Munster hurling day of draws adds to the pressure and uncertainty facing every team
IT BEGAN WITH Jake Morris in Thurles in May 2018.
Fresh off the bench, the scorer with his first touch of the point that brought Tipperary level with Cork and secured the first draw of the Munster round-robin system that was still in its’ infancy.
That Round 2 stalemate was followed six days later by Kyle Hayes rescuing Limerick on a breathless night in Cork, and the day after Jason Forde capped off the June Bank Holiday weekend by dragging Tipperary level in their Gaelic Grounds tussle with Waterford.
Six games in to the opening season of hurling’s round-robin era and half of the encounters had produced draws. It was a level that couldn’t quite be maintained, there were no draws for the remainder of that Munster series, or the following year’s offering in 2019, and with Covid bringing back a knockout structure, the next draw didn’t arrive until 15 May 2022, Diarmaid Byrnes landing the crucial point after a cracker in Ennis that was a portent of the Clare-Limerick rivalry to come.
In 2023, Shane Kingston was Cork’s point-scoring saviour after an epic against Tipperary, John McGrath nailed the free that drew Tipperary level with Limerick a fortnight later, and then Gearóid O’Connor crowned Tipperary’s revival last May in Waterford with a late point.
Seven draws from 50 round-robin games represents a 14% strike rate, far from a prevailing pattern, and yet those games were the type that captured the high-pressure, heart-throbbing excitement that the Munster championship has generated in recent seasons, inflating the levels of interest and anticipation in what the province has served up.
There had never been a draw in the opening round though. Ten Sunday afternoon contests had delivered ten victors, and in only four of those matches had the action been tight enough to produce a 1-3 point winning margin.
Last Sunday bucked the trend. The 2025 edition began with two draws, the same outcome produced in Ennis and Thurles, but achieved in different ways. The first was one of wildly fluctuating fortunes, Cork ahead by 12 points at half-time, by nine points in the 56th minute, by eight points in the 66th minute, and yet reliant on a Declan Dalton free in their desperate pursuit of a levelling score, after being hit with a furious Clare comeback.
The second was more of the matching stride for stride type, Tipperary’s greatest advantage on the day was three points, Limerick’s biggest lead was two points, and it took Darragh McCarthy’s last-gasp free to generate the draw.
The settled consensus with the Munster hurling championship has been that any of the five teams can beat each other on any particular day. The fact that the top three teams in three of the five round-robin championships have been Limerick, Cork, and Clare, with Tipperary subbing in on the other two occasions (once for Clare and once for Cork), points to a competition that is more predictable in its nature.
There may be results that twist and turn the narrative, but there is still a recognisable quality to the table at the end.
The top three spot this year were widely forecast to be secured by the reigning champions of the All-Ireland (Clare), Munster (Limerick), and league (Cork) series. That may still transpire to be the case, but the upshot of last Sunday is that no team has gained a distinct advantage, and no team is in disarray after being hit by an early setback.
How will each manager feel after opening day?
Pat Ryan has a lot to process in the mixed bag of Cork’s performance, the pace and poise of the first half, giving way to a second half of slump and struggle. For the third time in the space of a year in championship, they coughed up a sizeable lead at the hands of Clare.
For the third time in their last five games in Munster, they lost a player to a red card, and on each occasion have been unable to win. And yet Brian Hayes and Darragh Fitzgibbon were sensational in the opening period, while the break that fell their way for the game to be prolonged enough to allow that levelling free to be awarded, could be of huge significance.
Brian Lohan hailed the spirit of his Clare team afterwards. Their resolve was unquestionable, getting championship minutes into the legs of their veteran players will help, and Peter Duggan was terrific as the focal point that the entire team played off. Still that’s three successive years where they haven’t left Ennis on opening day with a victory, their defence looked in real trouble as it was pulled apart in the first half, and the importance of Conor Cleary and Shane O’Donnell in opposite sectors of the pitch was magnified.
For John Kiely getting the Limerick selection mix right is a challenge to navigate. They notably shifted around William O’Donoghue and Kyle Hayes on Sunday, while they were reintegrating Nickie Quaid and Peter Casey after injury. Sean Finn, Dan and Tom Morrissey, and Darragh O’Donovan were all kept in reserve. Shane O’Brien and Adam English proved they are the Limerick hurling present as well as the future.
Kiely has been down this road with Limerick before where they have endured a patchy opening. They got the job done to defeat Waterford by two in 2023 and Clare by three in 2024, before ramping up their performance levels as they progressed through Munster. Can they repeat that trick? The eight-day period in May where they host Cork and Clare, and will require at least one win, has grown in importance.
Liam Cahill must have been the happiest manager of the quartet. Considering the 10-point loss two weeks before in the league final to Cork and the 15-point defeat twelve months previous in the championship to Limerick, this was a sharp swing in Tipperary’s form.
Positional changes like bringing Jake Morris to centre-forward, and personnel changes like introducing John McGrath, worked. The young crew of Robert Doyle, Joe Caesar, Sam O’Farrell, and Darragh McCarthy have brought new life to the team. They must be buoyed at the prospect of having another crack off Cork.
And sitting back at home in an observational capacity, absorbing the afternoon’s action, was Waterford’s Peter Queally. His team have bided their time, and after a spring in the second league tier, get set to face off against Clare and Limerick in the space of seven days. Two home contests that always looked to define their season, and yet the fact they will in both cases be facing a team without a victory, increases the reward for Waterford if they manage to win.
Munster’s hurling day of draws has raised the stakes further.
There has been greater uncertainty created.
And that adds another layer of intrigue as to what will unfold over the next 33 days.
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