Cork v Limerick All-Ireland will be eighth repeat meeting in back-door era

SUNDAY'S All-Ireland senior hurling final between Limerick and Cork will be the eighth time that the teams meeting in the decider will have already played each other in the championship.

The previous seven occasions don’t provide a definitive pattern either way in terms of the original outcome holding true – four times it has and three times the team beaten in the provincial championship has turned the tables – but the last two occasions have seen the status quo remain.

Both Cork and Limerick have each been in one final against opposition from earlier in the year. In 2013, Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s Cork side beat Clare – to whom they had already lost in the Munster SHL and national league relegation play-off – in the Munster semi-final before falling to Limerick in the provincial decider.

Cork overcame Kilkenny in the All-Ireland quarter-finals and then Dublin in the semi-finals to make it to a first final in seven years, where they again encountered Clare, who had come through the qualifiers. The counties’ fourth meeting of the year ended in a draw thanks to Domhnall O’Donovan’s late equaliser for Clare and the Banner County came out on top in the replay, 5-16 to 3-16.

Last year’s delayed and compacted championship provided Limerick’s repeat final. Having beaten Clare and Tipperary in Munster, they beat Waterford by 0-25 to 0-21 in the provincial final. They then saw off Galway in the All-Ireland semi while Waterford regrouped with wins against Clare and Kilkenny to reach the final. However, in Croke Park in mid-December, the outcome was the same as it had been in Thurles in November, with Limerick triumphing by 0-30 to 0-19.

The first year of the ‘back door’ in hurling was 1997, when the beaten Munster and Leinster finalists were given a second chance with places in the All-Ireland quarter-finals against Galway and the Ulster champions.

In each of the first three seasons, the beaten finalists won their next games to reach the All-Ireland semis and in the first two, 1997 and 1998, the All-Ireland finals were repeats of provincial deciders.

In 1997, Clare overcame Tipperary for a second time after Tipp had eliminated the Leinster champions Wexford, but in 1998 history was made as Offaly, having lost to Kilkenny in the Leinster final, upset the odds with a late comeback against the Cats in the All-Ireland.

Two years on, Offaly repeated half the trick as they beat Cork in the All-Ireland semi but this time Kilkenny, having lost the last two finals, made light work of the Faithful County as they ended an eight-year drought.

The next repeat pairing in a final was 2012 and this time it was Kilkenny who were turning things around. Beaten by Galway in the Leinster final, they found form in the back door and saw off the Tribesmen after a replay in the All-Ireland. Then, in 2015, it was the same two counties involved but on that occasion, Kilkenny were the kingpins in Leinster and backed up that supremacy by beating Galway again when the sides met for the Liam MacCarthy Cup.