All-Ireland hurling final: All you need to know

All-Ireland SHC final

Cork v Tipperary, Croke Park, Sunday, 3.30pm

ONLINE

Live blog, match report and reaction on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app.

TV

Live coverage of the 2025 All-Ireland SHC final commences at 2.15pm on Sunday on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player.

Full Irish lanaguage coverage from 2.55pm on RTÉ News channel and RTÉ Player. The game is also broadcast on BBC2, with coverage starting at 3pm.

Watch highlights and interviews from the All-Ireland winners' banquet (barring a draw) on The Sunday Game from 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.

RADIO

Live commentary and reaction on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1 - and Spórt an tSathairn and Spórt an Lae on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.

WEATHER

Spells of sunshine on Sunday, along with isolated, heavy and possibly thundery showers. Highest temperatures of 17 to 21 degrees, in light variable winds. For more, visit met.ie.

Listen to the RTÉ GAA Podcast on the RTÉ Radio Player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

PSA - Extra-time again a possibility

There were multiple accounts of supporters making for the exits at full-time in normal time at last year's All-Ireland hurling final. No doubt while muttering about another big payday for the association and wincing at the latest ticket hunt that lay ahead of them.

Well, if the game ends in a draw after 70 minutes this Sunday, then it will be the same situation, with extra-time again on the cards.

The GAA's Central Competitions Control Committee had proposed a motion at Congress earlier this year restricting extra-time to replays, but that was withdrawn, when calendar concerns were raised about it also applying to provincial finals.

Cork manager Pat Ryan, on the wrong side of the result after extra-time last year, was among those to criticise the decision to play an extra 20 minutes.

"It becomes a lottery [going straight into extra-time]," Ryan told reporters. "We had fellas going down injured, we lost players during the game, Clare lost players – Shane O'Donnell went off, Peter Duggan went off.

"We lost Rob Downey, we lost Seamus Harnedy and Niall O'Leary. It's just a bit of a lottery. A replay would be the fairest but look they were the rules coming into it, we had planned for it, we had spoken about it.

"Going forward, I think it’s a thing that the GAA should change."

It looks like they will, but they haven't yet.

Ticket mania

Even those not in the midst of, or consumed by, this ticket hunt will have gathered that it's at the more manic end of the scale.

Some All-Ireland ticket hunts are more frenzied than others, depending on the participating counties.

Back in 2016, this writer - a neutral - awoke at 11.30am (no judgement please) and texted an acquaintance asking if they'd a spare ticket on the off chance. He received a reply at approx 11.32 saying "yeah, d'you want it" with an offer of a lower Hogan ticket that was promptly taken up.

It was a very different story for the Galway-Waterford final the following year, where Drumcondra and Dorset Street resembled the arrivals lounge at Dublin airport with throngs of supporters plaintively holding aloft cardboard placards appealing for match tickets.

The consensus is that the insanity of the present ticket hunt is being mainly driven by the Cork hype train, as they seek to welcome back Liam MacCarthy to Leeside, where they've missed him a lot.

There was an extraordinary 60,000+ Cork contingent at the All-Ireland semi-final rout of Dublin.

Though they may resent the comparison, recent years have proved beyond doubt that, in terms of support, Cork are the Dubs of hurling. That Cork is the capital city of the game, as such. The Dublin hurlers' support is far too cultish and fringe to be seen as equivalent to their footballers and their group persona is that of an underdog.

And that the mood Cork at present is akin to the mood surrounding the Dublin footballers, circa 2011.

Over on the touting websites, people are offering to swap Oasis tickets, football final tickets, American football tickets, Electric Picnic tickets in exchange for hurling final tickets.

In amongst all that, one perhaps overly optimistic (or possibly joking) individual is looking for a hurling final ticket in exchange for four tickets to see Michael McIntyre at the Marquee in Cork.

We don't hold out much hope for this trade, though if there are takers, we would very much like to meet that person and possibly stay in touch with them for future All-Ireland finals.

As most have seen, there's been plenty of viral annoyance about Cavan GAA handing 10 tickets to one chap who won their raffle. The Tommy Bowe meme was deployed, needless to say.

- "10 TICKETS!!"

- "But... he's from Cavan"

- "Ooft"

And then at the eleventh hour last night, Cavan GAA posted a sensational plot twist, introducing the winner as a builder from Kilbrittan in West Cork.

Horgan seeks to emulate Allen

Patrick Horgan at the end of the semi-final

Two months after his 37th birthday, the legendary Pat Horgan has another - possibly his last - chance to make himself ineligible for the best player never to win an All-Ireland accolade.

In a wide-ranging interview with his former Cork team-mate Donal Óg Cusack ahead of last year's final, Hoggie philosophically played down the importance of winning an All-Ireland medal, stressing that he didn't play senior for 18 years with the idea that he was building towards "one afternoon".

Last year ended in agony for the Rebels, with Horgan suffering his third All-Ireland final defeat.

This year, he's back with a chance to emulate a former Cork footballer (and one-time hurler) whose career with Cork followed a strikingly similar trajectory, with All-Ireland glory finally arriving at the age of 37.

Dinny Allen first played for the Cork senior footballers in 1972 but a season with Cork Hibs - all Cork sports stars seemed to play all the sports back then - in 1973 saw him miss out on that year's All-Ireland winning campaign.

His brief stint with the hurlers ended in 1975, just before they embarked on a three-in-a-row. Allen played years for Cork in the shadow of the Kerry footballers, eventually being dropped in 1986.

Dinny Allen lifts Sam after his final game for Cork in 1989

He returned in 1988 for a season which ended in an All-Ireland final defeat to Meath. Then, at last, in his final season as a player, he captained Cork to an All-Ireland title as they saw off Mayo in 1989.

Horgan made his championship debut way back in 2008, becoming the game's all-time leading scorer in the meantime and copper-fastening his status as a legend of the sport. He has a chance for a similar fairytale finish on Sunday.

Team News: Harnedy returns to squad as Ryan names unchanged team

Cahill and Tipp have underage bragging rights

Liam Cahill, a panel member on Nicky English's All-Ireland winning side of 2001, first properly turned heads as a manager when he guided Tipperary to back-to-back All-Ireland titles at the U21/20 grade in 2018 and 2019.

In both deciders, they turned over fancied Cork sides.

The first victory, in particular, was regarded as a major shock, Cork having trounced them by 13 points in the Munster decider.

Conor Stakelum's late goal gave Tipp a dramatic victory in the '18 final, Cahill celebrating wildly at the final whistle. The following year, they were comparatively regal, hitting five goals past Cork in the decider.

Liam Cahill with the Tipperary players after the 2018 All-Ireland Under-21 final

The age grades changed between both campaigns though they've been treated as the same grade in terms of historical continuity.

And there are a few players from the current senior side who featured in both panels - Jake Morris, Eoghan Connolly, Craig Morgan.

Stakelum came off the bench to strike the match-winner in '18. The late Dillon Quirke was wing-back.

From the '19 side alone, they got Andrew Ormond, in superb form this season, and Bryan O'Mara.

The Cork '18 side may have been denied at the death but they have provided even more, with Darragh Fitzgibbon, Mark Coleman, Tim O'Mahony, Declan Dalton and Niall O'Leary set to start, while Shane Kingston and Robbie O'Flynn are on the bench. Jack O'Connor has been part of the squad for most of the season.

From the '19 side, they have Ger Millerick, Tommy O'Connell and Brian Roche, all of whom are among the subs on Sunday.

History corner

It's a first ever All-Ireland final between the 'Munster old firm'. The pairing was only ever a possibility from 1997 onwards, after which both teams have been operating on different boom-bust cycles.

Cork were mostly on top from 1999 to 2007 - save for 2001-02. Tipperary came good from Liam Sheedy's arrival in 2008 just as the Rebels had entered a recessionary phase.

Their only Croke Park meeting was in the 2014 semi-final, when Cork entered as Munster champions and All-Ireland finalists the year before.

Eamonn O'Shea's side had recovered from a mini-slump, however, and delivered a statement performance and won emphatically.

Jimmy Barry-Murphy's second reign in charge of Cork was on a downward trajectory from there.

In (relatively) modern times, the most celebrated era of the rivalry was between 1984 and 1992, when the pair met every year and carved up Munster between them, producing several classics and winning five All-Irelands combined. After that they wouldn't play again until the new millennium as the revolution years took hold.

The overall head-to-head favours Cork, who are decisively ahead in the Munster championship roll of honour (55-42) and are still just ahead in Liam MacCarthys despite their two-decade long drought (30-28).

Another historical detail favours Cork.

In the last 50 years, only three times have the league final pairing contested the All-Ireland final. Kilkenny-Tipperary in 2009 and 2014 and Limerick-Kilkenny in 2023. On all three occasions, the team who won the league also won the All-Ireland.

Watch the All-Ireland Hurling Championship final, Cork v Tipperary, on Sunday from 2.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Sunday Game from 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player

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