Sunday will be the first time Wexford have played Tipperary as Leinster champions since 1997, the same year that they last defended an All-Ireland title. They have beaten Tipp in championship only once in the last 50 years, the All-Ireland quarter-final of 2007.
The counties haven’t met in a last-four match since 2001 and both then and four years previously, there were surprises. Despite Wexford being champions in 1997, Tipp led them, more or less gun to tape, to set up the first ever All-Ireland between two teams from the same province, a final they lost to Clare.
In Wexford’s last great year of 1996, Larry O’Gorman was named Hurler of the Year and was still playing five years later when the counties met again.
In fact he had a major impact on proceedings, being pushed up in the second half from wing back and ending the day with two goals, as the team conjured an unexpected draw, having trailed by eight points in the third quarter.
There are of shades of '97 about the weekend. Under David Fitzgerald, Wexford have won Leinster for the first time in 15 years whereas Tipperary are, like 22 years ago, coming through having lost their provincial final and advanced following an All-Ireland quarter-final they were overwhelmingly favoured to win.
O’Gorman believes Wexford still have a couple of gears left in a season, which has seen the team finally discover its potential.
“We’re not in a bad position. We’re not totally firing yet, haven’t peaked so is there another level we can get to? Tipperary are a hot, skilful team but they can only do that if you allow them.
“Davy has brought the boys to a new level with the new skilful game and a plan to go with it but he has matched that with the traditional hard work and never-say-die attitude, something we haven’t always had in recent years, even under Davy.
“There were days when he must have been going home in his car scratching his head after losing big matches in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, thinking, ‘I know they have it but I can’t get it out of them’.
"That has changed. They could have lost to Galway and Dublin but they didn't and I feel that spirit of '96 when it began to dawn on us and Liam Griffin was drilling it into us, 'we're good enough to compete with anyone'.
“You could see that in the Leinster final. To be honest, after we drew with Kilkenny in Wexford, I thought they’d raise it a bit in Croke Park and maybe beat us by us two or three points but we didn’t let that happen.”
Game changed
O’Gorman’s club-mate Lee Chin is joint-captain of the county and has been acquitting himself well on frees – no wides in his nine dead-ball strikes in the Leinster final and just one from a huge distance dropped short.
"Lee is a bit like Johnny Sexton when he's practising. Everything has to be the way he wants it at practice. He's a little self-conscious and a bit of a perfectionist. He knows that previously, people have judged him on the free-taking and talked about it.
“You’d say, ‘Lee, look, stay off the frees and just concentrate on your own game,’ and he’d say, ‘no, no, if Davy asks me to do it, I’ll do it’. He’s worked hard on it this year, possibly harder than ever before. It’s actually helped his game. The last day against Kilkenny I thought he stood up to the plate and answered all the critics.”
The customary big Wexford crowd is expected on Sunday. O’Gorman remembers the impact in 2001, as the support got behind them.
“The goals went in and the crowd got behind us – they’re always behind us but on that occasion you really felt it. The game changed and the attitude of the players changed. I looked at the body language of the Tipperary players and it reminded me of ’96 against Offaly in the Leinster final.
“The last five minutes or so, they were out on their feet and looked like they didn’t know what had hit them.
“It was almost like it was a Wexford victory. We nearly got a heroes’ welcome when we came home. The following week on Wednesday we went for one night’s training up to Bunclody and there were thousands of people there and we had to be held back in the dressing-room.
“I was thinking, ‘do they think we won and we’re getting ready for an All-Ireland final’?”
Wexford supporters are always optimistic about that, as Sunday will demonstrate.
