Even if next month’s All-Ireland final isn’t as spectacular an occasion as the previous two, hurling can still consider itself to have had a reasonable year

FOURTEEN YEARS ago, the phraseology derived from Tony Blair’s soundbite on the death of the Princess of Wales, references to the possibility of an All-Ireland between then champions Wexford and their predecessors Clare as ‘the people’s final’ began to emerge.

Tipperary, no less than Kilkenny or Cork, have never been susceptible to sentiment and their semi-final with Wexford concluded with few concessions to what ‘the people’ might have wanted.

That notional final would have been the high water mark of what Denis Walsh's book termed The Revolution Years. Within a year the giddy egalitarianism of the time had passed and the 13 seasons since (and counting) have constituted The Restoration Years, historically an unsurpassed era of dominance by hurling's Big Three.

Yet there was no doubting the people’s preferences this year. Natural sympathy for the underdogs in the semi-finals was tempered by apprehension about a one-sided final and a desire to see a great modern rivalry continued.

In the end Dublin’s seismic display at the weekend ticked all the boxes from a neutral point of view, delivering a cracker of a match but without disturbing the third instalment of Tipp-Kilkenny.

Strangely a third successive All-Ireland between the same counties hasn’t happened for 108 years and that was greatly facilitated by the guaranteed place London had in the final of those years. Cork may have supplied the opposition in 1901, ’02 and ’03 but they beat three different counties (Wexford, Dublin and Kilkenny) in the ‘home’ final. London were a decent team at the time, winning the All-Ireland in 1901, but it’s still uncertain that they would have emerged in all three years without the guarantee of a final place.

There’s no doubting the supremacy of next month’s finalists over the past couple of years. Tipp might have required the qualifiers last year but their team in May was unrecognisable from the one that powered through August and September. Kilkenny don’t succumb to slip-ups and have now accumulated 25 consecutive championship matches since 2006 and lost only one – last year’s final.

Even if next month’s All-Ireland isn’t as spectacular an occasion as the previous two, hurling can still account itself to have had a reasonable year.

It was possible to accept a couple of weeks back that, although neither All-Ireland semi-final might be particularly competitive, there had been enough encouragement for a variety of counties throughout 2011.

As things turned out Waterford asserted themselves for spells against Kilkenny and injury-blighted Dublin made a glorious tussle of the second semi-final.

The unexpected knock-on effect is to make the final even harder to call. The Cork team of the 1940s – whose four-in-a-row record Kilkenny equalled – bounced back after a one-year interval to take the 1946 title, their fifth in six years. The Leinster champions may be coming to the end of the road but they can make it a memorable home stretch.

Tipperary lost the invincible sheen of the Munster championship when struggling to overcome a Dublin team comfortably dispatched by Kilkenny but for the past two years they’ve produced their best display of the season in early September. Can the new management maintain that impressive feat of fine tuning?

In what is the 10th season of the qualifiers the positive impact can be seen in how counties assess their season’s performance. Of the main MacCarthy Cup contenders only Cork and Galway will have little to encourage them. Cork’s lack of underage success continues to cast long shadows even though their under-21s this year weren’t without promise, particularly if Aidan Walsh can be persuaded to give dual life a crack. For Galway, however, underage success is part of a blasted landscape where nothing appears to thrive once players turn 22.

Waterford bounced back from the Munster final humiliation whereas Dublin have been hurling’s success story of the year. The qualifiers’ accommodation of matches against Munster counties has really helped the team develop. Still struggling to get their heads around Kilkenny in championship, Dublin have managed over the past two years to defeat Clare and Limerick and give Tipp a sizeable rattle even without a clutch of first-team players.

The league win in May was a startlingly confident assertion of the team’s confidence although they, like Kilkenny that day, would discover how hard it is to function without key players. As a good news story, Dublin’s emergence has been corroborated by their underage progress, which has led to the likelihood of two All-Ireland finals. The pressure is now on the county to win one. Six years after taking a breakthrough provincial minor title it’s now time to go a step farther.

Even that wouldn’t guarantee anything at senior level – as Galway can testify – but it would lay the ground encouragingly.

This progress means that it is possible by the investment of resources, time and effort to create what wasn’t there previously, but other counties will point to Dublin’s vast demographic and say that one size doesn’t necessarily fit all.

The one cloud over the hurling year is the growing disengagement by referees of elite, senior matches. Compared with football the game is hardly refereed at all. Footballers must watch in astonishment at the amount of foul play that goes unpunished while their infractions are often rigorously policed.

Given the pressure from managers, officials and often the public, which evidently has a taste for the gladiatorial contests that ensue, match officials frequently appear reluctant to stand in the way of what everyone wants.

That’s not likely to change in the last match of the season and presumably both Kilkenny and Tipperary would feel aggrieved if they were suddenly to be held to account for what had passed uncensored for the rest of the championship but it’s something that the GAA needs to address.

As with the contentious rule on amateurism – which continues to be at odds with reality and despite the preparation last year of a discussion document – continues to go undiscussed in any broad context, the chasm between what the rules say govern hurling and what is implemented during big matches is stark.

There can be little disputing this even if forensic detail can wait until another day but amidst the guff about ‘manly’ games the reality is obscured. It requires more courage to behave in a disciplined manner when under pressure than to foul an opponent in order to prevent him outplaying you. And that essential truth is being lost.