MUNSTER SHF: Keith Dugganon how while the backdoor may have dulled the winner-takes-all ferocity of their 90s rivalry, Sunday's clash won't lack intensity

THROUGHOUT the 1990s, Clare and Tipperary hurling teams engaged each other in a gripping, competitive loathing that has not been matched in Gaelic games since. For Tipperary, it was a rivalry born of the fact that Clare teams were no longer simply an inconvenience to be dealt with in the early rounds of the Munster championship, but had, almost overnight, become the chief thorn in their sides.

And for the Clare teams of that period, it was probably more deeply felt, an inherited fury of being almost casually dismissed by decades of superior Tipperary teams. The 1993 final, when Clare were cheerfully blown away by their old nemesis, marked a paradigm shift - afterwards, the Banner men made no secret of the naked antipathy they felt for Tipperary teams as they entered their golden period from 1995 to 1997.

Anthony Daly's famous declaration, after he lifted the Munster trophy that July, "Clare are the whipping boys no more", entered the lexicon of immortal GAA victorious orations and for the rest of the decade, they all but carried pockets of salt to throw on to open wounds.

On the last day of August, 1999, the county under-21 teams came together to contest a Munster final that illuminated the fact the bitter fascination in which the hurling neighbours held one another had seeped down to the minor grades.

Some 15,000 people showed up that night and, almost inevitably, a fine game was interrupted by a brawl between the hurlers.

The game turned on a goal from Tipperary's most celebrated footballer, Declan Browne, who sniffed out a long ball from Michael Kennedy and delivered the shot that gave Tipperary sufficient daylight. The match ended 1-18 to 1-15, to Tipp.

Among the substitutes used that night were John Ferncombe and Eoin Kelly, who came in and scored 0-2. Last week, Kelly frowned a little as the blurred details of that evening returned to him.

"My memory of it was there were young fellas and people up against the wire. There was no space there. It was totally crowded out. There was a high intensity to that game as well. And Declan Browne, being a poacher, got in for a goal that put Tipperary in the driving seat. Declan had the capability of doing that throughout his career. But yeah, the crowd is what I remember.

"I remember being in the dugout and watching the team to see was there a chance of getting in. So I was most focused on the game and I think the crowd brought the intensity to the game."

That night was just a sign of the times. Two months earlier, Clare and Tipperary had met in a visceral championship match that went to a replay. Clare won but felt the marks of war - Davy Fitzgerald and James O'Connor spent the night in hospital.

A year later, Tipperary bounced back and by 2001 they were both confident enough and talented enough to go through the league and championship unbeaten.

After that, the second-chance system gave teams more breathing space in Munster and fate took Clare and Tipperary in different directions so the spite and anger was spent.

"It probably went a bit when the championship was restructured and you had a second chance," Kelly says now. "My first championship game, it was a straight knock-out so your summer was over if you didn't win.

"Then the changes came in and even in Munster, you want to win it. But you had that second chance. That is all gone now. With third-level education, most of these players - not just in Tipp and Clare but Galway and Kilkenny go to college together - so all that is gone. Which is a good thing, really.

"In college, I played with Brian O'Connell, the Clare captain, and Barry Nugent and Conor Plunkett. I played with those guys. As did Shane McGrath and Conor O'Mahony. Probably seven or eight of us played together and you do stay in touch with college friends.

"And Davy Fitz obviously had an involvement there and proved his worth by winning two Fitzgibbon Cups.

"Now, all that goes out the window once the ball has been thrown in. But yeah, there was a great intensity to those Tipperary-Clare games when I was younger and there was great excitement about them. And Clare did dominate those years, looking back. That is something we can hopefully reverse this time."

The big difference between those raw Munster championship games of a decade ago and the contemporary versions revolves around the second-chance syndrome. Once beaten, the big teams do not vanish. They simply shift shape. Waterford's collective character has been utterly transformed since their collapse against Clare at the outset of the competition and the intriguing choice of Fitzgerald to succeed Justin McCarthy.

Cork are quiet and smarting since being toppled by Tipperary and who knows how they will reappear later in the summer. Limerick, too, must reinvent themselves before the qualifiers.

Tomorrow's Munster final still matters greatly, but it has the feel of an interlude before the main event. Liam Sheedy has done a fine job all season of carefully avoiding the many traps of failing to adapt to the changing demands of the season. Just as he promised the league victory would be put to one side, so too has the terrific win against Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh been shelved.

"Like I said in the after match interview, cherish the moment and move on, that's it. That's sport, for every pat on the back you get, the toe up the behind isn't far behind. I was delighted with the performance in Cork, but I don't think either team would say it was a classic, that they hurled particularly well.

"Ultimately, however, the result was the right one from our point of view, that was the most important thing going down, to get the result. You've just got to refocus, reset expectations. You've got over one hurdle, the next one is coming.

"We took a few days off, brought a bit of sense back to the thing, but these are very mature guys, they know there are far bigger challenges ahead, starting with Clare."

Sheedy's first season in charge of the senior team has been admirable for the form and composure of his players. In winning the league, Tipperary caught the eye and in visibly growing against Cork, they earned the right to be called contenders.

But the stealthy and subtle improvements of the Clare team under Mike McNamara has set this final up as a match to savour.

It is clear McNamara has managed to get Clare playing fiery hurling again and they have the dangerous look of a coming team, brimming with confidence - and the belief they can score goals.

"I often got my dinner over at Mike Mac's (pub) when I was in the bank in Scarriff, but I don't think I'll chance anything out of it next week," Sheedy joked.

"In fairness to Mike, we're both rookies to the job in our own counties. He was a selector under Ger Loughnane - and very successful - and I was a selector with Tipp. From our point of view, if we were told when we got the job we'd be heading into a Munster final in July as league champions you'd take it.

"Realistically - and I've been saying this since I started - in Munster on any given day we can all beat each other. It is the most competitive championship of the whole lot. If you go down through it, you take Clare, they've beaten last year's Munster champions and Limerick, who were last year's Munster and All-Ireland finalists. Last year, if Tipp had to beat Waterford and Limerick they'd have a Munster final won in those two teams alone.

"It's really on the day and we're aware of that. In terms of who the bookies want to give a favourites tag to: we are favourites against Clare, Cork were favourites against Tipp. Others can decide who are the favourites, we're aware of the challenge that lies ahead of us in terms of what Clare bring."

Eoin Kelly, too, is happy to put the gloss on Clare's credentials. It has become obligatory for GAA teams to compliment each other in the days before a big match but Kelly's arguments for Clare have substance.

"We know Clare. We were lucky to get the draw with them down in Ennis and their focus was playing in the first round of the championship - especially playing Waterford in Limerick. That would nearly be like a home venue for them. They racked up big scores - 2-26 against Waterford and 4-12 against Limerick on a day when Tony Griffin went off after 10 minutes.

"So with the intensity they are playing at, they are bringing scores to win these games as well. I don't care what you say about a team, that is fair scoring.

"They have found a few new players that are getting scores - Jonathan Clancy and Mark Flaherty. The way they are going about it, they are killing off a game. Griffin is a four- or five-points-per-game forward. Tony Carmody is a two-or-three-points. Niall Gilligan is a goal-and-two-or-three.

"In every game, there are five or six frees. They all add up. The one thing a team needs now is to be disciplined and not give away silly frees. To be fair, I think we were indisciplined against Cork but you won't get away in a championship game giving away six of seven frees.

"This match is refreshing and there is going to be ferocious intensity because both teams want to get over the line. Like, Colin Lynch is one of the great warriors of the last 10 years. It doesn't matter what you say, age and all that goes out the door once the four line up for the throw-in. It is going to be a good one."

That fact has begun to dawn on everyone. In hurling, the thought of Clare and Tipperary is as powerful and ominous as the distant sound of summer thunder. It hardly matters that the requirement for a win is not quite as cut-throat as it was when Eoin Kelly was starting out on the senior road.

Clare have not been champions of the province for 10 full years.

Tipperary's last Munster triumph was 2001.

Neither county can afford to be choosy about the broader value of winning provincial honours.

Winning it won't quite provide the volcanic release of pride and frustration that it did for Clare in the roasting summer of 1995. But it will constitute a significant day for a hurling county that has been wonderfully resilient over the last decade.

And for Tipperary, winning Munster will not mark the kind of reclamation as informed Richie Stakelum's emotional words of 21 years ago. "The famine is over", the Tipperary captain cried when the old aristocrats captured Munster after a wretched 16 years of early knock-outs.

Those grand, emotive terms - famine days and whipping boys - probably no longer apply. And as Eoin Kelly alluded to, the life of hurling rivals is more fluid and less antagonistic nowadays. The traditionalists can blame college.

Tomorrow marks a new chapter in an old story. Clare and Tipperary: two good, honest teams trying to find their way back to the big time. Never in the history of hurling have they had so much in common. And because of that, they will fight just as furiously as ever.

"I'm sure there will be handshakes and that afterwards," predicted Eoin Kelly, "but for 70 minutes, you will be just dying for your team."

Brace yourself.