WORKING IN MITCHELSTOWN CBS, I’m at the sharp end of the Cork-Tipperary rivalry.
Even those in the school with no interest in hurling will know straight away on Monday who won Saturday. If it’s Tipp then a lot of lads from across the border will be wearing jackets with their crest instead of what they usually have on. There’ll be knowing smiles and puffed out chests. “Tipp are back!”
And if we win then those same lads will be getting plenty of it. Such is life at the crossroads of Cork, Tipp and Waterford.
Good natured and all as the slagging is, there are certain games you do not want to lose – this is one.
That sentiment extends as far south as the Old Head of Kinsale and north past Borrisokane. You don’t need to share a school or post office to feel the weight of this rivalry. Barca have Madrid, United have Liverpool, Boca have River and Cork and Tipp have each other, that’s the way it’s been for as long as anyone can remember, and that’s the way it will always be.
I can remember preparing to face Tipp as a minor for Cork. “This is where you will be judged boys,” our selectors told us.
The game could be a Munster final or a challenge game at a club ground, but it was still the blood and bandages versus the blue and gold. How you measured up to our most familiar and respected competitors was what mattered.
Both counties have other rivals. Especially Tipp, who border nearly every hurling county. They have become especially close with Kilkenny during different eras. As have Cork. But no competition is as romantic as Cork-Tipp, in my admittedly biased view.
There is a purity to the duel. It routinely gets intense but there are rarely bad blows, and there is hardly ever lingering bad blood as a result of anything that’s happened.
Defensive tactics, so common for a number of seasons, rarely feature. When they are used – like we did in 2016 – they tend to backfire. It’s almost like there are unspoken but mutually agreed terms of engagement.
If you have to resort to defensiveness or cynicism then you’ve already lost. You have admitted your own jersey doesn’t mean all that they say it does.
Cork and Tipp people – let’s be honest, we hold ourselves in a certain regard.
Christy Ring, a devout man, was once challenged by a priest who took issue with a blood-and thunder speech before a Tipp showdown. This wasn’t in keeping with the new testament. Ring famously told the priest the “men who wrote the new testament never had to play Tipperary”.
That’s one side of it all. Ring needed to get battle ready. But something else he once said speaks to me of his deeper drive.
“It was never my ambition to play the game for the sake of winning All-Ireland medals or breaking records but to perfect the art as well as possible.”
It’s in this spirit that I see Cork versus Tipperary. Players from both sides inherit traditions of supreme skill, artistry even. This is what is on the line when they face off.
There have been exceptions, but when they generally let each other play. It’s a swashbuckling shootout, rarely anything cagey. You have to live up to the jersey that’s on your back; fill it out with something greater than muscle.
I always felt we had a chance against Tipperary, even when they were flying and we weren’t. I know they will have been of a similar mind – even though they were close to the top for most of my time in goal for Cork.
My most painful loss to them was the All-Ireland semi-final in 2014. We’d won Munster and had a bit of a lay-off. Still, we were moving well in training and approached the game with confidence. They played us off the field, we couldn’t cope with their rotation up front while Darren Gleeson picked us off with supremely accurate puckouts.
Our loss to them in the rain in 2016 in Thurles wasn’t much craic either. We played with a sweeper, and limited Tipperary to 0-22, though managed only 0-13 ourselves. The hurling gods gave their verdict with the weather.
Few could have thought we’d be back to score 2-27 and beat them by four points a year later, yet we did if I’m honest. Call it madness or arrogance or whatever you like, but we came with a plan and felt we could make it happen.
The strategy was a little more complex, but if you could distil it to one word it would be “run”. We thought that Tipp side, great as it was, had a slight lack of pace that could be exploited. So we were told that when in doubt, use your steps and move.
Pat Ryan came up with the plan, and in the process went from respected coach to somebody we had total confidence in. He’d just shown us how to beat the All-Ireland champions, and then helped guide us to a Munster title that wouldn’t have been predicted by many outside of our camp before the campaign.
Him being at the helm for Cork this Saturday is exciting for us – and it’s the same for Tipp with Liam Cahill. Both have proved at underage that they know how to beat Cork or Tipp.
In this season’s U20 game in Páirc Uí Chaomh myself and Brendan Cummins added another little footnote to the tome that is this rivalry. A few words were swapped and others on the line got in on the exchange.
After the game it wasn’t a thing. We shook hands. “Hey – don’t ever lose that passion,” Brendan said to me.
When it comes to Cork against Tipp, he knows I never will. Just as I know the same about him, all he’s played with and the lads he’s coaching now. This is something we share.
There’s a lot to unite Cork and Tipp hurling people. Both sides will feel the absence of Dillon Quirke on Saturday night.
Even as someone who didn’t know Dillon, it’s hard to think about him and this match without being emotional. So much potential, and such an exponent of the art. He embodied the quintessential Tipp hurler: total commitment, wrists like you couldn’t believe and that glint of boldness in his expression that told you he was there to beat you – and do it with a fair bit of style.
The profoundly sad fact that he won’t be there on Saturday is of course more painful for Tipp people, his family, friends and teammates in particular. Still, I hope they all know how admired Dillon was across the hurling world, no more so than by their friends in Cork.