National Hurling League Division One final: Kilkenny 5-14 Tipperary 5-13: For any hardy souls who attended Croke Park for both National League finals over the weekend, yesterday provided compensation for the football. Having furnished nearly an hour's absorbing and instructive hurling, the Allianz NHL decider went crackers for the last 10 minutes as an apparently beaten Kilkenny went for broke.
To state Henry Shefflin kicked the winning point in the second minute of injury-time is like saying Hamlet ends with a fight. By then most onlookers weren't so much wild with excitement as frozen in astonishment.
Everyone had been carefully noting the problem positions on either team, nodding affirmatively at the players who looked ready for summer and pondering the selection anxieties that would occupy both managers in the weeks ahead. But without warning serious drama crossed over into the thriller genre - Eugene O'Neill eclipsed by Get Carter, so to speak.
The predictably meagre audience of 17,153 was entranced as inhibitions were rapidly shed and the ball flew back and forth like a pinball. Kilkenny roused themselves and cast aside the chains of an eight point deficit to hold onto their title by the narrowest of margins.
It was hard on Tipperary who had looked out-and-out winners as they had adroitly repelled Kilkenny's previously anaemic efforts. But the injury to full back Philip Maher, in whose absence the full-back line was ransacked for four goals, could turn out to be even worse news.
But that is just an outline treatment. There were so many subplots some will have to end on the cutting-room floor. One that has to stay was the sight of Charlie Carter making the acceptance speech with the trophy in his hand. Kilkenny has been agog with tales of feuding between the captain and team management and there has been some bafflement at his inability to nail down a starting place.
Yesterday started with Carter on the bench and his clubmate DJ Carey captaining the team. Just into the final quarter with his side trailing by seven Carter was sprung from the bench. Twenty minutes later, having scored at least one goal (two had Carey not got a touch - as he later claimed - to a shot in the 61st minute) he was going up to receive the cup.
Initially the match resembled the counties' recent league meeting at Nowlan Park. Kilkenny started strongly and were four clear after 13 minutes, 1-3 to 0-2 - the goal from Henry Shefflin when full back Maher (worryingly carted off after 23 minutes with an ominous looking knee injury) and David Kennedy missed a dropping free from Richie Mullally.
But Tipp were more economical for most of the match and their sporadic raids yielded scores. A couple of pointed frees set the stage for a fine goal, finished by Lar Corbett and created by the interaction of Benny Dunne's nimble dispossession of Derek Lyng and a movement, which saw Conor Gleeson, John Carroll and Liam Cahill engineer the opening.
Up until half-time the match see-sawed but in the 35th minute it lurched away from the holders. Eoin Kelly, beginning to take Philip Larkin on a tour, addressed a 20-metre free. With Tipp two ahead, a point seemed a satisfactory ambition but instead Kelly drilled the ball through Noel Hickey for his team's second goal.
The pattern by the break was clear. Kilkenny looked flat and unable to rise to Tipperary's quickening tempo despite some key areas working out well. Shefflin started in top form and put in a storming finish but waned in the interim.
Noel Hickey had been taken for 1-6 by Redser O'Grady last month but proved that lightning wasn't going to strike twice. He met the challenge full on and 40 minutes later handed the familiar full forward problem back to Tipperary manager Michael Doyle as O'Grady was replaced by Eugene O'Neill.
Again in the second half goals provided the bookmarks. In the 48th minute Tipperary made what looked a decisive break. Eoin Brislane, who made a strong impression after substituting the injured Noel Morris, soloed down the left and when the ball broke he managed to chip it across the face of the goal for an unmarked John Carroll to finish to the net.
Kilkenny's All Star full forward Martin Comerford had laboured to the extent that he was moved to the corner but he struck for a goal in the 55th minute. Although that was cancelled within minutes by another Tipp raid that led to Corbett's second goal changes were made that set the scene for a giddy climax.
Apart from winning a couple of puck outs John Hoyne had put little pressure on a by now rampant Paul Kelly. He was substituted by Carter and Comerford moved to the wing where he did his best work of the afternoon. Tommy Walsh on the other wing had earlier been relocated to centrefield and the new configuration clicked.
The match was turned on its head by three goals between the 61st and 66th minutes. The first was a shot by Carter that passed Carey on the way to the net, the second definitively Carter's after Eddie Brennan's exquisite flick-back and the third by Brennan who careered in from the left after Mullally had switched play from the right wing.
Yet it took a Shefflin free to tie things up going into injury-time because of another Tipperary goal by Carroll as normal time ran out. Carroll was denied a hat-trick in injury time by PJ Ryan's acrobatics and crucially Tommy Dunne couldn't convert the 65.
KILKENNY: PJ Ryan; M Kavanagh, N Hickey, P Larkin; R Mullally, P Barry, JJ Delaney; D Lyng, P Tennyson; J Hoyne, H Shefflin (1-6, four points from frees), T Walsh; E Brennan (1-3), M Comerford (1-2), DJ Carey (1-3, points from frees). Subs: J Coogan for Tennyson (44 mins), A Cummins for Larkin (49 mins), C Carter (1-0) for Hoyne (56 mins).
TIPPERARY: B Cummins; M Maher, P Maher, B Dunne; B Horgan, D Kennedy, P Kelly (0-1); T Dunne (0-1, a free), N Morris; J Carroll (2-0), C Gleeson (0-2), L Cahill (0-1), E Kelly (1-7, goal and three points from frees), G O'Grady, L Corbett (2-0). Subs: E Brislane (0-1) for Morris (19 mins), J Devane for P Maher (23 mins), E O'Neill for O'Grady (39 mins).
Referee: P O'Connor (Limerick).
