2014 All-Ireland Hurling Final – Kilkenny 3-22 (31)  Tipperary 1-28 (31)

Sunday 7th September, Croke Park Dublin.

Unbelievably, for the third successive year, the All-Ireland Hurling Final ended in a draw.  After going 53 years without a draw, the three most recent finals have all went to a replay.

After the Kilkenny / Tipperary battles of recent years, and last year’s Clare / Cork epic, it was thought that hurling couldn’t get much better.  Yesterdays game however, will go down as one of the best games ever played.  The game had everything – 62 scores – 44 of which came from play –  with only 9 wides; cracking goals; missed penalties; and of course hawkeye – making that final call which sent the game to a replay.

Both sides could have won the game, but after the effort that went into yesterdays classic, no-one deserved to lose.  The skill and fitness levels of these amateur players is actually frightening, they would put most professional sports participants to shame.

It was a privilege to be at the game yesterday.  How it didn’t sell out initially is strange, but following the release of unsold tickets late Friday afternoon, these were quickly snapped up and the 82,179 that were in attendance were treated to a classic.

Its less than three weeks until the replay.  Can Tipperary surprise Kilkenny again or will the legendary manager Brian Cody and one of the greatest players of all time, Henry Shefflin, finally get their hands on a tenth title.

The search for tickets begins now.

GAA.ie Match Report – Click Here.

In an entertaining curtain raiser, the All-Ireland Minor final was won by Kilkenny, who defeated Limerick on a score line of 2-17 (23) to 0-19.

An important part of All-Ireland final day is the presentation to the crowd of the 25 year jubilee team.  This year was the turn of the Tipperary Hurling team that defeated Antrim in the 1989 Hurling Final.

Some more images of the day can be seen on my flickr page –click here 

(and if you know of any tickets for the replay, or even the football final, give me a shout…)