Tipperary stand in the way of Cork ending their 20-year famine

So, it’s Tipp!

Cork will face Tipperary in the All-Ireland Hurling Final in Croke Park on July 20. 

The ultimate prize is agonisingly close now, but one more perfect performance will be required for Cork to end their 20 year long All-Ireland title famine.

When Cork defeated Tipperary in Round 4 of the Munster Championship last year in Thurles by 1-21 to 4-30 if someone had told you that this would be the All-Ireland Final pairing the following year they would have thought that you were off your rocker.

Tipp looked in the horrors that day, looking miles off the required standard, as the Rebels cut them to shreds on their home turf to the tune of eighteen points. 

Cork had a dozen scorers on the day and they were playing with Liam Cahill’s side by the end. It was a humiliation.

For Tipperary to go from that low ebb to qualifying for the league final, getting out of Munster and reaching the All-Ireland Final thanks to victories over the top two side in Leinster in the space of just thirteen months is some turnaround.

Cork dispatched the Premier by fifteen points in this year’s Munster Round Robin clash at SuperValu Páirc Ui Chaoimh, but most observers put a line through that one given Tipp played pretty much the entire game with just 14 men after Darragh McCarthy’s first minute sending off.

Since then Tipperary have defeated Waterford, Clare, Laois, Galway and Kilkenny in their past five games and will enter hurling’s showpiece brimming with confidence.

Tipp have only lost three games in the whole of 2025. 

They topped Division 1A of the league with five wins out of six, with just a Round 3 away loss to Limerick blotting their copybook.

They were then comprehensively beaten by Cork in the final on Leeside on 6 April, but since then that aforementioned championship loss away to Cork is their only reversal. 

Three defeats in fourteen competitive games shows that their qualification for the final is no fluke.

In comparison Cork have played thirteen competitive fixtures this year and only lost two. 

The infamous sixteen point loss away to Limerick on 18 May and a long forgotten league match versus Tipp in Thurles on 22 February by 2-22 to 1-21, when Cork looked sluggish on the night, being the two defeats.

On Sunday Tipp really struggled at the beginning of their semi-final clash against Kilkenny, with them having just the one score to Kilkenny’s eight after 13 minutes. 

The fact that this score was a quality goal from John McGrath meant they were in the fight and gradually they started to play their way into the game following a brace of points from Conor Stakelum and one apiece from Eoghan Connolly and Jake Morris.

The reason why Tipp struggled so much early on was that they could not get past Kilkenny’s sweeper, but to their credit they finally figured out ways to get around and over it, and once they did they found that the Kilkenny full back line was not as impenetrable as a lot of pundits were making it out to be, as they pilfered three goals in seventeen minutes, which included a crucial unanswered scoring burst of 2-2, to go from four down to four up.

When Darragh McCarthy was red carded in the 59th minute for his second bookable offence there looked to be no path to victory for Tipperary, as they conceded the next two points. It looked curtains, but three Jason Forde points in three minutes gave Tipp an unlikely lead, and although Kilkenny did equalise they were knocked to the canvas by substitute Oisin O’Donoghue’s audacious 69th minute effort that hit the roof of Eoin Murphy’s net from 20 yards out.

It will not have gone unnoticed on Leeside that Tipp kept a clean sheet against the Leinster champions, and bar a late shot that was blocked on the line by Tipp defender Robert Doyle, Derek Lyng’s side never looked like raising a green flag.

Whether the Tipp defence can do the same to the Cork attack who blasted a magnificent seven goals past Dublin in Saturday’s semi-final remains to be seen. If they manage to do this then they will be confident of victory.

It has been a huge 2025 for Tipperary hurling to date. 

To go from where they were last year to being All-Ireland champions would be a turnaround of monumental proportions. 

It is up to Cork to ensure that this revival is stopped in its tracks in a fortnight.