All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship 1960

Infobox Hurling All-Ireland
year=1960


team=Wexford
titles=4th
captain=Nick O'Donnell
manager=
munster=Tipperary
leinster=Wexford
ulster=
connacht=
poty=Nick O'Donnell
matches=
The All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship of 1960 was the 74th edition of Ireland’s premier hurling knockout competition. The championship ran from May to September of that year, culminating with the All-Ireland final, held at Croke Park, Dublin on 4 September. The match was contested by Wexford and Tipperary, with Wexford taking the title by 2-15 to 0-11. It was Wexford’s fourth All-Ireland title ever and their third in six years.

Format

The All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship was run on a provincial basis as usual. All games were played on a knockout basis whereby once a team lost they were eliminated from the championship. The format for the All-Ireland series of games ran as follows:
* There were no All-Ireland semi-finals.
* The winners of the Munster Championship advanced directly to the All-Ireland final.
* The winners of the Leinster Championship advanced directly to the All-Ireland final.
* The Ulster Championship remained suspended due to a lack of competition.
* Galway, a team who faced no competition in the Connacht Championship, played in the Munster Championship for the second consecutive year.

All-Ireland ginal

Overview

Sunday 4 September was the date of the 1960 All-Ireland senior hurling final between Wexford and Tipperary. It was their first meeting in the championship since the All-Ireland final of 1951 when Tipperary were the winners. Tipperary last won the All-Ireland title in 1958 with a win over Galway while Wexford captured back-to-back championship titles with wins over Galway in 1955 and Cork in 1956. An interesting statistic at the time was the fact that Wexford had never beaten Tipperary in the championship.

Tipperary, after coming through a tough provincial campaign in Munster, were installed as the favourites to regain the All-Ireland title. A certain amount of over-confidence had crept into the Tipp camp as team trainer Phil Purcell stated that no player could mark Jimmy Doyle. Wexford, on the other hand, had entered the championship decider without fanfare.

Match report

At 3:15pm the sliothar was thrown in and the All-Ireland final began in earnest. Tipp’s overconfidence was exposed early on in the game when they realise dthat Wexford were formidable opponents. A bad start only got worse when a Padge Kehoe shot was deflected off defender Matt Hassett to the Tipperary net for the opening goal of the game. In spite of this the Tipp team regrouped and were only two points in arrears at half-time as Wexford preserved a 1-7 to 0-8 lead. The opening minutes of the second-half were just as bad for Tipperary when Oliver ‘Hopper’ McGrath slipped past Kieran Carey and scored Wexford’s second goal of the game. After this blow Tipperary were chasing the game in a uphill struggle. Phil Purcell’s prediction before the game failed to come to pass as John Nolan had Jimmy Doyle inside in his pocket for the entire game. John Doyle fared little better as Jimmy O'Brien nullified his defending skills. Billy Rackard and Tim Flood were also the stars of the Wexford team. The game, however, ended in confusion when an amateur whistler in the Hogan Stand caused excited supporters to invade the pitch mistaking it for the final whistle. 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 Tipperary men on the pitch. Wexford, however, were superb and went on to win the game by 2-15 to 0-11. It was Tipperary’s first defeat at the final stage since 1922.

tatistics

footballbox
date=1960-09-04
15:15 BST
team1=Tipperary
score=2-15 – 0-11
team2=Wexford
report=
goals1=
goals2=
stadium=Croke Park, Dublin
attendance=77,154
referee= John Dowling (Offaly)

{| width=100% style="font-size: 90%"MATCH RULES
*60 minutes.
*Replay if scores level.
*Three named substitutes

References

* Corry, Eoghan, "The GAA Book of Lists" (Hodder Headline Ireland, 2005).
* Donegan, Des, "The Complete Handbook of Gaelic Games" (DBA Publications Limited, 2005).
* Sweeney, Éamonn, "Munster Hurling Legends" (The O'Brien Press, 2002).

ee also