All-Ireland SHC final: Clare 3-29 Cork 1-34 (after extra-time)
Dublin football maestro Kevin Heffernan used to say that you only needed to be ahead by a point when the match was over.
The entire county of Clare will have understood exactly what he meant when Limerick referee Johnny Murphy whistled the end to an extraordinary, drama-filled match with the minimum between the teams after 90 minutes of ebb and flow that drained the emotional tanks of the capacity attendance.
Bald facts: Clare won the 2024 All-Ireland hurling title. In a taut conclusion they held off Cork at the very end of extra time to win by the requisite point. This was, however, a grand opera of a finale. The hurling championship has been so riveting this season that this was a fitting end.
When Tony Kelly hoisted the Liam MacCarthy there were all sorts of symmetries. One of the 2013 kids, the Clare captain reserved his best display of an injury-affected year for the biggest stage. Finishing with 1-4, 1-2 the product of mesmerising skill on the ball in the tightest of spaces, including the point that looked to have won it in normal time, nobody had done more on the day to make it happen for the team.
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Cork, involved in so many of the highest-octane contests this season, went down fighting, frantic in the realisation that a match which had never been beyond them and at one point looked theirs for the taking was now slipping away in the closing rush of seconds.
As a contest, marked by bursts of scoring, the teams went neck and neck for nearly the whole course. Level at half-time, full time, half-way through extra time but critically the symmetry flagged in the final 10 minutes.
Even then the concluding wide from Robbie O’Flynn as injury-time in extra time ran down to the last grain of sand was controversial as the Cork player looked to have been fouled as he was readying the fateful shot.
Where to start with the match? In the opening quarter Cork looked like they were going to apply the hard lessons of their most recent final and thrash Clare. They started with real intent, leading by three in the opening four minutes: Tim O’Mahony, Séamus Harnedy and Shane Barrett all scoring.
It looked like Clare’s worst forebodings made incarnate. Cork moved fast and carved out chances, which they took. There was, however, a quick response. In the space of 90 seconds Diarmuid Ryan, with two, and Mark Rodgers tied it up.
There was corresponding turbulence from an established source of anxiety: wides. They weren’t dropping over as smoothly for Clare as for Cork.
Disaster beckoned by the 12th minute after a thunderous goal by Robert Downey, catching the ball over Peter Duggan and galloping all the way down the pitch with his marker in fruitless pursuit to hit a stunning shot into the Canal goal: 0-3 to 1-7.
Yet, just as they had done in Pairc Uí Chaoimh, at a later stage of the match Clare got off the canvas and hit back.
You sensed that a major spectacle was pending when they fired in 1-4 of their own, against a rallying point from Mark Coleman to reduce the deficit to just one. The goal was the work of Shane O’Donnell, who scorched into the match having hardly had a touch in opening exchanges.
A long delivery in from David McInerney, who was in unflinching form, stuck and off went O’Donnell, exchanging passes with Duggan and flicking the ball to Aidan McCarthy as he was fouled. McCarthy, who maintained his semi-final accuracy from dead balls, swept to the net.
O’Donnell reminded everyone of why he is nailed on for HOTY by adding a point in a minute. It was little surprise that the score was level by half-time, 1-12 each.
If Cork hoped to emulate their semi-final dispatch of Limerick with a similar third-quarter power play they were thwarted. Clare’s defence was excellent even though jeopardised by yellow cards in the first half for two of the full back line Adam Hogan and Conor Cleary.
They stood their ground and if at times they benefited from the referee’s Ancient Mariner style of officiating – stopping one in three – they found it equally hard themselves to get frees.
John Conlon’s much speculated-on execution by speed never happened, as neither Shane Barrett nor later Darragh Fitzgibbon could expose any vulnerability, and the Clare centre back was a colossus by the end, his interventions and use of the ball reassuring the whole defence.
Cork never managed to get the long puck-out strategy that had undone Limerick up and running to anything like the same extent as Clare’s half backs were unyielding.
Two third-quarter goals put Clare in the driving seat. Rodgers glided on to a puck-out, made ground and jinked inside to open the gate in the 40th minute. Eleven minutes later Kelly waltzed in for a third, flicking the ball over the defence and batting to the net.
As always happens in this fixture Cork although outgunned never stopped firing, and Clare never seem comfortable with the lead. This All-Ireland final was no different. Kelly looked to have won it with another magic score, over the shoulder as he was falling but the hapless Aron Shanagher pulled down Tommy O’Connell for a simple equalising free.
Extra time looked like following the same script as both sides sent in their extras to replace shattered team-mates – to the point that Clare would have had real difficulty had there been a replay. Again they established a three-point lead by the 88th minute and this time it survived.
In the outpouring of jubilation that followed winning manager Brian Lohan moved through his players and wellwishers, having delivered a Liam MacCarthy Cup after five years of unflagging efforts to bring the county back to the top table, where he had been as a player in the fabled 1990s.
It’s been a roller-coaster season: a national league, followed by a wrenching defeat against champions and perennial rivals Limerick, who had the first match in Ennis gifted to them rather than having to chisel it out of hostile territory.
But here they are, champions for the fifth time – the team in a melting pot of a championship that found itself one point ahead after the most important match of the year.
CLARE: Eibhear Quilligan; Conor Leen, Adam Hogan, Conor Cleary; Diarmuid Ryan (0-3), John Conlon, David McInerney; Cathal Malone, Tony Kelly (1-4); David Fitzgerald (0-3), Mark Rodgers (1-3), Peter Duggan (0-2, 0-1 sideline); Aidan McCarthy (1-7, 0-3 frees, 0-1 65), Shane O’Donnell (0-2), David Reidy (0-2). Subs: Darragh Lohan for Malone (temp), 36-37 mins; Ryan Taylor (0-1) for McCarthy, 55 mins; Ian Galvin (0-1) for Reidy, 59 mins; Aron Shanagher for Duggan, 66 mins; Lohan for Cleary, 71 mins; Robin Mounsey for Rodgers, 73 mins; McCarthy for Mounsey, extra-time; Cian Galvin for Ryan, 80 mins; Shane Meehan (0-1) for O’Donnell, 80 mins; Seadna Morey for Malone, 87 mins.
CORK: Patrick Collins; Niall O’Leary, Eoin Downey (0-1), Seán O’Donoghue (capt); Robert Downey (1-0), Ciarán Joyce (0-1), Mark Coleman (0-3); Tim O’Mahony (0-3), Darragh Fitzgibbon (0-2); Declan Dalton, Shane Barrett (0-2), Séamus Harnedy (0-4); Patrick Horgan (0-12, 0-10 frees), Alan Connolly (0-1), Brian Hayes (0-2). Subs: Shane Kingston for Hayes (temp), 43-47 mins; Ethan Twomey for Dalton, 49 mins; Jack O’Connor for Connolly, 64 mins; Shane Kingston (0-2) for Barrett, 66 mins; Robbie O’Flynn (0-1) for Harnedy, 68 mins; Tommy O’Connell for R Downey, 74 mins; Ger Mellerick for O’Donoghue, 79 mins; Damien Cahalane for O’Leary, 80 mins; Luke Meade for O’Mahony, 85 mins.
Referee: Johnny Murphy (Limerick).
