Tipp started the 1960s well, retaining their League title beating Cork by two points in Cork (2-15 to 3-8). In the Munster championship Tipp annihilated Limerick by a whopping thirty-two points, before comfortably dethroning the All-Ireland champions Waterford by a margin of fourteen points at Limerick. According to Seamus King “it was a great Tipperary performance in which every player contributed, especially the two Doyles, who shone above the rest. The Munster final was against Cork in Thurles and was a gruelling contest with a superlative display from Jimmy Doyle who finished with 1-8 to his credit.
Despite the modern zeal for revisionism, usually with a negative slant, a contemporary match report from the Irish Independent was in little doubt as to the status of the match in the pantheon of great hurling matches :
“although the passage of time hallows memories and causes us to add colour to great matches of the past, many will state without reserve that never have they seen such a fierce combat as the Munster senior hurling final in which Tipperary defeated Cork by 4-13 to 4-11 at Thurles Sportsfield yesterday before an attendance of 49,670. This was a game which made one marvel at the hardihood of the human frame, as every man pursued the ball with a zeal that was breathtaking in its intensity and resolution. Indeed, never have I seen men on a hurling field who were so utterly contemptuous of their personal safety when duty called”
After the traumatic exit of the previous year Tipp found themselves back in an All-Ireland Final against Wexford but the day was a disaster for Tipperary who fell to their first defeat at the final stage for thirty-eight years. After a bad start when a Padge Kehoe shot was deflected off Matt Hassett to the Tipperary net, the Munster Champions fought back to be only two points in arrears at half-time (1-7 to 0-8). The second half started equally badly when they conceded a goal after “Hopper” McGrath slipped Kieran Carey and crashed the ball past Terry Moloney of Arravale Rovers who was between the posts. The rest of the second half was an uphill struggle and Tipp were well beaten by the end finishing up on the wrong end of a 2-15 to 0-11 score-line. The game ended in confusion when an amateur whistler in the Hogan Stand caused excited supporters to invade the pitch. The referee, future GAA president John Dowling, aided by the public address system, managed to restart play but by this stage some players had left the pitch and the last seconds were played out with only twelve Tipp men on the pitch ! The Wexford half-back-line of Jim English, Billy Rackard and John Nolan was superb, with Nolan and Rackard in turn cancelling out Jimmy Doyle who had suffered a severe head injury in the first half. There were very few mitigating factors for Tipperary on the day, and it was a disappointing end to what up to that had been a great year. Tipp gained a measure of consolation by winning their second Oireachtas cup to go with their 1949 victory. This was achieved by beating Kilkenny by nineteen points in the semi-final and Cork by four points in the final at Croke Park.
The 1961 season more than made up for the disappointment of the previous year’s All-Ireland Final. Tipp went through the entire year undefeated. The League featured a rare game away to Carlow, and the final was won by three points at Croke Park against Waterford. Tipp had a big win over Galway in the Munster championship, and beat Cork by eight points at Limerick in the final, which attracted a record crowd exceeding 60,000. This was Christy Ring’s last time to face Tipperary in championship hurling. It was his seventeenth appearance against Tipperary in the Munster championship, and he faced his final curtain after this fixture in a fair position, Cork winning eight of those games, Tipp winning eight, with one draw. How much Ring himself – undoubtedly Tipperary’s greatest adversary – influenced these statistics one can only speculate. As fate would have it, it was in this game -Ring’s last against his greatest rivals - that probably the greatest controversy of his career erupted. It stemmed from an incident which happened late in the second half of the game. There was plenty of “form” between these two teams after the previous twelve years of intense rivalry in Munster, when they had met eleven times. As Val Dorgan of the Cork Examiner put it ;
“at this stage there were years of residual rows between Cork and Tipperary. Whatever euphemisms may be used to describe their hurling relations, the “give and take” was always likely to get out of hand.”
This one “got out of hand” after a tussle between Christy Ring and John Doyle erupted into a bout of hurleys and fists involving a number of players. Tom Moloughney of Kilruane who was playing in the forwards for Tipp, became involved on the periphery of proceedings. He was felled by a Cork hurley, which necessiated his departure from the game with a head injury. The owner of the hurley was nominated as Christy Ring by a few members of the media, notably Mick Dunne, Sean Og O’Ceallachain, and the man who bore the greatest brunt of Cork hostility - John D.Hickey of the Irish Independent. Suffice to say that Cork reacted angrily to any suggestion that their greatest hurler might have lowered himself to such skull-duggery. A stand-off took place between the media and the Cork county board, with Cork talking of going to court to clear Ring’s name and reputation. Tipp's John Doyle and Tom Moloughney, the two Premier county players most closely associated with this incident, have steadfastly refused over the years to be drawn into commenting on the identity of the Cork player.
Whatever shenanigans were taking place in Cork, it was onwards for Tipperary however, and the 1961 final was a novel affair against Dublin, the first time Tipp faced such opponents for thirty-one years years. Tipp went into the game with a number of players who were in the "doubtful" category because of injury – namely Kieran Carey, Tony Wall, and Jimmy Doyle who played only with the aid of pain-killing injections. Tipp almost paid the price. An early aggravation of Tony Wall’s injury upset Tipp’s plans and necessitated the switching of the ever versatile Liam Devaney to centre-half-back in Wall’s place, where he proceeded to profoundly influence the match and ended up as hurler of the year. Tipp led by 0-10 to 0-6 at half-time, but a Dublin goal early in the second-half put the game back in the melting pot. However, Tipp held out to win the game by the narrowest of margins 0-16 to 1-12, becoming only the second team to win an All-Ireland senior hurling title without scoring a goal. Tipp substitute Tom Ryan of Killenaule was sent-off with Lar Foley of Dublin entering the last quarter of the game. Indeed for the period that substitute Ryan was on the pitch, there was a Killenaule man on both sides – Paddy Croke being the Dublin player. The introduction of Toomevara’s John Hough at midfield, in place of his injured club-mate - the bespectacled Matt O’Gara - before the sending off incident, helped to control the previously rampant Des Foley. Matt Hassett brought the McCarthy Cup back to Toomevara and within a matter of weeks he had added the Oireachtas trophy when Tipp beat Wexford in a replay at Croke Park. Tipp lost the minor final that year, the second of three unsuccessful finals in the early sixties – all at the hands of Kilkenny, and also reached the inaugural final in the Intermediate grade, before bowing to Wexford.
An indifferent League campaign meant that Tipp weren’t going to add to the county's three in a row of League titles, but this mattered little when championship was retained in 1962. The opening game in Munster was in Cork against Limerick, and featured a bizarre finish when the referee Jimmy Smyth of Clare mistakenly blew the final whistle early, with Tipp leading by 3-12 to 4-8. Fortunately, the “security” types who ushered Jimmy Cooney off the pitch after a similar occurrence thirty-six years later weren’t around at this time, so Jimmy Smyth was able to get the teams back on the pitch and PJ Keane of Ahane equalised for Limerick. The replay was a totally different story with Tom Moloughney scoring two goals, Sean McLoughlin of Sarsfields, Donie Nealon and Jimmy Doyle one each, as Tipp romped home by eighteen points.
The Munster Final was an even more facile victory as a highly-rated Waterford were blown of the pitch by Tipp at Limerick's Gaelic Grounds by 5-14 to 2-3. Jimmy Doyle scoring 1-10, with the other goals coming from Liam Devaney (2), Sean McLoughlin, and “Mackey” McKenna of Borrisokane. In these years with Galway being involved in Munster there was no All-Ireland semi-final. Tipp’s opponents were Wexford, and the Irish Independent was in bullish mood as to the spectatorial impact of the match ;
“ Fie to those who say they have seen better ! To be sure, there may have been more classical exhibitions of the code than we saw yesterday at Croke Park, where Tipperary defeated Wexford by 3-10 to 2-11 in the All-Ireland senior hurling final ; but never can there have been a more spine-tingling hurling inferno than this fantastic clash of the Premier and Model counties. Spectators often have been more enchanted by the splendour of the fare on such an occasion, but for drama, tenseness, agonising suspense and valour, yesterday’s combat must have capped anything that has been seen on All-Ireland day.”
Tipp got off to a great start with goals from Tom Moloughney who flicked a Theo English side-line cut to the net, and Sean McLoughlin, within the first eighty seconds. However, Wexford fought back very well and by half-time had the deficit back to a goal (2-6 to 1-6). Wexford with Phil Wilson playing a stormer at midfield, and “Hopper” McGrath a constant threat up front, actually took the lead in the second-half, as Tipperary lost their captain Jimmy Doyle with a broken collar–bone, to be replaced by Toomevara’s Tom Ryan. It looked as if it might be Wexford's day but a brilliant solo-run by Mackey McKenna followed by a hand-pass to Killenaule’s Tom Ryan who billowed the net from close-range, proved to be the decisive score. John Doyle again earned rave reviews for curbing Wexford dangerman Tim Flood. Donie Nealon was perhaps Tipp's man of the match, covering the whole of Croke Park.
Tony Wall - the actual captain four years earlier, stood in for his club-mate Jimmy Doyle who was unable to receive the trophy because of his injury. Tipp’s defeat in the Oireachtas final to their Munster Final victims seven weeks after the All-Ireland Final wouldn’t have unduly perturbed the champions, but it was an early indication that they were to play second fiddle the following year.
Further evidence of this was a defeat in the National League Final of 1963 – again to Waterford – who had a narrow but nonetheless well-deserved win in a tremendous game at Croke Park (2-15 to 4-7). In the Munster semi-final Tipp met - and beat - a Christy Ring-less Cork for the first time since 1937 ! Ring was named in the match programme but didn’t play any part in the Cork squad. This four-point victory at Limerick, earned Tipp a date with Waterford at the same venue for the Munster Final. This was an unhappy day for the defending All-Ireland champions when their fate was a three-point defeat. Eight wides in the first thirteen minutes was a sign of things to come and by the end of the hour this total had doubled. The bizarre thing was that Waterford only managed three points from play, Phil Grimes free-taking was decisive for the winners as the Irish Independent stated :
“Although he was outplayed by John Doyle in the open and close exchanges, Phil Grimes can also claim much credit for the victory because of the seemingly radar controlled striking of frees”.
Larry Kiely - a new recruit in the "forty" stood out in the forwards for Tipp, according to the Independent. This journal also exonerated a number of other players ; “other Tipperarymen who can wash their hands clean of the defeat are John Doyle, Mick Maher, Kieran Carey, Tony Wall - who had the better of the duel with Cheasty, Mick Burns – until forced to retire with an injury, Theo English and Donie Nealon”. Tipp had a mild consolation prize when they won the Oireachtas Trophy beating Wexford by three points in a high-scoring game. Tipp also won the All-Ireland Intermediate championship, beating Wexford in the “home” final, and London in the final. This team included Kilsheelan’s Tom Larkin of the ’58 Tipp team which had won the senior championship, and Peter O’Sullivan of Cashel who stood between the sticks for Tipp’s under 21 champions of ’64 and senior champions of ’71. Of more immediate significance to Tipp was that this team yielded Babs Keating and Mick Roche, the latter described by Justin MacCarthy as “the most complete hurler of his generation”.
1964 was perhaps Tipperary’s ultimate “annus mirabilis” when they swept the board taking all trophies available, in the most emphatic style imaginable. The National League was first up and Wexford were beaten in the “home” final by twenty points. The job was completed in New York against the hosts a few weeks later.
Clare were the opposition in the Munster semi-final at Limerick. Tipp had a tough first half leading by five points at half-time, but they opened up in the second-half blitzing the Banner with five more goals finishing up with another twenty point margin. By this stage the famous “Hell’s Kitchen” full back line of Doyle, Maher and Carey was in place, and they had a tremendous hour. The Munster Final was another clash with old rivals Cork at Limerick, and Tipp were far too strong, winning by fourteen points. Despite this good form Tipperary were underdogs in the All-Ireland Final against defending champions Kilkenny.
Andy Croke, the hurling correspondent of the Sunday Independent - who tipped Kilkenny - reckoned that the flying Kilkenny forwards would have too much speed for the Tipperary defence. John Doyle in an RTE television interview before the match suggested that “they can do the running and we’ll do the hurling!”
Tipperary were simply too strong for Kilkenny all over the pitch. A modest enough five-point lead at half time – helped by a Mackey McKenna goal - was reduced to two by a John Teehan goal for Kilkenny three minutes into the second half, when he doubled on an Eddie Keher free. After this Tipperary swept their opponents aside, with Jimmy Doyle adding four superb points from play, and the twenty year old Babs Keating - the man of the match - causing endless problems for Ted Carroll on the “forty”. Tipperary had heroes all over the pitch and as the Independent said “even Eddie Keher found a man he couldn’t handle in Burns !” Tipp finished up winning by double scores – another fourteen point margin – by 5-13 to 2-8, a margin of victory which was also helped by a couple of goal-keeping lapses. Donie Nealon achieved the rare feat of scoring three goals in a final. For those who concern themselves with such matters, Tipp registered only five wides in the hour
The Sunday Independent’s Andy Croke climbed down in spectacular fashion on the Sunday after the game, claiming that Tipperary was the best team he had seen in thirty years ! The Oireachtas was added with another victory over Kilkenny six weeks later. For a few of these players there also was the bonus of All-Ireland Under 21 medals won in the inaugural competition. This was achieved by defeating Wexford in the final. The senior players in question were Babs Keating who scored 2-3 agasint the Model county, Mick Roche, and Len Gaynor. This team was captained by Francis Loughnane of Roscrea, a club whose six county minor titles between 1958 and ’63 offered an early indication of a very bright future, a promise that ultimately was to come to fruition in spectacular fashion. Another feature of this under 21 team was that playing substitute P.J. Ryan of Carrick Davins was still a minor hurler.
1965 couldn’t reasonably have been expected to have been as good as the previous year, but the National league campaign found Tipp taking over where they left off beating Kilkenny by 3-14 to 2-8 in the “home” final before beating New York in the two-legged final in the Big Apple. The Munster championship semi-final was a repeat of last year’s game against Clare, who had come from ten points to beat Galway. Despite the best efforts of Mick O’Shea – who was moved from the full-back-line to the full-forward-line - and John McCarthy, the Banner men, who were on the brink of becoming a fine team, were beaten by nine points. The Munster Final was also a repeat of the previous year’s game, the opposition being Cork, the venue Limerick. Tipp demolished Cork by 4-11 to 0-5, with two goals each from Theo English, and Sean McLoughlin. Cork were completely overwhelmed and little did it seem to the Cork supporters leaving the Gaelic Grounds in their darkest hour, that the dawn of 1966 was just around the corner.
Tipperary’s opponents in the final were Wexford, and after conceding two Sean McLoughlin goals in the first half, the Model county were simply brushed aside in the second half. It is worthwhile reflecting on the remarkable goal-scoring prowess of Sean McLoughlin, whose record in big games during these years is amazingly consistent. In ten championship matches during the All-Ireland victories of ’62, ’64, and ’65, Sean - a tall, rangy corner-forward - scored fourteen goals for Tipp, including four in the All-Ireland finals. The main other highlights of the '65 final for Tipp, were five points from play by Mackey McKenna, and a point from a side-line cut from Theo English. The Cork Examiner also mentioned that “one cannot speak too highly of the iron curtain dropped by Tipp’s full back trio of John Doyle, Michael Maher and Kieran Carey”, and eluded to the effectiveness of the great Tony Wall at centre-back ; “in this type of situation the real worth of Tony Wall as a deep-lying defensive centre-back was surely never more obvious. Time and again he was back to cover off and the superb economy of his movements was as fine an illustration as he needs to persuade anyone to read his newly published book “Hurling”. This paper suggested that “the truth is that Tipperary hurlers have outgrown all opposition”. Judging by the results of the time, with emphatic wins over all opposition, and in 1965 another Oireachtas final victory over Kilkenny to come, it was indeed fair comment. The team that started the ’65 final for Tipp had, by the end of that day, sixty-two All-Ireland senior medals between them all won on the field of play, with John Doyle's eight matched only by Christy Ring. However, by this stage the team also had seven players over thirty years of age. So inevitably the speculation began with regard to possible retirements.
Despite the modern zeal for revisionism, usually with a negative slant, a contemporary match report from the Irish Independent was in little doubt as to the status of the match in the pantheon of great hurling matches :
“although the passage of time hallows memories and causes us to add colour to great matches of the past, many will state without reserve that never have they seen such a fierce combat as the Munster senior hurling final in which Tipperary defeated Cork by 4-13 to 4-11 at Thurles Sportsfield yesterday before an attendance of 49,670. This was a game which made one marvel at the hardihood of the human frame, as every man pursued the ball with a zeal that was breathtaking in its intensity and resolution. Indeed, never have I seen men on a hurling field who were so utterly contemptuous of their personal safety when duty called”
After the traumatic exit of the previous year Tipp found themselves back in an All-Ireland Final against Wexford but the day was a disaster for Tipperary who fell to their first defeat at the final stage for thirty-eight years. After a bad start when a Padge Kehoe shot was deflected off Matt Hassett to the Tipperary net, the Munster Champions fought back to be only two points in arrears at half-time (1-7 to 0-8). The second half started equally badly when they conceded a goal after “Hopper” McGrath slipped Kieran Carey and crashed the ball past Terry Moloney of Arravale Rovers who was between the posts. The rest of the second half was an uphill struggle and Tipp were well beaten by the end finishing up on the wrong end of a 2-15 to 0-11 score-line. The game ended in confusion when an amateur whistler in the Hogan Stand caused excited supporters to invade the pitch. The referee, future GAA president John Dowling, aided by the public address system, managed to restart play but by this stage some players had left the pitch and the last seconds were played out with only twelve Tipp men on the pitch ! The Wexford half-back-line of Jim English, Billy Rackard and John Nolan was superb, with Nolan and Rackard in turn cancelling out Jimmy Doyle who had suffered a severe head injury in the first half. There were very few mitigating factors for Tipperary on the day, and it was a disappointing end to what up to that had been a great year. Tipp gained a measure of consolation by winning their second Oireachtas cup to go with their 1949 victory. This was achieved by beating Kilkenny by nineteen points in the semi-final and Cork by four points in the final at Croke Park.
The 1961 season more than made up for the disappointment of the previous year’s All-Ireland Final. Tipp went through the entire year undefeated. The League featured a rare game away to Carlow, and the final was won by three points at Croke Park against Waterford. Tipp had a big win over Galway in the Munster championship, and beat Cork by eight points at Limerick in the final, which attracted a record crowd exceeding 60,000. This was Christy Ring’s last time to face Tipperary in championship hurling. It was his seventeenth appearance against Tipperary in the Munster championship, and he faced his final curtain after this fixture in a fair position, Cork winning eight of those games, Tipp winning eight, with one draw. How much Ring himself – undoubtedly Tipperary’s greatest adversary – influenced these statistics one can only speculate. As fate would have it, it was in this game -Ring’s last against his greatest rivals - that probably the greatest controversy of his career erupted. It stemmed from an incident which happened late in the second half of the game. There was plenty of “form” between these two teams after the previous twelve years of intense rivalry in Munster, when they had met eleven times. As Val Dorgan of the Cork Examiner put it ;
“at this stage there were years of residual rows between Cork and Tipperary. Whatever euphemisms may be used to describe their hurling relations, the “give and take” was always likely to get out of hand.”
This one “got out of hand” after a tussle between Christy Ring and John Doyle erupted into a bout of hurleys and fists involving a number of players. Tom Moloughney of Kilruane who was playing in the forwards for Tipp, became involved on the periphery of proceedings. He was felled by a Cork hurley, which necessiated his departure from the game with a head injury. The owner of the hurley was nominated as Christy Ring by a few members of the media, notably Mick Dunne, Sean Og O’Ceallachain, and the man who bore the greatest brunt of Cork hostility - John D.Hickey of the Irish Independent. Suffice to say that Cork reacted angrily to any suggestion that their greatest hurler might have lowered himself to such skull-duggery. A stand-off took place between the media and the Cork county board, with Cork talking of going to court to clear Ring’s name and reputation. Tipp's John Doyle and Tom Moloughney, the two Premier county players most closely associated with this incident, have steadfastly refused over the years to be drawn into commenting on the identity of the Cork player.
Whatever shenanigans were taking place in Cork, it was onwards for Tipperary however, and the 1961 final was a novel affair against Dublin, the first time Tipp faced such opponents for thirty-one years years. Tipp went into the game with a number of players who were in the "doubtful" category because of injury – namely Kieran Carey, Tony Wall, and Jimmy Doyle who played only with the aid of pain-killing injections. Tipp almost paid the price. An early aggravation of Tony Wall’s injury upset Tipp’s plans and necessitated the switching of the ever versatile Liam Devaney to centre-half-back in Wall’s place, where he proceeded to profoundly influence the match and ended up as hurler of the year. Tipp led by 0-10 to 0-6 at half-time, but a Dublin goal early in the second-half put the game back in the melting pot. However, Tipp held out to win the game by the narrowest of margins 0-16 to 1-12, becoming only the second team to win an All-Ireland senior hurling title without scoring a goal. Tipp substitute Tom Ryan of Killenaule was sent-off with Lar Foley of Dublin entering the last quarter of the game. Indeed for the period that substitute Ryan was on the pitch, there was a Killenaule man on both sides – Paddy Croke being the Dublin player. The introduction of Toomevara’s John Hough at midfield, in place of his injured club-mate - the bespectacled Matt O’Gara - before the sending off incident, helped to control the previously rampant Des Foley. Matt Hassett brought the McCarthy Cup back to Toomevara and within a matter of weeks he had added the Oireachtas trophy when Tipp beat Wexford in a replay at Croke Park. Tipp lost the minor final that year, the second of three unsuccessful finals in the early sixties – all at the hands of Kilkenny, and also reached the inaugural final in the Intermediate grade, before bowing to Wexford.
An indifferent League campaign meant that Tipp weren’t going to add to the county's three in a row of League titles, but this mattered little when championship was retained in 1962. The opening game in Munster was in Cork against Limerick, and featured a bizarre finish when the referee Jimmy Smyth of Clare mistakenly blew the final whistle early, with Tipp leading by 3-12 to 4-8. Fortunately, the “security” types who ushered Jimmy Cooney off the pitch after a similar occurrence thirty-six years later weren’t around at this time, so Jimmy Smyth was able to get the teams back on the pitch and PJ Keane of Ahane equalised for Limerick. The replay was a totally different story with Tom Moloughney scoring two goals, Sean McLoughlin of Sarsfields, Donie Nealon and Jimmy Doyle one each, as Tipp romped home by eighteen points.
The Munster Final was an even more facile victory as a highly-rated Waterford were blown of the pitch by Tipp at Limerick's Gaelic Grounds by 5-14 to 2-3. Jimmy Doyle scoring 1-10, with the other goals coming from Liam Devaney (2), Sean McLoughlin, and “Mackey” McKenna of Borrisokane. In these years with Galway being involved in Munster there was no All-Ireland semi-final. Tipp’s opponents were Wexford, and the Irish Independent was in bullish mood as to the spectatorial impact of the match ;
“ Fie to those who say they have seen better ! To be sure, there may have been more classical exhibitions of the code than we saw yesterday at Croke Park, where Tipperary defeated Wexford by 3-10 to 2-11 in the All-Ireland senior hurling final ; but never can there have been a more spine-tingling hurling inferno than this fantastic clash of the Premier and Model counties. Spectators often have been more enchanted by the splendour of the fare on such an occasion, but for drama, tenseness, agonising suspense and valour, yesterday’s combat must have capped anything that has been seen on All-Ireland day.”
Tipp got off to a great start with goals from Tom Moloughney who flicked a Theo English side-line cut to the net, and Sean McLoughlin, within the first eighty seconds. However, Wexford fought back very well and by half-time had the deficit back to a goal (2-6 to 1-6). Wexford with Phil Wilson playing a stormer at midfield, and “Hopper” McGrath a constant threat up front, actually took the lead in the second-half, as Tipperary lost their captain Jimmy Doyle with a broken collar–bone, to be replaced by Toomevara’s Tom Ryan. It looked as if it might be Wexford's day but a brilliant solo-run by Mackey McKenna followed by a hand-pass to Killenaule’s Tom Ryan who billowed the net from close-range, proved to be the decisive score. John Doyle again earned rave reviews for curbing Wexford dangerman Tim Flood. Donie Nealon was perhaps Tipp's man of the match, covering the whole of Croke Park.
Tony Wall - the actual captain four years earlier, stood in for his club-mate Jimmy Doyle who was unable to receive the trophy because of his injury. Tipp’s defeat in the Oireachtas final to their Munster Final victims seven weeks after the All-Ireland Final wouldn’t have unduly perturbed the champions, but it was an early indication that they were to play second fiddle the following year.
Further evidence of this was a defeat in the National League Final of 1963 – again to Waterford – who had a narrow but nonetheless well-deserved win in a tremendous game at Croke Park (2-15 to 4-7). In the Munster semi-final Tipp met - and beat - a Christy Ring-less Cork for the first time since 1937 ! Ring was named in the match programme but didn’t play any part in the Cork squad. This four-point victory at Limerick, earned Tipp a date with Waterford at the same venue for the Munster Final. This was an unhappy day for the defending All-Ireland champions when their fate was a three-point defeat. Eight wides in the first thirteen minutes was a sign of things to come and by the end of the hour this total had doubled. The bizarre thing was that Waterford only managed three points from play, Phil Grimes free-taking was decisive for the winners as the Irish Independent stated :
“Although he was outplayed by John Doyle in the open and close exchanges, Phil Grimes can also claim much credit for the victory because of the seemingly radar controlled striking of frees”.
Larry Kiely - a new recruit in the "forty" stood out in the forwards for Tipp, according to the Independent. This journal also exonerated a number of other players ; “other Tipperarymen who can wash their hands clean of the defeat are John Doyle, Mick Maher, Kieran Carey, Tony Wall - who had the better of the duel with Cheasty, Mick Burns – until forced to retire with an injury, Theo English and Donie Nealon”. Tipp had a mild consolation prize when they won the Oireachtas Trophy beating Wexford by three points in a high-scoring game. Tipp also won the All-Ireland Intermediate championship, beating Wexford in the “home” final, and London in the final. This team included Kilsheelan’s Tom Larkin of the ’58 Tipp team which had won the senior championship, and Peter O’Sullivan of Cashel who stood between the sticks for Tipp’s under 21 champions of ’64 and senior champions of ’71. Of more immediate significance to Tipp was that this team yielded Babs Keating and Mick Roche, the latter described by Justin MacCarthy as “the most complete hurler of his generation”.
1964 was perhaps Tipperary’s ultimate “annus mirabilis” when they swept the board taking all trophies available, in the most emphatic style imaginable. The National League was first up and Wexford were beaten in the “home” final by twenty points. The job was completed in New York against the hosts a few weeks later.
Clare were the opposition in the Munster semi-final at Limerick. Tipp had a tough first half leading by five points at half-time, but they opened up in the second-half blitzing the Banner with five more goals finishing up with another twenty point margin. By this stage the famous “Hell’s Kitchen” full back line of Doyle, Maher and Carey was in place, and they had a tremendous hour. The Munster Final was another clash with old rivals Cork at Limerick, and Tipp were far too strong, winning by fourteen points. Despite this good form Tipperary were underdogs in the All-Ireland Final against defending champions Kilkenny.
Andy Croke, the hurling correspondent of the Sunday Independent - who tipped Kilkenny - reckoned that the flying Kilkenny forwards would have too much speed for the Tipperary defence. John Doyle in an RTE television interview before the match suggested that “they can do the running and we’ll do the hurling!”
Tipperary were simply too strong for Kilkenny all over the pitch. A modest enough five-point lead at half time – helped by a Mackey McKenna goal - was reduced to two by a John Teehan goal for Kilkenny three minutes into the second half, when he doubled on an Eddie Keher free. After this Tipperary swept their opponents aside, with Jimmy Doyle adding four superb points from play, and the twenty year old Babs Keating - the man of the match - causing endless problems for Ted Carroll on the “forty”. Tipperary had heroes all over the pitch and as the Independent said “even Eddie Keher found a man he couldn’t handle in Burns !” Tipp finished up winning by double scores – another fourteen point margin – by 5-13 to 2-8, a margin of victory which was also helped by a couple of goal-keeping lapses. Donie Nealon achieved the rare feat of scoring three goals in a final. For those who concern themselves with such matters, Tipp registered only five wides in the hour
The Sunday Independent’s Andy Croke climbed down in spectacular fashion on the Sunday after the game, claiming that Tipperary was the best team he had seen in thirty years ! The Oireachtas was added with another victory over Kilkenny six weeks later. For a few of these players there also was the bonus of All-Ireland Under 21 medals won in the inaugural competition. This was achieved by defeating Wexford in the final. The senior players in question were Babs Keating who scored 2-3 agasint the Model county, Mick Roche, and Len Gaynor. This team was captained by Francis Loughnane of Roscrea, a club whose six county minor titles between 1958 and ’63 offered an early indication of a very bright future, a promise that ultimately was to come to fruition in spectacular fashion. Another feature of this under 21 team was that playing substitute P.J. Ryan of Carrick Davins was still a minor hurler.
1965 couldn’t reasonably have been expected to have been as good as the previous year, but the National league campaign found Tipp taking over where they left off beating Kilkenny by 3-14 to 2-8 in the “home” final before beating New York in the two-legged final in the Big Apple. The Munster championship semi-final was a repeat of last year’s game against Clare, who had come from ten points to beat Galway. Despite the best efforts of Mick O’Shea – who was moved from the full-back-line to the full-forward-line - and John McCarthy, the Banner men, who were on the brink of becoming a fine team, were beaten by nine points. The Munster Final was also a repeat of the previous year’s game, the opposition being Cork, the venue Limerick. Tipp demolished Cork by 4-11 to 0-5, with two goals each from Theo English, and Sean McLoughlin. Cork were completely overwhelmed and little did it seem to the Cork supporters leaving the Gaelic Grounds in their darkest hour, that the dawn of 1966 was just around the corner.
Tipperary’s opponents in the final were Wexford, and after conceding two Sean McLoughlin goals in the first half, the Model county were simply brushed aside in the second half. It is worthwhile reflecting on the remarkable goal-scoring prowess of Sean McLoughlin, whose record in big games during these years is amazingly consistent. In ten championship matches during the All-Ireland victories of ’62, ’64, and ’65, Sean - a tall, rangy corner-forward - scored fourteen goals for Tipp, including four in the All-Ireland finals. The main other highlights of the '65 final for Tipp, were five points from play by Mackey McKenna, and a point from a side-line cut from Theo English. The Cork Examiner also mentioned that “one cannot speak too highly of the iron curtain dropped by Tipp’s full back trio of John Doyle, Michael Maher and Kieran Carey”, and eluded to the effectiveness of the great Tony Wall at centre-back ; “in this type of situation the real worth of Tony Wall as a deep-lying defensive centre-back was surely never more obvious. Time and again he was back to cover off and the superb economy of his movements was as fine an illustration as he needs to persuade anyone to read his newly published book “Hurling”. This paper suggested that “the truth is that Tipperary hurlers have outgrown all opposition”. Judging by the results of the time, with emphatic wins over all opposition, and in 1965 another Oireachtas final victory over Kilkenny to come, it was indeed fair comment. The team that started the ’65 final for Tipp had, by the end of that day, sixty-two All-Ireland senior medals between them all won on the field of play, with John Doyle's eight matched only by Christy Ring. However, by this stage the team also had seven players over thirty years of age. So inevitably the speculation began with regard to possible retirements.
