Cork Whoops Limerick, Proving Hurling Shootouts Aren’t Ass
Cork upset dynastic host Limerick at a sold-out Gaelic Grounds on Saturday on penalty shots to take the 2025 Munster hurling championship in the first final decided on penalty shots in the 147-year history of the annual provincial competition. With the win, Cork booked a spot in the semifinals of this year’s All-Ireland tournament.
The match, a non-stop affair full of lead changes and roughhousing, was the latest in a string of instant classic playoff tilts the ancient Gaelic game has delivered fans in the last few years. After regulation and two overtimes, the score stood at Limerick 2-27, Cork 1-30, or 33 points apiece.
Historically, ties in championships meant a full-match replay. Purists can scoff that no game this important should be decided by a shootout, a get-it-over-with gimmick installed by the Gaelic Athletic Association in the last decade to do away with the field and broadcast scheduling headaches brought on by replays. Yet from its pregame marches through the last penalty shot, which longtime Limerick captain Declan Hannon sent wide left and inspired ecstatic mobs of red-clad Cork supporters to storm the pitch, the 2025 Munster championship was as heavenly an event as the sporting gods can gift us.
Limerick went into the contest having won the last six Munster titles, as well as five of the last seven All-Irelands, including four national championships in a row from 2020-2023. What’s more, in the round-robin phase of this year’s provincial tournament, the Treaty County side had absolutely destroyed Cork, 3-26 to 1-16, in a match played just weeks ago in Limerick.
But Cork ain’t crap. The Rebel county squad also has an amazing hurling history, having won 54 Munster championships since the 1880s. Cork actually came into the All-Ireland tourney this year as a favorite to win it all, a reputation stoked last year by knocking Limerick out last year and then enhanced by winning the 2025 National League hurling title this winter. But a league title is considered just an appetizer compared to winning an All Ireland championship. And Cork’s hopes and dreams for taking the big prize this year got smoked during last month’s 16-point drubbing in Limerick. Yet Cork regrouped and earned a spot in the Munster final by beating Waterford in a knockout game. And on Saturday, facing the same Limerick squad that humiliated them in the very same venue last month, Cork lived up to its pre-rout billing.
Playing with the wind in the first half, Cork started strong, and with the breeze at their back had several scores from distance and was up 0-5 to 0-8 after 19 minutes. That’s when Aidan O’Connor took a crossfield pass from ginger Limerick all-timer Cian Lynch deep in the Cork zone and beat defender Eion Downey and goalie Patrick Collins for the game’s first goal to tie things up. Shane Barrett put Cork retook the lead in the 26th minute by blasting a bouncing sliotar past Limerick’s legendary goalie, Mickey Quaid, for a three pointer. Referee Thomas Walsh allowed incredibly rough play throughout the opening period, and when the first-half hooter sounded, Cork manager Pat Ryan stormed onto the field to protest what he deemed as an unpunished assault on forward Brian Hayes. In turn, Limerick manager John Kiely and several of his players went after Ryan and a donnybrook ensued as fans of both teams inside the overstuffed stadium screamed for blood. Order was eventually restored and players followed orders and headed to the locker rooms, with Cork up by just a point.
The teams continued trading leads and bashing each other after the break, with no let-up in the action. Lynch suffered a massive gash above his eye near the end of regulation. Even referee Walsh succumbed to the pace, and took himself out for a sub after suffering cramps late in the game. He was replaced by James Owens. The ref change ended up altering the tone of the match. Owens caught flak from Limerick supporters at the end of the second overtime period. He’d announced that only one additional minute should be added to the clock for injury time, yet Owens was still letting play go on into the fourth minute, which allowed Cork’s Darragh Fitzgibbon to take a free from 65 meters out and Limerick up by a point. With the match hanging in the balance and the weight of his county on his shoulders, Fitzgibbon split the uprights and the teams were level yet again.
Kiely, who has overseen all of Limerick’s amazing run through Munster and the All-Irelands over the last decade and rarely showed a huffy side, would later break character and boast that he had the better team and would have won the match had Cork not been given “the rub of the green” from substitute ref Owens in overtime.
Luck of the Irish or not, onto the historic penalty shootout we went! After four of the slated five rounds, Cork was up 3-2. Up stepped the Limerick captain, Hannon, who like Kiely has been a squad leader throughout the county’s golden hurling era. But fatigue or the momentousness of his task or just a sudden lapse of concentration at the worst time possible caused Hannon to shank his shot. Limerick lost. For the first time in a while, Cork were Munster champs.
“Up the rebels!” screamed Cork captain Robert Downey as the Mick Mackey Cup was presented. The red-clad mass on the pitch bounced beneath him and screamed along to “Freed From Desire.” Joy abounded.
Cork is next scheduled for a semifinal match on July 5 and sits just two wins away from an All-Ireland championship. Kilkenny, another historic hurling powerhouse that crushed Galway 3-22 to 1-20 on Sunday to win its 77th Leinster provincial title, is also guaranteed an appearance in the semis.
Limerick is down, but not out. They now need to win a play-in quarterfinal game against an as-yet-undetermined squad on June 21 to stay alive in the All-Irelands and have a chance to meet Cork again. Hopefully the same sporting gods who treated us to this weekend’s climactic shootout want Limerick to get its replay with Cork as much as all hurling fans do. Only next time, it’ll be in Dublin, with even more at stake. Bring it!
