The 1993 All-Ireland was the last time Cork and Derry played in the championship. Anthony Davis recalls what went wrong
Anyway, he’s back three years later and the team is playing Derry. It’s a novel final but the counties have been slugging it out at under-age for over a decade. And club — for a prelude, Davis’s O’Donovan Rossa Skibbereen have won the 1993 All-Ireland after a replay with Carlow’s Éire Óg.
“They must have thought that we’d lie down and die. We had it tough growing up in Skibereen, when playing the likes of Castlehaven! We were no soft touches and we half enjoyed it. Quite a few of us had played with Cork. I was in the minor final in 1981 when we beat Derry and there were under-21 finals in the 1980s as well and we beat them.
The root of Anthony Davis’s problem was that team-mate Niall Cahalane decided to box Enda Gormley after about half an hour. Two things happened. Gormley woke up and went on the have a stormer and referee Tommy Howard, who booked Cahalane, was left with a nagging suspicion that he had been too lenient.
The commentary team of Ger Canning and Colm O’Rourke described it as “harsh” and openly wondered had it been a reaction triggered by the Cahalane incident. “It impacted a whole region and town. Mick was a home bird. When the rest of us left to go to work or college, he stayed put. He just loved Skibbereen. He saved that club final for us. In the drawn match in Croke Park, Mick put on the performance of a lifetime and that was the only reason we weren’t beaten. Single-handedly, he got all the scores to pull us back. He was magnificent.”
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