Awesome Kilkenny seize the day

THE GAME wasn't epic but the performance which won it was

THE GAME wasn't epic but the performance which won it was. Kilkenny pursued history all the way to the wire yesterday and left behind them on the Croke Park field a decimated Waterford side and a lot of scorched earth.

The nature of greatness demands that there has to be some style in its attainment. Kilkenny won their third All-Ireland hurling title in a row yesterday, the first time that feat has been achieved since the seventies. They won their 31st title, becoming for the first time the game's brand leaders. And they did it with a performance of chilling perfection.

Waterford, poor Waterford. They weren't beaten. They were pummelled and then tied to a truck and dragged around the pitch as a warning to others. Kilkenny scored 33 times in a 70-minute game. They won by 23 points. They didn't lose a single battle around the field. Awesome is too modest a word for them.

It took Waterford until the 45th minute to register a score from play. By then, some of their following who had waited 45 years to see their side in an All-Ireland final were on their way home.

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It was said in the giddy hype which preceded the game that Waterford would come to Croke Park and match Kilkenny physically. They did. There was Punch and Judy stuff aplenty in the opening minutes but it mattered not at all. Kilkenny were nonplussed, tacking on the scores even as the bruises and batterings added up.

Obama or McCain would have traded limbs to have engaged or electrified an audience with quite the theatrical aplomb of Kilkenny captain James Fitzpatrick when beginning his speech. He began with the topic which in Kilkenny has been unmentionable all year. The three in a row business.

"In 1934, it couldn't be done," he roared, beginning a litany of near-misses. "In 1976, it couldn't be done. In 1984, it couldn't be done. In 1994, it couldn't be done. In 2004. But not in 2008." And the roar rocked the great GAA cathedral to its foundations. Kilkenny's cathedral, Kilkenny's day, Kilkenny's piece of history.