GAELIC GAMES:THE CLOUDS still had some storm left in them. The air was sickly close and offered no easy breath. On the perfect grass Cork and Kilkenny had some issues and a decade of enmity to settle. The referee threw in the ball, stood back and, like a man who had lit a fuse, watched the game explode.
Soon there was blood rising and timber crashing and no backside could settle into its seat while its owner watched the fury below. Men careened off each other, the ball belonged to nobody for more than a millisecond.
It was madness with method in it, beautiful and poetic fury. Every All-Ireland hurling semi-final should be like this.
It finished as perhaps we expected it would. Excellence routing romance. Kilkenny's breathtaking intensity stifling Cork's lingering passion. Nine points was the width of their superiority, 1-23 to 0-17, and nobody could object. Twice this summer Cork have come back off the ropes and avoided the knockout punch. Kilkenny were too spry and too clinical to offer a third reprieve.
That intensity was truly white-hot at times. It must be strange to be a Gaelic footballer and to stand and look at the frank full-bloodedness of the exchanges yesterday and reflect that there was just one yellow card issued all afternoon. Nobody is complaining though. This was rip-roaring stuff. Derring-do for daring men.
The game was punctuated by just one goal, scored by Eoin Larkin some seven minutes before half-time. His score was a little bit of audacity that went unpunished and ended with a ball in the net. For the rest of the day both teams' squares were guarded with a fury that was manic and all-consuming.
Cork, with plenty of serious combat under their belts, hoped to hustle Kilkenny, who had been resting up since a Leinster final they had won by 19 points. Kilkenny don't get hustled anymore.
They took the best that Cork, with several pairs of old legs in the engine room, could offer. And they gave it back with added value.
The trouble about dealing with Kilkenny is that they can take you down any way they need to take you down. All week long Cork fretted about Diarmuid O'Sullivan and whether or not the great man's dignity would be shredded by Cats' claws. The Rock was excellent yesterday, ushering both Martin Comerford and Richie Power to the subs' bench without the fig leaf of a score to cover either of their names.
Kilkenny still did the damage though, raiding from the wings, Henry Shefflin nicking three points from Seán Óg Ó hAilpín's pocket out on the right wing, Eoin Larkin taking a generous helping from John Gardiner on the left wing, Eddie Brennan and Aidan Fogarty stacking them up from the corners. Ronan Curran and the Rock held firm. Kilkenny still ran in 1-23. Incredible.
Then there is the work rate. The number of scores Kilkenny created just by the sheer bloodymindedness not of their backs (who are reared that way) but of their forwards was shocking.
Cork's backs never got a moment when they could look up and pick a pass out from the chaos.
And of course the personnel. There isn't a county team in Ireland of which Richie Hogan and Eoin Reid would not be central planks. Yesterday they might as well not have brought their boots. Will they issue a murmur of dissent? Not while the memory of Charlie Carter lingers in Kilkenny folk memory.
For Cork the number of tired legs when set against the number of inexperienced heads just couldn't add up to a win.
The O'Connor brothers, Ben and Jerry, looked jaded. Joe Deane was withdrawn having suffered drought in the shadow of Noel Hickey. The great half-back platform of so many great days leaked and Niall McCarthy was withdrawn from centre forward to his evident displeasure. That's how it ends for sides who grow old together.
Cork manager Gerald McCarthy was rueful but magnanimous. "You have to admire Kilkenny," he said. "They set an exceptionally high standard. We are very disappointed but it is no horror to lose to a team like that."
Can they be stopped? "I'd be the last one to be saying that. It is going to take a huge performance from either Tipp or Waterford. A huge, huge effort. I would say after that display Kilkenny will be in the driving seat in the final against either of the two."
Kilkenny long ago learned the value of ruthlessness and the treachery of sentiment. They refresh themselves as a matter of routine and the near mythical intensity of their training sessions reflects their abhorrence of the comfort zone.
"There were a lot of serious questions asked at training in the last few weeks," said Michael Kavanagh, "and lads had to stand up and give answers today."
Only in Kilkenny, All-Ireland champions for the last two years, would serious questions be asked in the weeks after a 19-point provincial final blow-out. That is the standard though, and next weekend's semi-finalists, Waterford and Tipperary, have to get there if the final is to be anything other than a coronation.
"It is brilliant to be involved in the All-Ireland final," said Cody, who in fairness must secretly mark the day in red biro in his diary as one to be kept free. "It's something we don't maybe appreciate hugely. We live at a time when we are lucky to have this opportunity to prepare for an All-Ireland final.
"This is a massive ask again, to take on the winners of Tipp and Waterford. It is the be-all and end-all. All-Ireland final day is the greatest day of the year. We look forward to it and we will work towards it."
Work. Work. Work. Their appetite for gruelling labour shows no signs of diminishing.
Meanwhile everyone else . . .
