Davy Dalton was your archetypal 1990s warhorse. The sort who has been playing inter-county for about 17 years with no success and then right at the tail end of their inter-county career gets a sniff of it. The sort who looks about 52 years of age.
There were some great warhorses of this type in the 1990s.
Ambrose Rodgers
Liam Austin
Paddy O’Rourke
Mickey Quinn
Noel Roche
George O’Connor
Billy Byrne
Cyril Lyons
Stephen King
Davy Dalton
Willie McCreery
Sos Dowling
Jarlath Burns
Some 38 year old guy who played midfield for Corofin in 1998
Outstanding scenes. It was a great, great day of hurling. The sun, the colour, the passion, the pure summerness of it. I always felt Offaly and Wexford was a lovely clash of colours. Croke Park lost a lot when the sun was blocked out from the Canal End side. 1996 was the year live TV coverage began for real. The Limerick-Clare game, the two Limerick-Tipp games and that Leinster final began a boom in public interest in hurling. That game was preceded by the Limerick-Tipp replay in Cork which I watched in my granny’s off the Whitworth Road before legging it down to Croke Park with lapsed forum member @Trapattoni. I think we missed the first 10-15 minutes or so and got onto Hill 16 just before Damien Fitzhenry rattled the net. I remember thinking I hadn’t seen a Leinster hurling final crowd like that before. Wikipedia says the attendance was just 34,000 but it looked a lot more than that, over 40k I’d say.
On the ball.