Champions Will Keep Their Title ; the Nerves Have Kicked in but a Kilkenny Win Is Still a Near Certainty [Eire Region]

Summary

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IHEARD from a good source - let's just say a fly on the dressing room wall - that the Tipperary half-time team talk at the Munster final was significant for one good reason. Waterford may have ambushed Liam Sheedy's men at Croke Park the previous August, and had another 35 minutes plus to try and repeat the trick, but it was another county's name that cropped up repeatedly in the speech given to the players: Kilkenny, Kilkenny, Kilkenny.

Championship 2009 has always been about two teams - and both knew it from the start. The managers might suggest otherwise, but there has been an air of inevitability about this pairing.

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Champions Will Keep Their Title ; the Nerves Have Kicked in but a Kilkenny Win Is Still a Near Certainty [Eire Region]

It says something that in Kilkenny, there is absolutely no talk about four-in-a-row.

This is all about bragging rights. Tipperary people work in Kilkenny, Kilkenny people work in Tipperary - we are border counties from Johnstown down to Piltown.

We all wanted this one in Kilkenny - but now that we have it, we're getting a little bit nervous! In the past fortnight, I haven't met a Kilkenny person who is cock-a-hoop about it. The combination of Kilkenny not playing as well as they can and Tipperary being the coming team means that losing this one would really hurt.

Defeat wouldn't undo this Kilkenny team's claim to greatness. Unlike football, where Kerry and Tyrone are both laying claim to the mantle ...

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