GaaClare by 4 points now LIVE on Clubber TV 📺
Or he could get the other Lehane, the shooter out of lights that exists at club level and has hinted at greatness with the county.
You kind of saw the halfway house version we have become accustomed to against Tipperary in May. Tipp were a beaten side by the time he came on after 59 minutes. Still, around 20 seconds later he’d boomed over a superb point.
A few minutes later he sent a Tipp defender to the shops with a flicked pickup over his head – just like Kelly did for his final point above – only Lehane then drove it wide from just outside the 45. A sweet bit of creativity and execution, something only a handful of people in the country could pull off at such speed, followed by a miss you’d never expect of such a talent. He’d possibly bought himself too much time to think.
There’s something tantalising about Lehane. If the right sports psychologist could help him to play in his natural flow, with conscious thoughts eliminated, then you’re looking at something truly special. Failing that, Lehane should read The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Galwey. Everyone should read that book, in fact.
Lehane would have good reason to wonder that if he wasn’t called on in the final given the way it panned out then, really, what’s the point? Perhaps he should call it an innings.
Yet that doesn’t seem to be his nature. Over the years he’s gone from being a prodigy with profoundly unrealistic expectations placed on him to a superb if inconsistent player in his prime, to being dropped off the panel in 2021, to coming back after starring for county-title winning Midleton in the autumn of that year .
Along with players such as Horgan and Harnedy, his is a story of resilience; of sticking with it when the prudent thing to do time and again would have been to walk away. Their careers span the least successful era in Cork hurling, which only makes them more relatable. What is life only a series of setbacks? The inspirational figures, the winners if there is such a thing, are the ones who take it all and keep on going.
You can see how Horgan, Harnedy and Lehane love the work. They would clearly appreciate a couple of All-Ireland medals to show for their time in red but as Horgan has said before, that’s not really what it’s all about. To play at this level, to train and talk nightly with like-minded people is a reward more precious than any metal.
Maybe all three or one of the three will stay long enough to win an All-Ireland, or perhaps none will get there. Sport shows us every day that it is gloriously indifferent to the storylines we try to layer upon it, unmoved by our sentimental hopes.
All you can do is keep going, keep showing up, and Horgan, Harnedy and Lehane have given of themselves in a way which few of us will ever understand. The same is even more true of long-serving players with counties who have no chance of ever getting to an All-Ireland final.
Seamus Harnedy. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
What you get back is the game. That’s all. Hurling, with all of its cruelty and beauty. And as 21 July 2024 showed us again, there isn’t much out there that’s better.
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Kelly's heroics, Cork's relentless veterans and an All-Ireland final for the ages
WE’RE HERE TO tee up the All-Ireland hurling final, which is repeated on TG4 this evening. Watch on in celebration if you are a Clare person, in wonder if you are from anywhere but Cork. If you are from there and have never been waterboarded and are curious as to what that might feel like – then clear your schedule from 7.50pm.
A quick explanation of what follows. This was to be a kind of reflection on the game under a few different headings. But we made the mistake of starting with Tony Kelly and it kind of ballooned from there.
The game was too big for me to wrap my head around after a couple of watchbacks. Someday someone will write a book about what was possibly the most drama-filled and incident-strewn match we’ve all seen. This is not it, merely a stunned ramble; someone trying to get to grips with the enormity of it all, struggling, but persevering anyway. You’re probably as well off to just watch the game again yourself and meditate on it. In the meantime, here are some thoughts if you are kicking around for the day.
So, Tony Kelly’s star turn, five months on. His brilliance hardly went unrecorded at the time, but there may be room for more plaudits. So great was the game, so numerous the flashpoints, and so swift the pace of the split season, that perhaps we all undersold the magnitude of what Kelly did.
The goal was something you’d barely see in a video game for Kelly’s ability to inhabit the moment and react subconsciously to every challenge and moving hurdle placed before him. The marriage of instinct to skill with a bit of help from some generous defending has been played and replayed and will continue to be.
It’s the moment from what was perhaps the final when it comes to melodrama, with its paper-thin line between winning and defeat; elation that will endure for as long as any of the Clare players are alive and soul-crushing defeat for Cork.
The pain will one day lift for Cork’s players due to future All-Ireland success or, failing that, the plain old human capacity to suck it up and keep going, because what other choice exists?
Both sets of players and the tens of thousands of supporters have Kelly to thank for the feelings that will remain.
Clare needed him to be otherworldly, not just that once. Yet there was also plenty of good to go with the great from Kelly.
His first significant involvement led to Clare’s first point, when three down after four minutes. Kelly snapped in a pacy ball with a shallow arc towards David Reidy, who set up Mark Rodgers to score.
Seconds later, he assisted Clare’s next point. His speed of thought evident in how he moved to shoot from his own 65, but then dummied and jinked inside to hand-pass into the run of Diarmuid Ryan who had more space to get his shot away.
The most memorable exploits would come later but Kelly was quietly efficient during the first 35 minutes.
Shane O’Donnell did most to drag Clare back into the race with his stunning assist for Aidan McCarthy’s goal. To call it an assist seems reductive, ludicrously so. If anything McCarthy assisted O’Donnell by blasting to the net after O’Donnell had won a high ball he had no real right to against Ciarán Joyce, offloading to Peter Duggan, somehow gaining possession again when Duggan was mugged, driving at the Cork goal and occupying four defenders with his shape-shifting charge.
That brought Clare back to four points down midway through the first half; still with plenty of ground to recover.
From the puck out Kelly was onto the ground ball on the edge of his own D, picking up sharply before hand-passing to Conor Leen who got an attack moving which led to another Clare point, the comeback’s momentum now properly established.
There were times during the second quarter, with Clare moving the ball around and dominant on both puckouts, that it seemed they might pull away from Cork.
Just the same, Cork’s first quarter suggested they could win with a few scores in hand, even though their early advantage came due to flawless shooting, which was never going to last, while Clare’s half-back line were on top from long before it told on the scoreboard.
Yet, in the moment and watching back now, it doesn’t really have the feel of a game that one side could seize and win decisively. It would be a draw or a narrow win for either, and would come down to moments and who could manipulate more of them to their will.
Mark Rodgers’ goal after 39 minutes was one such moment. Cork took the punch and kept coming with a point straight away from Alan Connolly.
This was largely the story of the second half: the Rebels chasing. Sometimes they’d catch up and it would be set for them to kick on, only for something seismic to happen. From this point on Kelly was responsible for a lot of that.
His goal on 51 minutes put Clare three up but again Cork were relentless, Seamus Harnedy, who hurled a magnificent game, in on the break from the puckout to set up Patrick Horgan to score.
Harnedy drew Cork level again on 57 minutes with his fourth point from play. They seemed primed now to stride away having scrapped back twice from a goal down. Cork won the puckout but ref Johnny Murphy said Eibhear Quillgan had been too quick with it and ordered a retake.
Conor Leen went straight through the back of Patrick Horgan during the next play and it went unpunished. Murphy would go on to make more lamented errors later but this one was perhaps the hardest to miss. Leen passed to David Fitzgerald who put it over. A two-point swing, the lead again for Clare and Cork’s charge halted.
Who knows, perhaps Clare would have wrested back control anyway. They kicked on to lead by three again by the 64th minute. It would have been four and quite probably goodnight by the 67th minute had Aron Shanagher got the free when it looked like he was pulled by Eoin Downey, yet Murphy called it the other way.
Murphy’s let-it-flow approach to the final was credited with facilitating the incredible spectacle that played out. Perhaps that praise is due, perhaps not. One disadvantage with such an approach is that you have to decide many times in a game where the line that’s past the official line actually is. And naturally you won’t always get that one right. So there can be a bit of book balancing, which is perhaps what led to Downey and not Shanagher getting that free.
And which possibly led to the lack of a penalty and a black card for David McInerney after he pulled down Robbie O’Flynn during the next play when the Cork sub was through on goal.
Once again, though, Cork managed to chase down a three-point lead.
When Tony Kelly danced through to point on the pirouette, another intersection of lateral thinking, technique and spatial awareness, it felt like the winning contribution. The flourish on a timeless match. Yet there was still a minute and 42 seconds left, Cork would get more chances.
Kelly pulled up with cramp after his point and was signalling to the line to go off. His getting through extra time seemed unlikely. To do what he did then defies belief.
As great as the goal and point in normal time were, his two points in the first half of extra-time were perhaps more acutely needed. The sense by then was that Cork were getting a run on Clare. Threatening to do so at least.
Kelly’s point in minute 76 was the one for me. Moments earlier he’d had a shot at goal saved after running through and playing a one-two with McCarthy. There was a huge roar when Joyce got in front of the rebound from Fitzgerald. The Cork crowd, their team a point ahead for a change, sensed the tide ebbing their way.
This is where it takes a gamechanger to emerge. Kelly played another one-two with McCarthy from a sideline cut seconds later. He had fractions of a moment to receive the pass, swivel towards goal and get the strike away before the block which was coming in fast. All of this he did from an unsympathetic angle, tight to the line and just outside the 20 metre line. Teams level again, Kelly looking fairly wrecked with it all.
He tied up the scores again from the other line just before half-time in ET, having picked off a Mark Coleman cut. Again, it was the swiftness of strike while under pressure from a tricky position which marked it out. For another player to anticipate the sideline cut, intercept it and then fire over would probably be more impressive. There is a routine nature to Kelly conjuring this type of score.
His point in the second half of ET was more obviously great, in the vein of his opening 1-1 and something no hurler could understate the brilliance of. His persistence and ball-winning skills were to the fore again, first when he flicked it out of Ethan Twomey’s grasp following a Coleman stick-pass. When Coleman gathered and hand-passed from the break Kelly got the hurley in again to intercept. The next bit was instinctive and all the better for it. He knew that when he gathered the ball he’d be wrapped up by the looming Luke Meade, so he flicked the ball straight over his opponent, caught it and then struck for a point with two Cork players converging. His strike was so quick again, even if he was helped by Shane Meehan subtly getting in the way of the chasers. A small but telling assist to a masterpiece.
To bill this 90 minutes plus stoppages as the Tony Kelly Final is not reflective, of course. He contributed 1-4 from the day’s 4-63. There were standout performances all over the field, and even players who did not reach the heights of previous games, especially on the Cork side, gave all of what they had.
Yet Kelly was the difference, the one who did extraordinary things when the need was greatest; the carpe diem figure to it all. As the now 31-year-old lifted the Liam MacCarthy cup, you couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for a 32-year-old among the Cork ranks.
Conor Lehane stood with the rest of the players, still in his subs’ bib. He’d watched normal time cede to extra time and looked on as a bit of space opened up as the Cork bench continued to empty. Attackers such as Shane Kingston, Jack O’Connor, Robbie O’Flynn and Luke Meade. One by one they crossed the white line while Lehane stayed on the side where you can have no effect.
Lehane, with his sharp hurling brain and skill and burst of pace, could have turned the game Cork’s way. He’s the one guy in their panel who has the capacity to do some of the mad and brilliant things Kelly did. Which is not to say he would have done any of them.
You could imagine Pat Ryan thinking he could get the off-target Lehane who played against Waterford in the Munster championship opener, the game which put Cork on the back foot.
Or he could get the other Lehane, the shooter out of lights that exists at club level and has hinted at greatness with the county.
You kind of saw the halfway house version we have become accustomed to against Tipperary in May. Tipp were a beaten side by the time he came on after 59 minutes. Still, around 20 seconds later he’d boomed over a superb point.
A few minutes later he sent a Tipp defender to the shops with a flicked pickup over his head – just like Kelly did for his final point above – only Lehane then drove it wide from just outside the 45. A sweet bit of creativity and execution, something only a handful of people in the country could pull off at such speed, followed by a miss you’d never expect of such a talent. He’d possibly bought himself too much time to think.
There’s something tantalising about Lehane. If the right sports psychologist could help him to play in his natural flow, with conscious thoughts eliminated, then you’re looking at something truly special. Failing that, Lehane should read The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Galwey. Everyone should read that book, in fact.
Lehane would have good reason to wonder that if he wasn’t called on in the final given the way it panned out then, really, what’s the point? Perhaps he should call it an innings.
Yet that doesn’t seem to be his nature. Over the years he’s gone from being a prodigy with profoundly unrealistic expectations placed on him to a superb if inconsistent player in his prime, to being dropped off the panel in 2021, to coming back after starring for county-title winning Midleton in the autumn of that year .
Along with players such as Horgan and Harnedy, his is a story of resilience; of sticking with it when the prudent thing to do time and again would have been to walk away. Their careers span the least successful era in Cork hurling, which only makes them more relatable. What is life only a series of setbacks? The inspirational figures, the winners if there is such a thing, are the ones who take it all and keep on going.
You can see how Horgan, Harnedy and Lehane love the work. They would clearly appreciate a couple of All-Ireland medals to show for their time in red but as Horgan has said before, that’s not really what it’s all about. To play at this level, to train and talk nightly with like-minded people is a reward more precious than any metal.
Maybe all three or one of the three will stay long enough to win an All-Ireland, or perhaps none will get there. Sport shows us every day that it is gloriously indifferent to the storylines we try to layer upon it, unmoved by our sentimental hopes.
All you can do is keep going, keep showing up, and Horgan, Harnedy and Lehane have given of themselves in a way which few of us will ever understand. The same is even more true of long-serving players with counties who have no chance of ever getting to an All-Ireland final.
What you get back is the game. That’s all. Hurling, with all of its cruelty and beauty. And as 21 July 2024 showed us again, there isn’t much out there that’s better.
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All-Ireland hurling final 2024 GAA Hurling Instant Classic