A couple of things about this. Wikipedia says the crowd was 28,521. It looks a lot bigger than that to me, 40k at least. The old Croke Park could make a smaller crowd look big - the exact opposite to the new Croke Park, which can make a big crowd look small.
Christy Heffernan’s style and gait was hilarious in a good way. He must have had the slowest metabolism of any sportsperson I’ve ever observed. His style was like a lazy stretch and yawn in the bed on a Saturday morning and then turning over and falling asleep again for another hour. He hurled with all the urgency of an Italian oul’ fella sitting in a piazza on a Sunday morning drinking a coffee and smoking a cigarette while reading a newspaper.
Some smashing stuff in this compilation including:
Offaly v Kilkenny 1980
Offaly v Wexford 1981
Kilkenny v Offaly 1982 - my oul’ fella always said Kilkenny’s winning goal had gone over the sideline - it’s hard to tell from this clip but Offaly goalkeeper Damien Martin should have been shot for allowing it to happen
Kilkenny v Limerick 1983 League final including more lazy Christy Heffernan destruction
Some classic Seanie Leary goal hanging against Clare
Limerick v Cork draw June 1983 including a brilliant and forgotten pulled goal by Kevin Hennessy
That was a a good game if I remember rightly. I’m sure Frankie Dolan got a clutch point to level it with the last kick of normal time. He was honreal that year.
That must be the fullest Portlaoise has ever been.
Tadhg Fennin was done up like a kipper by the Cake who took a dive to get the Kildare man sent off.
It would be absolutely class if the John Rogers who came on as a sub for Roscommon turned out to be the same John Rogers who was conveniently absent on the morning of the meeting with the Burkes of Castlebar. I’ll have to spend the next hour researching that one.
There’s some great close up footage in this. Mick Lally narrates.
5:25 Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s overhead pull goal against Galway in 1983
7:17 A bloodied Teddy McCarthy congratulating his Derry opponents after Derry beat Cork in the 1983 All-Ireland Minor Football Final
13-15 minutes Cork county hurling final 1983 Mildleton v St. Finbarr’s
42:25 Anton O’Toole and Barney Rock scoring goals against Cork
48 minutes - look what the Jubilee team presentation used to be @peddlerscross
The fullest O’Moore Park has ever been was the 1989 All-Ireland under 21 hurling final between Tipp and Offaly.
Tipp had won the senior final the week before. I presume there’s no official attendance but I seem to remember a figure of 30,000 being bandied about at the time.
It was an awful game of hurling. Limerick’s performance is as gutless and listless a performance as I’ve ever seen from a team in a big game. They probably would have won had they been able to wag at all. Clare were desperately limited in the first half, but they gradually realised “these are not at it at all”. You could see Clare gradually take heart from Limerick’s shitness.
PJ O’Connell’s finest hour. He was terrific.
Clare had some shockingly limited hurlers. Stephen McNamara was fierce limited but did float over one absolute beauty which was probably the key point which broke Limerick and set Clare on the road to victory for real. Michael O’Halloran was a very limited corner back. Damien Quigley comfortably had the beating of him but seemed to take the wrong option every time he got the ball. Fergal Hegarty was agricultural. You don’t really get those limited sort of players winning All-Irelands these days. The 1990s specialised in producing them. Ollie Baker’s hurling is hilariously bad in this. Limerick have a few god helpuses.
Eamon Cregan’s crankiness throughout is magnificent. He’s constantly groaning. @peddlerscross was not happy with Liam Cahill doing analysis of Kilkenny v Clare this year, but Tipp are out of the championship. Eamon Cregan was analysing the clash which would likely decide which team his Offaly team would play in the All-Ireland final, which did indeed prove the case.
Ger Canning says about PJ O’Connell: “He always reminds me of a Spanish violinist”.
As Frankie Carroll goes through for a point to put Limerick 0-5 to 0-2 up, the only thing he did in the entire game, Ger Canning says “Frankie leading the charge of the light brigade”.
Steve McDonagh and Declan Nash were very tidy hurlers. Mike Galligan was probably Limerick’s best forward but could not be said to have had a good game. Ciaran Carey was very poor. TJ Ryan was hilariously bad.
There were a lot of English football jerseys in the crowd.
That Clare kit was Connolly Sports’ finest hour. Limerick inexplicably abandoned the kit they’d worn in the 1994 All-Ireland final and in the previous game against Tipperary for this game. Clare brought on Lorcan Hassett as a sub near the end, who was wearing their 1993/94 kit. 1990s GAA was great for teams inexplicably changing their kits from one game to the next, or changing their kit at half time, or having subs wearing different jerseys to their team mates.
I watched back a lot of the Clare matches from that era during Covid and posted some synopsis of them at the time. The 95 was really the end of the old era and not quite the beginning of the new.
By 97 hurling looked a completely different game as every team committed to physical training. Skill levels and concentration improved immeasurably due to it which was evident to see.
In the 95 all Ireland semi final between Clare and Galway id say there were easily 15 examples in the first half alone of lads topping balls under little pressure or running over the ball when trying to jab lift it. Only Liam Doyle and Michael Coleman looked light years ahead of everyone else on the field in terms of touch and striking.
I watched the 97 Munster final the next day and I think they first instance of either happening was close to 50 minutes into the match.
Ollie Baker’s transformation from a complete cart horse in 95 to a lad who dominates nearly every match with both physically and out hurling lads in every match I watched back from 96 to 99 was some metamorphosis - I can’t remember the poor Tipp chaps name but Baker absolutely walked all over him in that 97 Munster final.
Once the injuries piled up he was never the same. He played for Clare until 2004 aged 30 but tailed off in the last few years.
