Babs Keating: 'Cork have to win something. Tipp are basically on a fact-finding mission'

The indomitable Ring scored 3-4 of his county’s 3-8 tally but his virtuoso efforts weren’t enough to thwart a powerful second-half by Tipperary as Jimmy Doyle posted nine points.

Many of that Tipperary team were Keating’s heroes; Theo English and Donie Nealon would later become his selectors when he took over the county at the end of 1986 and ended their 16-year Munster famine against Cork the following year. To see them get back to winning ways after a forgettable experience there the previous summer delighted the teenage Keating even if the venue wasn’t to his liking.

“The old Athletic Grounds was a desperate place to watch a match,” he recalls. “You’d be squeezed in and looking through barbed wire. Trying to look over heads, Jesus that’s all you were at. The stand there only held a couple of hundred.

“The biggest thing I remember of the game is Ring and [Kieran] Carey have a disagreement. Tipp were coming back after what happened in 1959. I was laid up at the time having hurt my ankle in a juvenile match and listening to the radio. Micheál O’Hehir came on and said, ‘I’ve a half-time score from Cork but I have to wait to have it confirmed.’ And what was it, Waterford 8-2 to Tipperary no score. Tipp were recovering in ’60 and it was about reestablishing themselves in that league.

“It was typical of Cork in those years not to bother with the league. There was only one thing that mattered. At the end of the day, Ring won eight All-Irelands and half as many leagues.

“The trend throughout the 1950s most of the time was Cork played Tipp in the league, Tipp won and it set us up for the championship. A couple of months after that league final, that Cork team came to Thurles and should have beaten Tipp. There was only one or two points in it.” 

That it’s taken hurling’s old money this long to meet in another Division 1 final is surprising to say the least. Coming as it does so close to championship and the neighbours facing off in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh three weeks later doesn’t sit well with Keating, who turns 81 later this month.

“It’s obvious Cork have to win something. Tipp are basically on a fact-finding mission and I’d be surprised if Tipp showed their hand on Sunday. The only thing that matters is April 27.

“Liam Cahill has done enough and if he can go home on Sunday evening fairly content that the players have played reasonably well without pushing the button, he'd be happy with that.

“Having said that, if [Seán] O’Donoghue doesn’t give young [Darragh] McCarthy a puck of the ball, that’ll be a concern. If Jake Morris doesn’t produce a game at centre-forward… he can’t hold back. [Eoghan] Connolly hasn’t been tested by the pace he’s going to experience next Sunday.

“Cahill can’t come out of Cork with doubts in his mind. I was in the same position against Clare in ’87 when we came from no place to be in a league semi-final. Theo, Donie and myself took a deliberate decision to pull back in that game and Clare beat us handy but we knew we had a team to take them on in the championship, which we did in Killarney even though they drew with us the first day. We were confident we’d beat them in the replay.

“Cahill just doesn’t want too many disappointments on Sunday. In 1987, we had over a month between the league and the championship. Now it’s two weeks and it's stone madness.”