When Tipperary last suffered a defeat greater than this to Cork, they might have taken some comfort from the fact that it was from the greatest side ever to emerge from Leeside.
For a period late on in today's final round robin game, it appeared as though Cork would usurp their 4-15 to 4-1 victory in 1942, a year when they won the second of four All-Ireland titles in-a-row, the only time that feat had been achieved until Kilkenny matched it in 2009.
They led by 15 points and Tipperary were down to 14 men when Tim O’Mahony hit their third goal in the 64th minute and O’Mahony missed a chance for another moments later to push it out to 18.
A string of points in garbage time meant that it was just the 12 in the end but while Cork are a team on the up and will rightly fancy their chances of getting back to Croke Park now after recovering brilliantly from a disastrous start to the Championship, it’s hardly a vintage Rebel side either and Tipp boss Colm Bonnar accepted that “we can’t take any positives out of today” afterwards
You don’t have to go back so far for the last time that Tipp suffered a defeat of similar proportions to Cork but following the 10-point loss in 2010 they regrouped to win that year’s All-Ireland.
Now? They’re in a state of limbo, keeping an eye on the Joe McDonagh Cup final to determine if they have to play Kerry in a play-off next month to preserve their spot in hurling’s top tier.
“We didn’t really discuss anything like that,” said a crestfallen Bonnar. “We were just… our hearts are just sunk here. We didn’t even mention that but I know that’s on the radar if Kerry can do something but, as I said, that’s for another day.
“We don’t want to be in this position and there was a slight chance coming into this game if things go… I don’t know what happened, we had no focus on the Clare game, I think Clare won it well in the end or something but it probably makes it a bit worse.
“Yeah, that’s… that’ll only happen if Kerry win the Joe McDonagh.”
As Bonnar alluded to, the favour that Tipp needed from Clare came through meaning that if they scored a seven-point victory, they would have gone through to an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final instead of Cork.
While it seems outlandish to even entertain that notion given the final scoreline, there was a period in the first quarter during which the modest home support among the 27,131 in Thurles may have thought to themselves, “Well, you never know.”
A Jake Morris goal after some 40 seconds gave them a tonic start and three points followed it to put them six clear. It was back to four when Noel McGrath stood over an 11th minute penalty after Robert Downey had brought down Mark Kehoe but his strike canonned off the post and, from the resultant counterattack, Alan Connolly hit Cork’s first goal 28 seconds later.
A potential seven-point lead was back to one and Tipperary never recovered. Indeed, Cork, and Conor Lehane in particular, went to town from there to half-time.
The Midleton man hit six points from play in the first half as Cork outscored Tipp by 2-11 to 0-2 from the 12th minute to the 31st, eventually retiring with a 2-14 to 1-9 half-time lead.
Lehane was deemed surplus to requirements by the management in 2021 but now his rehabilitation as a Cork hurler appears to be complete.
“Yeah, he was fantastic,” said Cork boss Kieran Kingston.
“Everybody knows what Conor can do, he’s a fantastic player and he had a super club championship and has come back into the fold, deservedly so.
“He’s proven that he was right to come back and we were right to ask him back and he was right to agree to come back.
“Conor was awesome today, he matched his hurling with his workrate and his work off the ball, his selflessness was fantastic, but I don’t want to be singling out any players.
“I thought there was a huge team performance today, especially getting us back into the game when we had lost that first eight or 10 minutes.
“Conor was exceptional and that’s what he can do. I’m delighted for him, really, really thrilled for him but we’d put it to him again to do it the next day.”
There was never any suggestion of a Tipp comeback in the second half and their misery was almost complete when sub Alan Flynn was sent off in the 60th minute for jabbing his stick into Lehane’s belly but O’Mahony’s goal was still to come and he almost had a second.
As bad as it was, it might have been even worse.
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