Cork's winning run in league still has a way to go to match records

While Cork’s current winning streak in the national hurling league stands at eight games, it will take a while before any thoughts can turn to breaking the all-time record.

Since defeat away to Tipperary in February of last year, Cork have seen off Kilkenny, Clare, Galway and Tipp in the final before starting the current campaign with victories against Waterford, Galway, Tipp and now Kilkenny.

If they were to win away to second-placed Limerick on Saturday night, it would match the Shannonsiders’ nine in a row during the back-to-back 2019 and 2020 league title seasons, while Kilkenny managed ten triumphs on the trot across 2002 and 2003, when they won and retained the league.

All of those tallies pale in comparison with those at the top of the rankings in the history of the league, though. With thanks to hurling historian par excellence Leo McGough, the longest winning sequence belongs to Tipperary with 21 – they won their last two games of the 1957-58 league without qualifying for the knockout stages but then won the next three titles with a perfect record of 16 games and 16 wins before winning the first three matches of 1961-62 before losing to Kilkenny.

Tipp also had a run of 17 straight wins covering the 1950-51, 1951-52 and 1952-53 leagues – that stretched started after a loss to Wexford had ended a necklace of 11 consecutive victories.

Limerick have the best unbeaten run, with 23 matches – 21 wins and two draws – encompassing a period beginning in the 1933-34 league and ending in 1936-37, though Cork could claim to have the ‘longest’ winning streak as the last victory came six years after the first.

In winning back-to-back titles in 1939-40 and 1940-41, the Rebels won ten games on the trot before ‘the Emergency’ (i.e. the second world war) halted league action until 1945-46, whereupon they opened with three straight wins to give them 13 in a row.

As good as the current winning run is, it would still take quite a lot to match the county’s record. And, ultimately, even if that were to happen – it would be in the second round of the 2027 league – the adulation would be in short supply, given that, lest we forget, league is league and championship is championship.