The Kilkenny-Tipperary hurling rivalry has deep and knotted roots, but it’s easy enough to identify when the most recent blossoming of the neighbourly enmity first came to bud.

With the benefit of hindsight, the 2009 Allianz Hurling League Final the two counties contested stands out as a very significant encounter.

It was the first match of real consequence between the two counties for six years, and it really set the tone for the many ferocious battles they’ve contested since then.

It was a sweet win for Kilkenny, they recovered from eight-points down in the second-half to win the game in extra-time, but Tipperary came away from the game with more than just pride salvaged.

Kilkenny had hammered them earlier in the League campaign and as the then three-in-a-row All-Ireland champions were the standard bearers of the game.

It was a standard that Tipperary had fallen short of for quite a few years, but the manner of their performance in that 2009 League Final proved to themselves as much as anyone else that they were now ready to dine at the top table again.

The GAA’s National Hurling Development manager, Martin Fogarty, was a Kilkenny team selector back in 2009, and readily identifies that League Final as the moment the relatively dormant rivalry between the two counties burst back into flame.

“For a few years before 2009 we would have had serious baggage with Cork and Galway would have always been in the mix at that time too, but not so much Tipperary,” Fogarty told GAA.ie

“The boys themselves hadn't really met Tipperary. We older boys on the line would have been reared on Kilkenny-Tipp rivalry, obviously. But the players wouldn't have had that.

“You always need to get yourself up for a game whether you've been beaten by a team a few times or you have personal rivalries with other players. Lads have different ways of getting up for it.

“That was definitely a serious game alright in that regard in terms of setting that (for the future).

“It's one thing going in with your mind set for it, but to actually see it with your eyes is a different thing and that's what happened them that day.”

Liam Sheedy was in his second year in charge of Tipperary in 2009 and his attitude back then was that you couldn’t play Kilkenny enough if you had genuine ambitions about getting up to their level.

Every day against the Cats was a learning day, and Tipp had certainly learned a lot from the chastening 5-17 to 1-12 defeat they had suffered to Kilkenny in Nowlan Park six weeks earlier.

As Brendan Cummins recalled in his autobiography, Sheedy demanded a reaction from his players on the eve of that League Final in Semple Stadium.

“We were fully tuned in right from the start and our warm-up in Littleton has a part to play in that: small-sided conditioning work that Cian (O'Neill) had drilled into us, five versus two, dog eat dog in the middle third of the pitch,” said Cummins.

“That's where you can beat Kilkenny: win that battle between the two 65s and get the ball inside quickly.

“The night before the game, we met in the Horse and Jockey. Liam called Larry and me to one side.

'Need a big one tomorrow, lads, need to lay down a marker.' We weren't going to take any backward step. There was no way we'd be bullied again.

“Kilkenny were masters of it, capable of mentally and physically dominating opponents before the ball was even thrown in.”

Tipperary made it clear they were going to meet Kilkenny head-on from the very start of the match.

They scored two goals in the first eight minutes through James Woodlock and John O’Brien, but what roused the home support just as much was the manner in which they went toe to toe with Kilkenny physically.

“What really epitomized our display was Paudie Maher's job on Henry Shefflin," said Cummins. "Paudie put no real stock in reputations and for the care-free young hurler that he was, just twenty years of age, Shefflin was a challenge he would relish.

“Brian Hogan was taken off injured after Seamie Callanan opened him up with a shoulder and Martin Comerford was brought in for Kilkenny.

“'Gorta', as he's known, is a great character off the field, and as he sprinted on to the pitch it looked as if he was about to hit Declan Fanning a belt of a shoulder - the usual getting-to-know-you kind of thing.

“Declan sensed the oncoming danger and turned Martin upside down. Two big statements in the space of a few minutes.”

Tipperary led by 2-7 to 0-8 at half-time and when Seamus Callanan scored a third goal early in the second-half the Premier County looked to be in a very strong position, leading by eight points.

Showing character in the face of adversity had been that Kilkenny team’s calling card for some time by then though, and it came to the fore once again.

Richie Hogan goaled just a minute after Callanan’s green flag, and then Aidan Fogarty scored a second goal on 50 minutes.

Tipperary kept their noses in front until the 68th minute, but in the end needed an injury-time free to bring the game to extra-time.

“It was a classic really,” says Fogarty. “You would have gone into the game trying to win it because it was a League Final, but it's not the end of the world if you don't.

“Then the game just opened up, we got hit with several sucker-punches, and Tipp were trouncing us.

“It became a situation where you were thinking, 'boys, you have to stand up now today'.

“Tipp put it up to us and, in fairness, our players stood up.”

He wasn’t the biggest man on the field, but no Kilkenny player stood up taller than Richie Hogan.

This was the day the former underage prodigy came of age as a senior Kilkenny hurler.

The then 20-year-old scored a total of 1-10, 1-3 of it from play, and was to the fore as Kilkenny finally shook off the tenacious Tipperary challenge in extra-time, winning out in the end by 2-26 to 4-17.

“It was a great day for Richie because until then he had had a tough voyage,” says Fogarty.

“He was a very good underage player, but at adult level he was hurling with Danesfort who at the time were a junior club. There's a big difference between hurling junior and senior at club level.

“When you're coming out of a minor county team and hurling junior club, that's a 100 miles away from hurling county senior.

“So when Richie was landed in on the senior panel as a young fella and had to stand in on Noel Hickey, Jackie Tyrrell, and JJ Delaney and these fellas, there was a huge learning curve and it took him a while. In the early days it wasn't easy on him.

“It's not easy on anybody, but he had farther to come than most guys. And he's not six foot tall either. But he always had the skill and he always had the touch and without a shadow of a doubt he had the commitment and determination.

“That day was definitely the day when the gates opened up for Richie and we really saw what he had. To be fair to the chap, it was a testimony to the effort that he put in because life was very hard for him around the training ground up to that stage.”

It was a hugely satisfying win for Kilkenny in the end, but coming away from Thurles they knew they’d be seeing a lot more of Tipperary in the very near future.

A new generation of Premier County hurlers had announced themselves as players of substance, and new battle-lines between the age old rivals had been drawn.

“We wouldn't have really known a huge amount about players like Seamie Callanan, Noel McGrath and Paudie Maher before that match,” says Fogarty.

“Paudie was only a chap but he gave Henry a very hard time that day.

“A blind man could see that here was a Tipperary team that was hugely talented. When you meet a team and you see the talent in them, you know that if things fall into place they could take over.

“Definitely after that game we were looking at Tipperary and thinking 'these guys are up in that bracket'. You would have not been the slightest bit surprised seeing them win the All-Ireland that year or coming on.

“Definitely with the likes of Callanan, McGrath, and Paudie Maher and these boys you were thinking 'this train is coming again'.”

The Tipperary train was coming, but Kilkenny were ready to meet it head-on in the years to come.