The 2020 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final, the 133rd event of its kind and the culmination of the 2020 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, was played at

Croke Park Croke Park ( ga, Páirc an Chrócaigh, ) is a Gaelic games stadium in Dublin, Ireland. Named after Archbishop Thomas Croke, it is referred to as Croker by GAA fans and locals. It serves as both the principal national stadium of Ireland and he ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

on 13 December 2020. The match was televised live on RTÉ2 as part of ''

The Sunday Game ''The Sunday Game'' is RTÉ's main Gaelic games television programme. It is shown on RTÉ2 every Sunday during the Football Championship and Hurling Championship seasons. It is one of RTÉ2's longest-running shows, having been on air since 197 ...

'', presented by

Joanne Cantwell Joanne Cantwell (born 30 September 1979) is an Irish sports presenter. Personal life Cantwell was raised in Dublin, one of five daughters. She studied journalism at Dublin City University. Cantwell is married with two daughters and lives in O ...

from the outside studio at Croke Park, with analysis by Anthony Daly,

Donal Óg Cusack Donald is a masculine given name derived from the Gaelic name ''Dòmhnall''.. This comes from the Proto-Celtic *''Dumno-ualos'' ("world-ruler" or "world-wielder"). The final -''d'' in ''Donald'' is partly derived from a misinterpretation of the ...

and

Henry Shefflin Henry Shefflin (born 11 January 1979) is an Irish hurling manager and former player who is the current manager of the Galway senior hurling team. In his playing career he was nicknamed "King Henry" because of his directive style, dominance, com ...

. Commentary on the game was provided by

Marty Morrissey Martin Morrissey (born 28 October 1958, Mallow, County Cork) is an Irish sports commentator and television presenter. He regularly presents high-profile sports events for RTÉ Sport, such as the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and Olym ...

alongside Michael Duignan. The match was also live on

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

, with analysis from

Jamesie O'Connor Jamesie O'Connor (born 28 July 1972) is an Irish former hurler who played as a midfielder for the Clare senior hurling team. O'Connor made his first appearance for the team during the 1992–93 National League and became a regular member o ...

and

Ollie Canning Oliver Canning (born 9 July 1976) is an Irish retired hurler who played as a left corner-back for the Galway senior team. Born in Ballinasloe, County Galway, Canning first arrived on the inter-county scene at the age of fourteen when he first ...

. Limerick won the game by 0-30 to 0-19 to claim their second All-Ireland title in three years.

Background

*The championship was delayed due to the

impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Gaelic games As with other sports, the COVID-19 pandemic caused disruption to Gaelic games, primarily in Ireland but also elsewhere in the world. Competitions were cancelled, postponed or restructured, while some teams were withdrawn or were unable to pa ...

. This was the latest the final had taken place in a year since

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China hol ...

, when the All-Ireland hurling final took place on 14 December. *Waterford had not won the All-Ireland since

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

(61 years) and had only appeared in three finals in the interim (

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cov ...

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

). *This was the third final in the previous four years not to involve one of the Big Three (Cork, Kilkenny, Tipperary) — the

(Galway—Waterford) and

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

(Limerick—Galway) finals also did not involve them. *This was the third final in which both the teams were from the province of Munster, with the first two being in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

(Clare—Tipperary) and

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

(Clare—Cork). *This was only the third All-Ireland final in history in which neither team scored a goal, the first two being in 1999 and 2004.

Paths to the final

Waterford

Limerick

Pre-match

The 2020 Joe McDonagh Cup Final between

Kerry Kerry or Kerri may refer to: * Kerry (name), a given name and surname of Gaelic origin (including a list of people with the name) Places * Kerry, Queensland, Australia * County Kerry, Ireland ** Kerry Airport, an international airport in Count ...

and Antrim took place prior to the All-Ireland senior final. On 4 December 2020, the officials were chosen for the final by the GAA, with Tipperary's

Fergal Horgan Fergal Horgan (born 1979) is an Irish hurling referee and former player. His inter-county career saw him play for Tipperary and London. He later became one of hurling's top officials and refereed three All Ireland Senior Hurling Finals before ...

being named as the referee in what would be his second senior final after being the referee in

. Colm Lyons from Cork was named as standby referee, with the other linesman being Paud O'Dwyer from Carlow and the sideline official Seán Cleere from Kilkenny.

Jubilee team

The Clare team that won the 1995 All-Ireland Final were remembered before the match to mark 25 years. There was no traditional walk out and parade due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

restrictions but the Clare captain of 1995 Anthony Daly was present to place the Liam MacCarthy Cup in front of the Hogan Stand before the match.

Match details

Post-match

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'' columnist

Simon Kuper Simon Kuper is a South African-British author. He writes about sports "from an anthropologic perspective." Kuper was born in Uganda of South African parents, and moved to Leiden in the Netherlands as a child, where his father, Adam Kuper, was ...

wrote after

Stephen O'Keeffe Stephen O'Keeffe (born 29 April 1991) is an Irish hurler who plays for Waterford Senior Championship club Ballygunner and formerly at inter-county level with the Waterford county hurling team. He usually lines out as a goalkeeper. Playing car ...

's performance that hurling was "the best sport ever and if the Irish had colonised the world, nobody would ever have heard of

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

References

{{GAA 2020

Final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Finals All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final, 2020 All-Ireland Championship