For a brief moment it threatened to be a procession, and in the end it finished like a classic. We were left without a winner and two teams feeling aggrieved for different reasons, while the rest of the country will curse the three week wait to recommence hostilities.
If there is one stat from today that best sums up the state of play over 70 minutes then perhaps it is that Cork led just once during the game – when Patrick Horgan struck a point after 1 minute of stoppage time. Up until that moment their day was consumed by the need to keep in touch with a Clare team who hurled and fought better all afternoon. Had Clare lost here – as they looked set to do at the most crucial moment – it would have felt unjust. Likewise, there was a sense that - for all that they were often second best - to see Cork lose wouldn't have felt right either.
The sides went in 0-12 to 0-10 at half-time and Clare's two point lead was scant reward for their domination in the first 35 minutes as Cork had been flat, lifeless and heavily reliant on Patrick Horgan’s accuracy from the dead ball to keep themselves in touch.
Clare started the second half strongly and opened up a 4 point gap, but a goal from Conor Lehane stopped the Banner tide from washing Cork away before they had time to find their feet in the second half. Despite that goal Clare kept pushing ahead and threatening to leave Cork behind.
Midway through the second half Patrick Horgan sent a seemingly straightforward free to the right and wide and the body language on the pitch and the atmosphere in the stands hinted, briefly at least, at a procession towards a Banner victory. Cork had seemingly lost their mettle and wilted in the face of the Clare onslaught. Within two minutes, however, Anthony Nash was burying a strike into the roof of the Clare net and – somehow, inexplicably, yet again – Cork had kept themselves in the contest and reignited the game.
Clare kept pushing forward, and Cork kept pegging them back. Clare were outplaying Jimmy Barry Murphy’s men – particularly in the half-back and half-forward lines – but they couldn’t kill off the game. Cork just wouldn't let them.
Podge Collins scored a sublime point and Colin Ryan proved a study in perfection from the dead ball and still, somehow, Cork kept pegging them back.
If Clare had any bnotions of Cork falling away in the dying moments they were disabused of them when Pa Cronin struck a goal with a perfect, top corner strike in the 63rd minute. From there on in we knew we were venturing into the territory of an epic finish.
Cork took the lead for the first time when Horgan struck a point in the first minute of stoppage time, and looked set for the win as the allotted two minutes ticked over on the clock. The clock ticked on closer to 73 minutes and Domhnal O’Donovan found an inch on the left wing within which to hit a high shot towards the Cork posts. It was an excellent score, the wait was agonising. O'Donovan's first ever championship point.
Both sides will feel regret and relief, and the rest of us will be thankful for an extended final act for this most special of Hurling summers.
