Cork’s old record doesn’t really bear comparison with what Kilkenny are on the verge of achieving

IT’S STRIKING how much of sporting history is told through the record books and more specifically the roll of honour. In 25 days Kilkenny will play the match which can determine the county’s place in history. In the space of an afternoon, hurling’s greatest achievement can be emulated.

With respect to both Limerick and Tipperary, it is assumed by most people that Cork’s 65-year-old record of four successive All-Irelands will be equalled.

Football, despite its greater range of winners, has produced three teams to have won four successive All-Irelands but hurling’s pinnacle is occupied solely by Cork.

Yet the bare records are misleading. Cork’s record doesn’t really bear comparison with what Kilkenny are on the verge of achieving. Brian Cody’s side has been overwhelmingly dominant during the past four seasons.

This is an intensely competitive era. The qualifier system may have removed the high-wire tension of the sudden-death format but that has been irrelevant to Kilkenny’s march. The standard in Leinster all decade has made defeat virtually inconceivable, excepting Wexford’s bravura raid in 2004.

This has meant Kilkenny have never availed of the second chance to win the All-Ireland. Five years ago they progressed to the All-Ireland final along the outside track but the defeat by Wexford was evidence of a lapse in form and none of the county’s six MacCarthy Cups since 2000 have needed the second-chance route.

This year’s final sees the champions going for an 18th successive win over the seasons since they lost the 2005 semi-final to Galway.

If Kilkenny haven’t needed the second-chance dispensation of the modern era, it has nonetheless provided for a far more competitive environment, guaranteeing the perennial presence of all of the big beasts from Munster in the All-Ireland series, where there is no way back from defeat.

In the 1940s, Cork weren’t even faced with the standard rigours of the era. Anyone perusing the record books will notice the sequence of successes isn’t the most demanding: three wins over Dublin and one against Antrim.

It’s little more than a footnote in the history books but Cork weren’t even Munster champions in the first year of their record run. In fairness to what was obviously a great team, they did record a hefty win over then All-Ireland champions Limerick in the 1941 provincial championship but the season was marked by the ravages of a major foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.

First identified in February, the outbreak was largely confined to south Leinster and Munster, leading to the slaughter of between 21,000 and 24,000 animals, and most seriously affected Kilkenny, Carlow, and parts of Laois and Tipperary. This was about as centred as possible on hurling’s prime territory and, in the end, it was Kilkenny and Tipperary who suffered most – both being withdrawn before the championship ended.

Cork were due to play Tipperary in the Munster semi-final. Eventually scheduled for August 17th, the match was dramatically called off when the Department of Agriculture forbade Tipperary to travel.

The Central Council of the GAA now had a dilemma. Already Kilkenny – in many people’s eyes favourites for that year’s All-Ireland – had been hit by the epidemic. Despite being granted a bye to the provincial final by the Leinster Council, Kilkenny were prohibited from playing Dublin unless a clear three weeks had passed since the last outbreak. It was a condition the county wasn’t able to meet.

Apprehensive that the All-Ireland would never get played, Central Council turned down a request from Tipperary for a postponement and ordered that Leinster and Munster nominate their representatives. In the event of either winning, they were to be recognised as All-Ireland champions.

Dublin were the clear choice in Leinster, but Munster decided to offer its nomination to the winners of the above-mentioned match between Cork and Limerick, specially arranged as an eliminator.

There was no way back for Tipp and Kilkenny. The rest was perfunctory. Dublin edged out Galway in the All-Ireland semi-final before going down heavily to Cork in the final.

It doesn’t go without comment in Tipperary that Cork’s All-Ireland was qualified the following November by the counties’ eventual playing of the Munster semi-final, redesignated as the final after Cork’s defeat of Limerick. The provincial title was won by Tipp – a scenario not repeated for 63 years until Waterford won the 2004 Munster championship but Cork came through the qualifiers to win the All-Ireland.

I remember talking to Jimmy Phelan some years ago, the great Kilkenny hurler and star of the 1939 “Thunder and Lightning final” whose career was effectively finished by the epidemic and the war-time travel restrictions at a time when he lived and worked in Carlow.

It was his view that foot-and-mouth was responsible for the passing of that Kilkenny team because it not alone ruled the county out of the 1941 championship but in its drastic curtailing of club activity also adversely affected the 1942 season.

Should Kilkenny win their fourth All-Ireland in a row next month they will, unlike Cork, have done so as provincial champions for each of the four years.

The record books will similarly never tell the full story of Waterford’s contribution to hurling in this decade. Three Munster titles and one National League is a paltry return for a team that could have won an All-Ireland.

It’s ironic that in decline they’ve proved a stickier proposition for opponents than at their peak when carelessness and misfortune cost them previous semi-finals.

But for PJ Ryan’s miraculous save at the end of Sunday’s match the margin would have been tighter than when the counties met at the same stage five years ago in a season frequently regarded as the county’s best opportunity to have won a MacCarthy Cup.

Tony Browne emerged from what is presumably his last appearance in Croke Park for the county. As ever he was assured and reliable at wing back. You’d wonder does his mind ever flicker back 17 years to when he captained the county to an under-21 All-Ireland victory.

Clare and Offaly lost to Waterford in the respective 1992 Munster and All-Ireland finals but many of those players went on to win two senior All-Irelands while Browne joined the unfulfilled ranks of great players never to achieve that highest honour.

Another story told but not fully revealed by the record books.