There Once Were Some Hurlers From Limerick

By: Enda McEvoy

 

John Donnelly, charging through the Limerick defence, could have popped over the equalising point but he chose instead to pick out Richie Hogan with a handpass. Hogan in his turn could have popped over the equalising point but he chose instead to swivel, pick his spot and drill the sliotar under Nickie Quaid.

 

Eight minutes remained at Semple Stadium and Kilkenny had hit the front for the first time in three quarters of an hour. That, it seemed certain, was going to be that. The old Cats for the hard road.

 

Except it wasn’t. Limerick responded with the next score to make it a one-point game. Then they levelled matters. Then they went a point ahead.

 

Limerick Turnaround Six scores were registered between Hogan’s goal and the final whistle in last Sunday’s All Ireland quarter-final. Five of them were scored by a man in a green jersey. It was an astonishing turnaround and it was the moment a young and promising team became a serious championship team. Limerick are not merely All Ireland semi-finalists; they are genuine All Ireland contenders. Right here, right now.

 

Nobody would have pointed a finger at them had they been touched off at the death by Kilkenny, traditional grand masters of the endgame. After all, the age profile of this bunch from Shannonside says they’ll be a stronger, more experienced proposition in a couple of years’ time.

 

Yet instead of being daunted by Hogan’s goal they were energised. That was the wonder of it all. A team with so many members in their early 20s shouldn’t be this poised or mature.

 

Be Prepared for the Cats John Kiely, their manager, revealed afterwards that they had planned for Kilkenny hitting them with a goal at a crucial moment and had steeled themselves to bounce back. Be Prepared indeed. In a former life Kiely was presumably a Boy Scout leader. One other aspect of Limerick’s display is worth noting. Of their tally of 0-27, all but three points came from play. This is mindblowing stuff. Granted, Galway hit 1-22 from play in the replayed Leinster final the previous Sunday. Thing is, Galway are the All Ireland champions and hot favourites to retain the title, whereas Limerick started the season in Division 1B and hadn’t reached an All Ireland semi-final since 2014.

 

It may be stretching it to describe Limerick as the team of the year to date. In any case such a tag is by definition hollow; it carries no silverware with it. But against Kilkenny they returned to winning ways after the off-day against Clare in the final round of the Munster round robin, with the win against Brian Cody’s troops meaning that Limerick have still lost only one match in normal time this season.

 

Their defeated opponents did at least make nonsense of the notion that having to line out for the third weekend in succession would be a problem for them. It was nothing of the sort.

 

Look: this is 2018. Hurlers have never been fitter. Recovery programmes have never been more sophisticated. Cody’s team were beaten not because they ran out of gas but because they hit seven wides in a ruinous ten-minute spell immediately after half-time. Bottom line, they weren’t quite good enough.

 

The Banner on the Up Another fanbase who wondered and worried about the next time they’d be visiting Croke Park for an All Ireland semi-final were Limerick’s neighbours from the far side of the Shannon. When Clare captured the MacCarthy Cup in such intoxicating style in 2013 with a young team that stole the hearts of the nation, world domination may not have been an inevitability but the prospect of taking five years to return to Croke Park was unimaginable. Nobody saw that coming, nor could they have.

 

On Saturday the Banner put an end to their hiatus with a convincing victory over an unambitious Wexford outfit. They dominated from the throw-in and saw off a late surge to kick on again in the final furlong.

 

Thus the form of the Munster championship held up and was franked last weekend. We had wondered if the hurling there had been too open and cavalier compared to the unapologetically physical stuff in Leinster. Not so, it turned out. Clare and Limerick had both the size and the skill to see off eastern opponents. And then there were four, three of them from down south. But preventing the men from the west from retaining their crown will demand size and skill by the bucketload.