Well, this wasn’t the trilogy or repeat final we were expecting, was it?
After Cork cantered past Tipperary back in early but sunny April to win their first league title in 27 long years, the consensus was that Limerick and Clare would accompany them out of Munster. Tipp, for all their progress and effort during the group stage of the league, were hardly going to leapfrog the teams that had won both the league and All-Ireland in 2023 and 2024 and the odds-on favourites to complete a similar double in 2025. It was still too soon in Tipp’s development, with an admirably frank Richie Hogan going so far as to say on that “the quality of player is just not there for them” and that Ronan Maher was probably the only of them that would make the Cork starting 15.
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