Hurling inter county championship

[Ballyfireside]

Quote of the year has to go to Brian Cody - 9 points in hurling is nothing, unless you are ahead or behind

He is also doing a Dwyer - Next year is now

The analysts will point to the the ones the Cats would have won anyway and it also sheds light on Dublin, i.e. you need the players too. Would Tyrone have won any without MH? And if the Cats are in a cycle, are they past the peak?

That Galway sub for Canning was amazing, fresh off the bench.

Pundits felt disappointed with Sunday's game - although there was moments of ground hurling, was it not just too fast for that auld argy-bargy that gets us going? That Gearoid Hegarty touch (the one on the ball) and the long range scoring were breath taking and then The Canning 5 that will have him a great, the greatest - last puck in 2018 AIF was short though?

Ah we know it all - reminds of a fella watching a Rugby match in the pub, mouthing off that some of the players amid the ruck and maul didn't even know where the bloody ball was - then he turned around from the TV and couldn't remember where he left his pint.

[Mickmack]

Below is a post from 2018 after Tipps shambolic Munster Final campaign.
Liam Sheedy entered the race late and the county Board went for Liam and of course Tipp were brilliant in 2019 on their way to winning.

Liam Cahill took the Waterford job last year when things were at an all time low..

The description by my work colleague of Liam Cahill as a hard task master is certainly true and it looks to me that he is a clone of Cody.
Cahill stood impassively as Waterford put scores on the board but boy was he animated as a Waterford player and quote Paidi here, 'f... a KK player over the sideline like a loaf of bread'. Cody could only stand and watch as Cahill put his template into operation. Cahill knew that if he could dominate KK physically then the game was his.

In previous years we saw Waterford players fist pumping and kissing the crest and all that BS after scoring. None of that now. All driven by total team effort with no obvious egos and no showboating.

Only a bit of nerves and anxiety in the first half left them with a hill to climb but climb it they did.

Time will tell whether the Tipp county board made the right call back in 2018.

Sept 7, 2018 7:44:06 GMT Mickmack said:

I was talking to a Tipp man and he was telling me that Liam Cahill is who most of the the supporters want. His u21 team were beaten by Cork by 10 points in Munster but they beat Cork in the All Ireland final with a late goal and Cahills stock has risen. He said Cahill is a hard direct taskmaster and the fans want him. By comparison Willie Maher is more political and has Eamonn oShea former manager on his ticket. The older players want Maher!

But the really interesting angle is that both come from the same club, Ballingarry.

[Mickmack]

Irish Examiner Logo


Aidan Fogarty: 'Any other manager in Kilkenny I think his head would be on the chopping block'


THU, 03 DEC, 2020 - 06:30
PAUL KEANE


Former Kilkenny star Aidan Fogarty has claimed that if anyone other than Brain Cody was in charge of the county their 'head would be on the chopping block' by now.

Cody's 22nd season as manager ended last Saturday when the Leinster champions relinquished a nine-point lead approaching half-time against Waterford to lose their All-Ireland semi-final tie by four.

It means that in five seasons since their last All-Ireland win in 2015, the 11th of Cody's reign, they've won two Leinster titles and a National League, a relative "drought", according to Fogarty.

The eight-time All-Ireland winner said it's his personal opinion that Cody should stay on, but he noted that the line of obvious candidates to replace the 66-year-old is building up.

These include former Laois manager Eddie Brennan, Christy Ring Cup-winning Kildare boss David Herity, and back-to-back All-Ireland winning club manager Henry Shefflin.

"When you're not winning I think supporters can be fickle and we haven't won an All-Ireland in five years and to us I suppose that's nearly a drought," said Fogarty at the launch of the 2020 Electric Ireland Minor Star Recognition Awards.

We've only won one Leinster in four years so look, on the Kilkenny front, tongues are beginning to wag alright.
"They're asking questions about Brian Cody, 'Should he stay or should he go?' That's all the questions. I think the thing about Brian is that he has such a back catalogue of All-Irelands and wins behind him.


"He has all these traits, achievements, before probably 2015 with another team, and now he is trying to build this team and he hasn't really had much success.

"If it was any other manager in Kilkenny I think his head would be on the chopping block. But it's Brian, it's going to be his decision. But there is competition for places, between Eddie Brennan, Henry Shefflin and David Herity and the thing I actually notice with them is that when Brian brings in guys, he's brought in ex-players, the likes of Martin Comerford, DJ Carey and these guys (to backroom teams).

"Henry Shefflin and Eddie Brennan haven't been brought in as selectors so I feel, and I don't know if they ever got a phone call or not, or if there was ever an inkling for them to come in, but I just feel that they want to make their own stamp on the team if they get the opportunity, not to have the kind of legacy of Brian Cody still there as a manager, and they're underneath him.

I think they want to come in and just start from fresh.
But Fogarty warned those who may favour a new face on the sideline to carefully consider what the alternative to Cody may look like. He said the reality is that they're too reliant on star attacker TJ Reid and described this year's group as "a good team but they're not a great team".

"I would think that Cody wants another year at least with this fresh backroom team and a full year without Covid restrictions to kind of get a grasp on the team," said Fogarty. "So I can't see him going and the dilemma is that the way Kilkenny play, the heart, the grit, the determination, that's a Brian Cody trait and whenever he goes and next thing Kilkenny lose that, well then where are Kilkenny at then? Are they going to fall apart altogether? Or will the freshness of a new manager revitalise the team?"

Kilkenny led Waterford by 2-10 to 0-7 in the 33rd minute of last weekend's tie and were seven ahead at half-time but were overwhelmed in the second half, on the ground and in the air.

"I suppose it comes back to, is the team actually good enough?" said Fogarty. "If you look at Kilkenny, the way they've won all the matches in the last couple of years is through hard work, it's through grit, it's through grinding out results, it's determination and these are all traits of Brian Cody and it's the Brian Cody ethos.

"We're not beating teams by seven or eight points and any of the results are kind of by low margins. So it is worrying, it's very worrying that we're so reliant on TJ Reid. We can talk about him all day, he's absolutely brilliant, the best hurler in Ireland at the minute I think but it's so reliant on TJ.


If he's not playing well or if he doesn't get scores on the board, Kilkenny seem to not tick as good as they could.
"If you're looking for a spectacular hurler, there's nothing really coming through the ranks at the minute. It's moreso a kind of a team, I don't think the players are actually there at the minute in Kilkenny. We were found out this year, we were found out last year in the All-Ireland as well.

"But we are a hard team to beat and that's always the first thing that Brian Cody says, we are going to be a hard team to beat."


MORE IN THIS SECTION

[Mickmack]

Replacements for the KK golden generation not coming through.

When KK were a team of all the talents Cody always referenced character as the key quality. They still have lots of that as they showed this year.

Their great players were replaced by good players and other teams are better than then now.

[Mickmack]

Columnists
Jackie Tyrrell: Every corner-back is an island now
Odds stacked heavily against corner-backs like Conor Delaney in the modern game
about 16 hours ago

Jackie Tyrrell




With the 14th pick in the 2007 NFL Draft, the New York Jets selected Darelle Revis, a cornerback out of University of Pittsburgh. He went on to be considered one of the greatest cornerbacks of all time in the NFL and was elected on seven Pro Bowls - the equivalent of winning seven GAA All Stars. He also played one season with the New England Patriots, during which he won a SuperBowl.

Revis was so good in his position that the part of the field he was covering at any one time got its own nickname. He would take the best wide receiver on the opposing team and cover him one-on-one and wherever he was, it became known as Revis Island. He even trademarked the phrase so that he could sell merchandise with it written on it.

The reason they called it Revis Island is that in American football, the best wide receivers are so good at getting themselves open that they will often have to be double marked. Generally, it would take a very brave or very stupid defensive co-ordinator to leave just one guy to cover someone like a Randy Moss or a Chad Johnson, who were the best around at the time.

But Revis was so good that he flipped that script. He didn’t care who he was playing against, they were coming onto Revis Island. He went one-on-one with the receiver, regardless of how much space was open around them. And season after season, he generally came out on top.

We played different sports obviously but he was a player that I identified with because of his position on the field. I watched him closely when I played with Kilkenny because there was a certain amount of parallels between the demands we both faced. His were a lot more high-level and a lot more extreme, obviously. But when it came down to brass tacks, the fundamentals were very similar.


The big difference was that as a corner-back in hurling, I always felt I had more help from the structure of the gameplay around me than Revis would have had in American football. There was no such thing as Tyrrell Island because we defended as a unit. I had a full-back to my right and a wing-back in front of me. I knew they were there for me and they knew I was there for them. In the six-defender structure, the whole point is to try and not leave anyone hanging out to dry.


That was then. This is now. I retired from the game in 2016, a mere four years ago. But what was demanded of me back then and what’s demanded of a corner-backs right now are miles apart. Four years is a long time in the hurling world and the game is evolving at a breakneck speed. One major consequence of that evolution is that every corner-back is an island now.

No team lines out with three across the full-back line and three across the half-back line these days. The area of land that a corner-back is responsible for has more or less doubled in size in four years. Your full-back is still beside you but he’s generally a good 20 metres further away than he was when I was playing. And your half-back is either in the middle of the pitch fighting for ball or up taking a shot. You are on your own.

This has been clear to me for a while but I got a bird’s-eye view of it on Saturday night. The RTÉ set-up at Croke Park during this championship is down where the Cusack Stand meets the Canal End. We’re standing on a platform there during games and that gives us a brilliant insight into what goes on in the corner closest to us.


My main thought on Saturday night was to be thankful I’m not still playing. Conor Delaney had Dessie Hutchinson for company down in our corner - and nobody else! The space around the pair of them down in that corner was enough to land a 747 in. As an old corner-back, I was fascinated and thrilled in equal measure watching them take each other on.

Hutchinson is electric and has been having a magic season but for my money, Delaney won the battle between them.

Let’s look at what has changed to cause the demands on a corner-back to be ramped up so much higher in just four years. After all, there are still the same amount of players on the pitch as when I played and the pitches are the same size. So why are corner-backs so much more isolated now than before?

Whatever pace you have is only keeping you in the battle at this stage. But by now, space is the real enemy. The cavalry is too far away
First off, wing-back is a different position now. It’s about pressing, it’s about being an aggressor, getting on the front foot. Look around the teams and go through the names - Kyle Hayes, Kevin Moran, Joseph Cooney. All three have played in All-Ireland finals as half-forwards, all three have been nominated for All Stars as half-forwards. Now they’re wing-backs.

Why? Because teams now set up to push their opposite numbers back up the field as much as possible. Go back and watch Moran in the second half last Saturday and how he pressed John Donnelly back into his own half. Or go back to the quarter-final and keep an eye on how Cooney pushed Tipp’s Dan McCormack back as far as possible. Even go back to last year’s All-Ireland semi-final and see how Wexford’s Shaun Murphy forced Bubbles O’Dwyer into having to defend on his own 45 in the early part of the match.


Roaming
The further you can force opposition half-forwards to play from your goal, the less chance they have to do damage. Therefore, wing-backs are now operating at times as an auxiliary half-forward. This leaves space in behind. It’s unavoidable.

We also know that the most crowded area on any hurling pitch these days is in between the 65s. The battle for possession out around there is what everything else flows from. So you have corner-forwards out roaming around there, usually dragging a defender out with them. And if your wing-back isn’t pushing forward, he’s probably in there as well hunting for ball.

So now, as a corner-back, you’re looking around and going, ‘Hello? Anybody home?’ You might have a sweeper, yes. But sweepers generally position themselves in the central channel, around 30 metres from goal. Their job is first and foremost to intercept the long direct ball so as to nullify any goal threat. If they can cut off a diagonal ball, they will. But they’re not going out to help you double-team your man, leaving an ocean of space down the middle. They’d be crucified for it.

All of this feeds into the general shape of how teams set up now. The six-two-six is long gone, clearly. Watch Limerick with their tactics board at the water breaks - their ideal set-up is to start with the three players in the full forward line in a straight line down the middle of the attack, with huge canyons of space either side for the ball to be sprayed into. Most teams try this tactic but Limerick do it better than anyone else.

None of this happens by accident. All these changes have come about by careful design and repetition on the training field. Natural evolution has always been part of the sport. Cork with their running game in the early noughties. Kilkenny with their deep-lying robust half-forward line to combat it. Tipperary with their emphasis on creating space in their forward division. Clare with a deep-lying sweeper. And now Limerick with this model.


Every one of these set-ups have been hugely effective. The flipside is that they never last for long. They are too hard to sustain over time due to the in-depth analysis the other counties carry-out after each one wins a Celtic Cross. We always say that the All-Ireland winner dictates the new way forward for the game but I don’t think that’s exactly the case.

It’s more that the process of defeating it, of analysing it CSI-style and finding a way to pull it apart - that’s what really shapes the next bit of tactical evolution.

Key ingredients
One way or another, hurling as it is now puts huge demands on corner-backs. Sean Finn is the best at it in the game, closely followed by Cathal Barrett. To be able to survive and excel in this environment you need a certain skillset. The key ingredients are anticipation, great footwork, speed, discipline and a great deal of edgy, calculated risk. Playing safe will not get the job done here.

Your positioning is crucial. You have to edge onto an attacker’s shoulder on the side the ball is going to come to. This is risky because you are trying to interpret where the distributor is going to hit the ball. Will I go on his right or left shoulder? It’s a decision you have to make in a split-second.

Pick the wrong side and you lose the first battle and the attacker has an immediate advantage. Couple that with the fact that there are generally no slow forwards. Whatever pace you have is only keeping you in the battle at this stage. But by now, space is the real enemy. The cavalry is too far away.

Again, when I was playing, the fact that we defended as a unit meant that usually space got closed down quickly. If I had made the wrong calculation, got the wrong side and had been beaten to the ball, I still sometimes had the luxury of being able to shepherd my man towards whatever help was coming.


Not all the time, obviously. When a game opened up and things got a bit loose, I would sometimes be trailing after my man and realising I was on my own. At a certain point, I’d swallow my pride and take my beating, stand five-to-eight yards off and watch the shot go over my head. I’d be raging with myself and swear to get it right the next time.

If I was playing now, I think I’d have to be a bit more sanguine about losing the odd battle like that. The odds are stacked heavily against corner-backs. You are left out there to fend for yourself, so much so that I am constantly amazed at how good the best fellas are at it now.

On Saturday night, Conor Delaney consistently picked the right side to play Dessie Hutchinson. He edged onto the risky side and reaped big rewards across the night. Even when Hutchison gained possession, you could see Delaney’s foggy breath coming over his shoulder as a reminder that he was there.

Dessie shimmied and shook to try and get space each time but Delaney’s footwork and speed kept him in the battle and his discipline allowed him to limit any scoring threat. Hutchinson ended the night with two points from play. No corner-back likes giving up any score but I’d say Delaney would have taken that beforehand.

To my eye, Delaney won most of the mini-battles. And even at that, it just gives him an opportunity to get a blocking here and there or to push him out to an angle or position where the shot was no longer on. That is all success for the corner-back.

Out on that island, you take the scraps where you can.

[Mickmack]

I think that if Shane Enright reads that he will feel he was in the same situation as Jackie describes in the 2017 semi final replay v Mayo. EF tried something that day to clog up the middle like hurling is doing now.

Shane was the man exposed at the back. That is the trade off. Talk about taking one for the team.

[Mickmack]

Irish Times




Tom Morrissey views return of sports psychologist as key to Limerick’s ‘edge’
Player says he has learned not to put enormous pressure on himself on match days

Ian O'Riordan
about 16 hours ago
1

Tom Morrissey is listing off some of the reasons Limerick possibly got caught in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final, careful it seems not to give one any great emphasis or meaning over the others.

In no particular order then Morrissey comes to performance coach and sports psychologist Caroline Currid, who after working with the Limerick team behind the scenes of their 2018 All-Ireland win, the county’s first since 1973, opted out last year.

Coincidence or otherwise, Limerick lost their chance to secure back-to-back hurling titles when losing that 2019 semi-final to Kilkenny; then, otherwise coincidentally, the Limerick management reached out to Currid at the start of 2020, and they haven’t lost a hurling match all year.

“There’s no secret that Caroline is very successful at what she does,” says Morrissey, which is no exaggeration: Currid has been involved in four All-Ireland winning teams, the Sligo native previously working with the Tyrone footballers (2008), the Tipperary hurlers (2010) and the Dublin footballers (2011).

“She first came in with us in 2017, for an initial two-year stint,” says Morrissey. “Her being involved with the set-up, it’s not a coincidence that we have been successful in the years she has been with us. She’s a top, top woman. She does have a big influence. She does maybe give us that edge that you need to be competitive at this level.

Competitive advantage
“As do many people involved in that management and backroom. We’re surrounded by a lot of top-class people. They each give us a competitive advantage that you need to have over other teams at this level.”

For Morrissey, who enjoyed one of his best days in a Limerick jersey when scoring 0-6 in the semi-final win over Galway (including one free), there’s no great secret to what Currid brings to the players either.


“Every young fella going out playing for his county, whether playing minor championship or under-21, you’re just mad to do well. You want to do your best. You probably put too much pressure on yourself. Maybe being more relaxed and having people like Caroline involved in that regard.

“That’s her field, to get players to be relaxed and perform and be at their peak on match day. But it also comes with playing so much in big games with Limerick, that itself is a help. You learn to not give yourself those unrealistic expectations, putting those enormous pressures on yourself going out on match day. You’re only going out to do your best and work hard. Things will usually fall then in place.”

With his older brother Dan now equally settled in the Limerick defence, Morrissey has other reasons to update about Limerick’s prospects going into the final showdown against Waterford on Sunday. Perhaps the only way they could fully amend for last year’s semi-final defeat is to finish 2020 unbeaten.

“On last year,” he says, “we dealt with it, when we regrouped at the start of the year. It was mentioned, losing that semi-final and obviously we just wanted to, I’m not going to say right that wrong, but we wanted to prove to ourselves that that isn’t us. We came out and had a flat performance for the first 20 minutes and then Kilkenny being Kilkenny, they know how to win and they kept us at bay and didn’t let us draw level.

“But I think it was maybe a small bit of a motivation, we wanted to go one step further. I think it was just a motivation not to let ourselves get completely dominated by a team this year, for a patch of 20 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever it is. We don’t want our season to end over that.”


Whatever back-to-back All-Irelands, winning a second title, in either hurling or football, will usually separate the good teams from the great ones. Morrissey gives it some feeling thought.

Current focus
“I think that’s more a question for when I finish my career. In my eyes, if we do want to be a great team, it’s to push on and obviously win an All-Ireland or a few more.

“At the moment, current focus is living in the now and winning every game and every trophy that is there to be won each year we go out in each competition we play in. We’re a very ambitious group. We were lucky enough to have success at underage as well. My group, we started at under-16, won an All-Ireland, back-to-back Munster minors. Have two Munster under-21s and two All-Ireland under-21s as well.

“I know I was lucky to be on those teams but success was ingrained in us, so I wouldn’t say that we’re exceeding expectations with everything we’ve done thus far.

“Definitely that experience does bring calmness. I know this year is different to others. Usually, running out for Munster final day, or Croke Park for an All-Ireland semi-final, I was trying to reflect going out against Galway, it was definitely a bit more relaxed. I didn’t know whether to put it down to playing in an empty stadium but that would generate increased nerves, especially on match day.

“You’re able to get your feel for the game that bit easier. Those nerves aren’t there. You could see that in the players as well the way we’re playing. There is a lot more composure on the ball, games are high scoring. The fact that it’s an empty stadium allows for it to be that bit more relaxed and composed on the ball and you can see that in the performances.”

[Mickmack]

Hurling now needs black card, says Limerick selector Donal O’Grady
Donal O’Grady: Black card would affect a hurling team more than a football team.

WED, 09 DEC, 2020 - 07:00
JOHN FOGARTY


Lived by the sword, died by the sword. Limerick selector Donal O’Grady’s inter-county career was much more than that but his last appearance in Croke Park, the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final loss to Kilkenny, amounted to that proverb.

Ten minutes after Richie Power held Richie McCarthy’s hurley to tap in a goal, he was hauling down Power as he was all but certain to find a net. Not even booked for the foul, it is still regarded as the prime example of why the black card is required in hurling.

Looking back, he’d do the same again and up to a few years ago he would have been against the black card but he reckons the game has to change following a litany of cynical fouls in recent championships. “Well, I had to do the same thing that day. The match would have been over.

“It was actually a miracle he didn’t meet the ball head on anyway… whenever I got back. I actually ran around the goals, (referee) James McGrath came in to the umpire and I ran around the goals and tried to hide from him because I knew I was gone because I had the yellow just got about five minutes before it or whatever.

“Yeah, the black card is a funny one. I’ve seen some real cynical fouling this year. It’s been mixed, one standing out for me would be Huw Lawlor’s one (holding Galway forward Niall Burke’s hurley in the Leinster final). There’s been a lot.

“Like the black card, I think it would affect a hurling team more than a football team, if that makes sense. Taking a full-back out of a hurling team is a real, real hole to leave. It’s a tough place to play as it is, whether it’s 10 minutes in a sin bin or something I’d possibly be leaning towards but something will have to be done.

“I think something will have to be done because it’s too easy, in a one-on-one situation you can bring someone down now and the punishment… the reward for the attacker is a point whereas there was probably a 90/95% chance of a goal.”

Limerick scored five goals when O’Grady lined out for Limerick against Waterford in that epic All-Ireland semi-final 13 years ago. That’s two more than they have managed in four Championship matches this winter, a statistic that is a bit troubling to O’Grady.

“We should be maybe taking more goal chances — yes. We seem to create a lot more than we had been against Galway. It’s something, but there’s other things. We had some terrible wides against Galway, a lot of them were when we were up by four or five points so that’s something we’ll have to nail for the next day and get it right against Waterford.”

That 2007 semi-final against the Déise gave O’Grady an insight in how important serenity is in a game of hurling. Back then, Munster champions Waterford were hyped up to heaven, ripe for ambushing, nearly the exact opposite of the expectations on the teams this Sunday.

“I think Kerry had played Monaghan before it in the football and that was a cracker and then we came out on the pitch just after that and I’ll always remember Waterford players were walking around and Richie Bennis just came over and he said, ‘Lads, in we go to the dressing room, today is going to be our day’ and it’s funny, it was the first thing I thought of after the match actually, Richie saying that.

“Like, obviously every manager’s going to say that anyway but he just gave us that sense of calmness, would you believe — Richie gave us that sense of calmness!

“Yeah, that was an amazing day. Shaughs (Andrew O’Shaughnessy) and Donie Ryan and Brian Begley just had a great day at the office that day and that was a very, very good Waterford team and obviously goals got us over the line because as the clock was moving on, they were crawling their way or creeping their way back, getting closer and closer to us but we just managed to hold on and that was a brilliant, brilliant day because we weren’t expected to win it, which made it all the sweeter.”

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[Mickmack]

Hurt locker: How 2014 minor heartbreak was the making of this Limerick team
At the time, Limerick's 2014 All-Ireland minor final defeat felt like the end of the world for Brian Ryan's players. In fact, it was the making of them.


Hurt locker: How 2014 minor heartbreak was the making of this Limerick team




WED, 09 DEC, 2020 - 14:23
CHRISTY O’CONNOR



In October 2013, the Limerick minor management met in the University of Limerick to plan ahead for the following year. The county had lost the All-Ireland minor semi-final to Galway after extra-time but preparations for the 2014 season had begun within six weeks of that defeat. With the bulk of the 2013 squad still available, the target was obvious – win the All-Ireland.

Brian Ryan, the manager, lined out a detailed training plan. Dates for trials were pencilled in. Names of potential new recruits were proposed. Every goal was clearly defined but just before the meeting concluded, Jerry Wallis, the coach, had the last word.

Steve McDonagh, who had just joined the management team as a selector, can still vividly remember Wallis’ prescient commentary.

“Jerry said ‘A lot of these lads here are good enough to win a senior All-Ireland,’” recalls McDonagh now. “He said that he wanted to be in Croke Park in four or five years time watching them win one. I remember thinking ‘What planet is this fella on?

“When Limerick did win the 2018 All-Ireland, I was walking out Jones’ Road with my wife and kids when I got a flake down across the back of the shoulder. I turned around and who was it only Jerry Wallis. The first thing he said was ‘Didn’t I tell you it would happen.’”

The road to Limerick’s modern success began with the 2013-2014 minors.

Seven of the players which lined out in the All-Ireland semi-final two weeks ago featured in that 2013 All-Ireland minor semi - Barry Nash, Cian Lynch, Tom Morrissey, Seán Finn, Darragh O’Donovan, Seamus Flanagan, Pat Ryan. Three more current players were part of that squad; Richie English (who captained that team), David Dempsey and Mikey Casey.

When Limerick went seeking atonement in 2014, Finn, Lynch, Nash, Morrissey and Flanagan were joined by Peter Casey, Paddy O’Loughlin and Robbie Hanley. Limerick reached that All-Ireland minor final but were beaten by Kilkenny. The dressing room afterwards was a scene of devastation but McDonagh remembers Cian Lynch, the captain, speaking about using the experience as a stepping stone to the future.


Ryan expressed similar sentiments at the team banquet at the Kilmurry Lodge in Castletroy that evening.

“That defeat was personally very disappointing, but I said that it would be the making of that group,” says Ryan now. “It was always about the bigger picture, about educating the players to play on the bigger stage.

I would have seen it as a complete disaster if we had won that All-Ireland minor title and done nothing else.

The potential to do more was always ingrained and promoted in those players. It was clear from an early stage that the 2014 minor crop were a golden generation.

“We knew at U14 that they were really special,” says Joe Quaid, who managed that group at U14, U15 and U16 between 2010-’12.

“Cian was already outrageously talented but there were brilliant players everywhere. Aaron Gillane was only on the B squad. Seán Finn spent a couple of years with the B squad too.”

Limerick walloped Galway in the 2012 Arrabawn tournament (then the All-Ireland Under 16) final by 21 points. Ryan was also the Limerick U17 manager that season before being promoted to minor manager in 2013.

Ryan had already accumulated huge experience by then. He had trained the Limerick seniors in Tom Ryan’s last year as senior manager in 1997, while he’d been involved with the Limerick minors which reached the 2005 All-Ireland final.

Ryan was also part of Justin McCarthy’s senior management team in 2009-10 when Limerick bottomed out in the second year and a raft of players went on strike.

Ground Zero

That was Limerick’s Ground Zero moment. The underage Academy was born out of that debacle. A new path was clearly set.


“It was an unfortunate period but there were learnings there from across the board too,” says Ryan. “The line in the sand was drawn after 2010. And we’ve been moving forward ever since.”

Ryan fully totally immersed himself in trying to alter the culture.

“I took it very seriously,” he says. “Managing those minor teams was a 30-hour a week job for me.”

Forensic attention to detail was his calling card. The week before Limerick played the 2014 All-Ireland minor semi-final, Ryan arranged for Ronan Lynch to tog out with the Limerick seniors for their All-Ireland semi-final against Kilkenny. Lynch took 25 frees during the warm-up before togging in again.

Nothing was left to chance, but Ryan’s philosophy was still always governed by a culture of continuous development. Of the squad which reached the 2014 minor final, 14 were underage again in 2015.

“If guys at 18 weren’t good enough for the team or to come on as a sub, that spot was going to a 17 or 16-year old,” says Ryan. “We just wanted to get lads out of the dazzled headlights going to Croke Park.”


Ryan was never slow to take a chance on promise and talent, no matter how young or unproven they were at minor level. Thirteen days before the 2013 All-Ireland minor semi-final, Ryan rang Brian Finn, then Limerick U16 manager, and asked him if anyone was shooting the lights out. Finn mentioned Seamus Flanagan. Ryan brought him in for training the following night. Twelve days later, Flanagan came on at half-time against Galway.

“As a management team, we were willing to take a chance, to put ourselves out there and make hard decisions,” says Ryan. “At minor level, you do have a lot of parental involvement because everyone wants their son on the squad.

You’ll often get an earful from parents but you have to be focussed on what you’re trying to achieve in the short and long term.

A revolving door policy was difficult on young players but it was still clearly a holistic environment with a clear culture of development across all areas.

“Our attitude was that you could not use being a Limerick minor as an excuse for not reaching your potential in the Leaving Cert,” says Ryan. “We often sent guys home from training to study because we also wanted to manage their academic challenges during that period.

“All those guys did exceptionally well in the Leaving but they were also able to develop and progress as players. We wanted success but we also knew that we would ultimately be judged by how many lads progressed to U-21 and senior. That was the ultimate test.”

They certainly passed it. The core group from that 2014 minor team banked that hurt and put it to good use a year later; Finn, Nash, Lynch, Morrissey and Peter Casey played on the team which won the 2015 All-Ireland U-21 title. Full atonement for 2014 came when Limerick beat Kilkenny in the 2017 All-Ireland U21 final.

"Going into Thurles that afternoon, I said to my wife Kay that Limerick were going to win it handy,” says McDonagh.


“Speaking from experience, you don’t forget losing an All-Ireland final in Croke Park too easy. I knew Kilkenny were going to get a lesson.

"There was temper in Limerick that day. The lads still had that minor defeat in their heads.”

At the time, the 2014 All-Ireland minor final defeat felt like the end of the world for so many of those players.

But the first splashes of colour had already been painted on the canvas of the bigger picture. Ryan was right when he addressed the group that evening.

It was the making of them.

- You can purchase the Irish Examiner's 20-page All-Ireland Hurling Final preview supplement with your Friday edition of the Irish Examiner in stores or from our epaper site.

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[Ballyfireside]

Best wishes to our small ball boys on Sunday, so proud reading that team selection and special wishes to the Boyle brothers of that great Duffers institution. A UCC Rebel tells me Shane Conway would star on any team in the country - would he start with say Limerick?

[Galway breeze]

Kerry hurling could be the surprise pack at the weekend and Waterford hunger will pressure Limerick all the way to the line.

[Mickmack]

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Trending TRENDINGHURLING

Dec 10, 2020


By PJ Browne




How Dessie Hutchinson Kept The Hurling Fires Burning At Brighton
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Dessie Hutchinson's performances for Waterford in this year's championship have belied it being his debut inter-county season.

Of the players lining out in this weekend's All-Ireland final, Hutchinson is the top scorer from play with 2-8. Only the Limerick and Waterford free takers - Aaron Gillane with 2-34 and Stephen Bennett with 1-44 - have scored more in total.

His exploits have been built on two high-scoring campaigns with Ballygunner in the Waterford championship: 4-27 in 2019 and 6-23 this year.

Those numbers are all the more remarkable considering Hutchinson spent five of his 24 years in England playing football with Brighton. He joined the Premier League club at 16, signed a pro deal at 18 and then returned to Ireland at 21 to play League of Ireland with Waterford.

"It's so cut-throat over there you wouldn't believe it," Hutchinson, who played in centre midfield, told Balls last year about his time in England.

"The lad sitting next to you is hoping you're injured for six months so he can get looked at more than you are."




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Hutchinson spent six months with Waterford, helping them qualify for Europe, but realised if he was going to make progress he'd have to head back across the water. "At the time, it wasn't for me," he said.

At just 22, he retired from professional football and embraced what had been on his mind all along: hurling.

While at Brighton, he'd listen to Ballygunner games on WLR FM as his brothers Wayne and JJ won county titles with the club. He also roped some Brighton teammates into pucking around in the back garden or on the beach.

Hutchinson arrived at Brighton in 2013 at the same time as Dylan Barnett, now with Bray Wanderers, and Manchester-born Ben Barclay, who plays for Accrington Stanley.

The three became close. Being away from home at such a young age united them. Hutchinson and Barnett lived together with the same host family and Barclay would call around on days off.

They moved out a few years later and into houses owned by the club. The two Irish boys lived together in one and Barclay was next door.

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Hutchinson had brought three hurleys with him. The actor wasn't on the stage, but he was still practising his lines.

"There was a shared back garden," Barclay tells Balls.

We were bored, I guess, and Dessie was always itching to play or had his mind on hurling or something back home. We just got the hurls out and had a puck in the back garden.

The three of us would stand in a triangle and hit it to each other. We'd make a few games out of it. Dylan didn't really play when he was younger. We were kind of equal.

We'd play red arse. You'd have three lives. If you dropped it, you'd be bent over the wall, shorts down and the others got a shot each.

Mercifully, they played with a tennis ball and not a sliotar. Hutchinson took the hurley with the loose band to give the others a chance.

Occasionally, Aaron Connolly and Jayson Molumby - both of whom came to Brighton after Hutchinson - would call around. Hutchinson made his Brighton senior debut in 2017 against Bournemouth in the League Cup alongside Molumby in midfield.

"Where we were was quite near the training ground," says Barclay.

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"Some days, lads would pop in on the way back home. When they came around, if we were playing in the back, they'd get involved.

"Jayson thought he was good, but he wasn't great. I think Aaron used to play. He's from Galway and was quite keen to play.

"You could always tell that Dessie [had skill]. Just his touch, it came a bit more naturally - he didn't have to think about it."

When he left Brighton in 2018, Hutchinson left the hurleys behind at Barclay's request. He'd puck against the wall but couldn't persuade teammates to play.

The two have remained close and are in regular contact. Barclay has tracked Waterford's progress closely this year. The quarter-final win against Clare - in which Hutchinson scored 2-2 - is the only game he's missed. Though, he did catch the highlights.

In the summer of 2018, Barclay travelled to Waterford and took in a club hurling game with Hutchinson. After someone got a slap of a hurley, a fight kicked off and the match was abandoned. "That was my first experience of a game," says Barclay. "We were laughing about that. No one was hurt."

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This weekend, he will be watching as Hutchinson aims to help end Waterford's 61-year All-Ireland championship famine. Looking back it's no surprise to Barclay that his friend will be at Croke Park rather than tuning in on TV.

"I don't think he didn't enjoy Brighton or didn't want to be there, it was more that he missed family," he says.

"Everyone did at times. Some times are harder than other.

"He definitely missed playing hurling. You could tell that he had a love for that more than football. He was always checking scores, getting streams up, watching games.

"It was always on his mind. Every time he went back for an international break, or got a chance to go home, he'd always come back and tell the story that he was playing in a little game, or having a puck with his mates. He was just always mad for it."

[Mickmack]

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GAELIC GAMES MY SPORTS
Jackie Tyrrell: All-Ireland final heroes often come out of left field

Limerick have the edge but Waterford might well find a match-winner of their own

Jackie Tyrrell
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Updated: about 10 hours ago

What have Kieran Joyce, Walter Walsh and Taggy Fogarty all got in common? Answer: they’re three players who came in from no-man’s-land on Kilkenny panels to play key roles in crucial moments of All-Ireland finals. All three were out in the freezing cold, they were just about surviving in sub-zero temperatures and then all of a sudden they were thrown into the hottest of fires and they sparked like nobody else. All three were awarded man-of-the-match, even though nobody spent one minute talking about them in the build-up.

In 2014, Kieran Joyce sat on the bench for the first All-Ireland final against our arch-enemies Tipperary, as he had all year. For the replay, he was brought in as a trusted and key lieutenant at the pivotal centre back position. He rewarded Brian Cody’s faith in him by giving a commanding, swashbuckling display to nullify Bonner Maher, who had caused wreckage in our backline 20 days earlier.

With scoring having gone off the charts ... the game has reached a point where it is too hard to whittle it down to a small number of key components and battles
Walter Walsh came from not even being on the panel for the All-Ireland semi-final in 2012 to playing in the replayed All-Ireland final. He was a major wrecking ball in dismantling a rock-solid Johnny Coen and a sweeper-led Galway defence. He scored 1-3 and found himself shaking Michael Lyster’s hand on TV later that evening. Taggy had done the same six years earlier, scoring 1-3 in his first final in his rookie season and stopping Cork’s three-in-a-row bid.


My point is, All-Ireland finals are not always about the players we presume are going to be key men. That’s something we forget every year. An All-Ireland final is one game and it can go a million different ways. Some players will thrive, some players will go into their shell. Some big players on either side will simply cancel each other out.


An All-Ireland final can unnerve a player, regardless of how great they are. I still do not know what happened to that great Waterford team in the All-Ireland final in 2008 – and even after listening to Ken McGrath and Dan Shanahan this week revisit the day and try to explain it themselves, I’m none the wiser.

And neither are they – going through it now, 12 years on, they still failed to land on answers. They were an experienced team, had won Munster titles, they were littered with All Stars and hurlers of the year. They had beaten us the year before in a titanic League final battle. However, for some reason, on that day they fell flat.

All-Ireland finals can be spooky events. They do strange things to great players. On the flip side, they make heroes out of lads that nobody ever made a big deal out of before, meaning they will be recalled and spoken about forever more. That’s what happens when so much importance is placed on a single game. Nothing is pre-determined, nothing is inevitable.

When you try to stack up Sunday’s event, it’s not difficult to make a list of the names that will dominate the build-up. We will spend the next 48 hours talking about Cian Lynch, about Tadhg de Búrca, about the much-vaunted Limerick half-forward line, about Austin Gleeson and Stephen Bennett. These are all key men and crucial battles. Their performances so far and the influences they have had on games deserve to be talked about and focused on.


We should be careful not to ignore the other players on the pitch, however. Especially given what hurling has become. With scoring having gone off the charts in the past few seasons, the game has reached a point where it is too hard to whittle it down to a small number of key components and battles. When Taggy scored his 1-3 in 2006, he was a shoo-in for man-of-the-match in a game that ended 1-16 to 1-13. Fourteen years later, there’s a fair chance that could be the half-time score on Sunday.



The game is too elusive now, too broad, too dynamic. There are too many things going on in too many places. Unexpected events, unexpected heroes. Look at Jack Fagan in the semi-final. At the start of the season, who had a former Meath hurler down as the guy who would dominate the skies in the second half of an All-Ireland semi-final and lead a comeback against Kilkenny? Anyone who had was fairly quiet about it.

So when I look at the final, I think of some of the match-ups that will hardly get a look-in between now and throw-in but that could turn out to be of huge importance. Shane McNulty versus Graeme Mulcahy, for example. Now, it may well be that Peter Casey pips Mulcahy for a starting place – he has been putting pressure on him over the past couple of games when he has been introduced.

Straight away, that’s a complication for McNulty in the build-up. He will be marking one or other of them but he has to prepare for both. He will probably see both of them over the course of the afternoon one way or another so it will be prep time well spent.

He has to get it right, though. Because although pretty much nobody is spending the build-up to this game talking about McNulty, what if he has an off day? What if Mulcahy or Casey has a day of days, when everything they touch turns to gold? What if they do a Shane O’Donnell on it and they bury a hat-trick to the net? Well, right there, that’s your key contribution to the game. That’s what ends up defining the 2020 All-Ireland final.


So when it comes down to it, the cliche is completely true – every match-up matters and every clash is crucial. Every element counts. The middle third. The possession stats. How much sleep Kyle Hayes got this week. The hooks and blocks. The turnover rate. What Darragh Lyons eats for breakfast Thursday morning. Puck-outs.

There’s a game of blackjack to be played between the Waterford half-back line and the Limerick half-forwards
Who wins the toss. Who gets to have a word with the referee at half-time. Who adapts their gameplan. What Caroline Currid does this week. Mikey Bevans v Paul Kinnerk. Managing the two water breaks. Who comes off the bench knowing in their bones that today’s the day. Who gets what dressingroom. Believe me, the smallest of things can throw you and occupy your headspace when it should not.

I never enjoyed the week leading to the All-Ireland. I would guess and second-guess my way through it, trying to see the game from every angle, all in the few inches between my ears. I drove myself nuts, keeping up this constant mental check-in every hour of every day.

Am I eating the right food? Am I drinking enough? Am I relaxed? Did I sleep enough? What type of bread will I have for my sandwich at lunchtime? Who should I talk to today? Who should I not talk to? How do I avoid running into such and such a person, the one I know has a negative attitude? I can’t let even one per cent of that enter my bubble this week. Can’t do it. Won’t do it.

All-Ireland final week was a battle for me in that way, a state of constant internal strife. I always had a fight on my hands to even just get to Sunday in one piece mentally. That’s why I loved training in the week of the final. It was an escape from myself. We would train for an hour on Monday, an hour on Wednesday and an hour on Friday. Once we went into Nowlan Park, I could forget about everything and go about honing my skills for Sunday.


No two people are alike and there are plenty of lads who could sleep for the week and rub their eyes to wake up on the way to the game. My point is that there’s going to be 40 players who play some part on Sunday and every one of them will have an opportunity to affect the outcome. With that amount of variables in play, the heroes come Sunday night are likely to be different to who we think they’ll be.

Winning a final ultimately comes down to being more than the sum of your parts. You can weigh the two panels up on paper but the winning and losing of it comes down to all the parts gelling, management reacting to game situations and subs having their impact.

Given the personalities involved, there’s a game of blackjack to be played between the Waterford half-back line and the Limerick half-forwards. Who twists? Who sticks? Will Callum Lyons and Kevin Moran follow Tom Morrissey and Gearóid Hegarty into the Limerick half?

I would imagine Waterford will be more comfortable passing them off and getting Fagan and Kieran Bennett to pick them up when they go back there. It’s not easily done but it served Kilkenny well in last year’s semi-final and it limited the influence of Hegarty and Morrissey on the game. That handover will need to be tight and communication needs to be perfect – the lack of a crowd will help in this regard.

In the end, I think Limerick have probably got the squad and the experience to come through on Sunday. It’s very rare that they are less than the sum of their parts. You can never tell who the heroes are going to be in an All-Ireland final but if Limerick perform, I expect it to be the ones wearing green capes rather than white.

[veteran]

Somebody told me the other day that Fergal Horgan, next Sunday’s senior referee, was on the same Tipperary minor team as Liam Cahill. It is difficult to cover all the angles when appointing referees.

[Mickmack]

GAA Statistics: It’s not how many frees Limerick concede against Waterford, but where


Eamon Donoghue
Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 06:00

Limerick are likely to concede more frees than Waterford in this weekend’s All-Ireland hurling final, but the decisive factor will be where on the pitch they are penalised.

The 2018 All-Ireland champions have made more fouls than the opposition in each of their four matches en route to Sunday’s decider, but only once have they conceded more scores from frees.

Traditionally, teams aim for low foul counts. To prevent a free shot at their posts or an opportunity to land a long ball in on top of their defence. However, Limerick conceded three more frees than Clare in their championship opener. They conceded five more frees than Tipperary, likewise in the Munster final against Waterford. Against Galway last time out they conceded six more frees than the Tribesmen.

Their overall free count for and against reads 55 to 74. Limerick are conceding, on average, just under five frees more than the team they play against in each game.

In the semi-final they scored seven frees to Galway’s nine. However, in the Munster final, Limerick scored nine frees to Waterford’s eight, and they amassed the same amount of scores from frees as both Clare and Tipperary did in their provincial encounters. So from 74 fouls, Limerick have only conceded 0-36 from frees. They are fouling in the other team’s half and it is not hurting them.

The Treaty County have only lost four of the 16 quarters so far in this year’s championship, beating the reigning champions – Tipp – by nine points and the 2017 winners – Galway – by three. Their average winning margin in the 2020 championship is seven points. A common theme, however, in those four losing quarters is the concession of frees in the scoring zone. From a combined 21 fouls, Limerick had 16 frees given against them in shooting range, conceding 0-15.


If Waterford could match that combined four-quarter effort and score 0-15 from frees on Sunday, it’ll go a long way towards them pulling off another underdog victory.

Position
Despite their heavy fouling - Limerick have given away 35 per cent more frees than their opposition - they've been shown just seven yellow cards. The teams they've faced have been brandished 11. But again, this has a lot to do with the position on the field where they foul.

Between winning the All-Ireland two years ago and Sunday’s All-Ireland final, Limerick have won four of the last five titles on offer: two from two for league titles and back-to-back Munsters. This weekend will be their second final appearance in three years.

Aside from last year’s shock All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Kilkenny, John Kiely’s side have been utterly dominant. And in that encounter they missed 50 per cent of their scoring opportunities, registered 15 wides, squandered a late goal chance, and still should have been awarded a 65 to equalise with the last puck of the game.


So, there's no clear template of how to beat this Limerick team. No one match where their tactics were counteracted and taken apart. We only have the quarters in which they have been beaten, to piece together a formula for the why and how.

On their way to a 10-point win, Limerick were beaten 0-9 to 0-7 in the first quarter of this year’s Munster quarter-final, which also doubled up as the Division 1 league final. Clare scored five of their nine frees in that period. In the Munster final Waterford won the third quarter to go in level at the final water break, while Galway had a 0-7 to 0-4 advantage at the end of the first quarter of their All-Ireland semi-final. They also won the final quarter by a point. Both periods began with a run of converted frees.

Waterford made five turnovers, three dispossessions, a block and a hook in that third quarter. But they were given the momentum to tear into the game – and this manic intensity is essential to beat Limerick – by slotting over two early frees. Both came as they used their pace and athleticism to aggressively run at Limerick’s defence.

Strategic fouling allows teams to slow down the transition from defence to attack, which in turn sets the game pace to their liking, gives them time to set up, and lays down a physical marker. Any turnover in the opposition’s defence is a scoring chance for Limerick, while any free conceded is unlikely to be in range for a point at the other end.

Tackling technique
These frees Limerick are giving away are strategic in terms of the areas where they are pressing, but the actual fouling is as much to do with their tackling technique.

The Munster champions tackle like a football team, with the first man making contact looking to put their opponent back on his heels, allowing the rest of the pack to surround and force a turnover. Limerick can only deploy this approach because most teams try to work the ball short out of their backline, and this is when they target them.

Deliberate play out of defence only encourages big hits. Waterford must work the ball out of their defensive zones quickly, and then, whilst inside scoring zones, run hard and run direct. As well as stopping Limerick from sucking the intensity and speed out of their attacks, this can also take advantage of a tackle technique that is there to be exploited.

A hurler has a much smaller ball to protect than a footballer when he looks to power through the lines. Limerick’s on-the-edge approach will only work against teams who play through certain areas or who fear that contact. Which is most teams. Embrace it and Waterford can show why a football tackle should inevitably lead to a free in hurling. If the initial hit fails to hold the player up, unlike in football, there is no hope of tackling the sliotar and therefore it becomes a drag or holding.

Stephen Bennett scored three of his eight frees in the third quarter of the Munster final; if he can get 12 on the board or even into double digits, then Limerick’s fouling could finally end up costing them. Because it's not about how many frees you give away, but where.

[Mickmack]

Enda McEvoy: Limerick’s pragmatism and remorseless functionality to carry the day


SAT, 12 DEC, 2020 - 06:00
Enda McEvoy



Back around May, during the first lockdown, a random thought occurred. Bad enough, clearly, to be living through a pandemic with no hope or hurling on the horizon. But just imagine being a Limerick player or supporter living through said pandemic.

They were the best team in the country in 2018 and they won the All-Ireland. They were the best team in the country in 2019 and they didn’t win it. They were the best team in the country in 2020 and they weren’t going to be allowed to win it. Just when it looked as though the Unlimited Heartbreak days had become an increasingly distant memory… Normality resumed serendipitously for them.

The very worst-case scenario for Limerick tomorrow is the absence of what ifs. Either they win, thereby sealing their status as Shannonside’s finest offering since the Mackey era, or they weren’t good enough.

Aura

In creating a winning team, John Kiely has also created an aura. Waterford will be required to shatter the aura before they can beat the team.

The Munster champions perspire a relentlessness that all the best teams perspire, each in their own easily identifiable way. If Limerick’s palette isn’t broad — they paint in bold primary colours, not delicate blues and pinks — what of it?

Their goalie is dependable and, as with the finest goalies, boasts a forward’s eye. They defend with the kind of blanket forcefulness that overrides individual weaknesses. Their half-forward line doubles as a half-back line and trebles as a midfield. They knock over points at a rate unseen in the annals of the sport.

The number of personnel and positional differences from the 2018 All-Ireland final looks about right. Not drastic, not insignificant. No stasis, certainly. Of late the evolutionary process has entailed recasting Kyle Hayes as an attacking articulated truck of a wing-back and Cian Lynch as an improbable centre-forward, a sprite between two monsters.


Sui generis in the ancient vernacular, press-resistant in the current vernacular, Lynch is the necessary depth charge in the pint of plain.

The lack of an assassin’s instinct is their one obvious weakness. Limerick do not slit the throats of their enemies and drink their blood; they suffocate them instead. In 18 championship outings over the past three seasons, they’ve outgoaled their opponents in normal time on only seven occasions. They do not make rain inside the last 30 metres of the field.

Reincarnate them as a rugby player and they’d be a number eight. (Tipp would be an out-half.) Their average of 11 wides per outing in Championship 2020 constitutes a matter for mention rather than for angst.

Their 16 wides a fortnight ago may or may not have been a one-off — no team should get within an ass’s roar of perfection in a semi-final — but they’ll hack out more than enough possession here to be able to afford 11 or 12 wides. They may not be able to afford 15 or 16.

Which brings us to the first of caveats. Against Clare, Waterford, and Galway the men in green should have been out the gap long before the end. One cannot keep juggling fire indefinitely in that manner: the old Coventry City syndrome. In the end one will get scorched/relegated.

The similarities in reverse with the 2018 final are worth listing. Limerick may not be the holders but they’re the hot favourites, they’re packed with the type of splendiferous physical specimens Charles Atlas would rave about, they’ve looked likely champions from way back and, so sustained are the volleys of arrows they loose from distance, the lack of goals has been a non-issue.

The difference with two years ago is that Galway were leaking fuel for weeks before the big day whereas no sign of metal fatigue is visible with Limerick.

Conclusion?


Kiely and Paul Kinnerk have consciously been hoarding matches and powder with December 13 in mind. Tomorrow is detonation day. It’ll be no surprise if they light the fuse at the throw-in, attempt to do to Waterford what Kilkenny did to them in 2007 and be gone beyond recall after 10 minutes.

Loughnane called it

The presence of the underdogs won’t have come as a surprise to Ger Loughnane, who on championship eve decreed that the prevailing circumstances left room for an unlikely candidate to get a handy draw and come charging out of left field. Indeed.

The brio of Waterford’s semi-final triumph sent a flare into the skies over a competition that, the novelty of its setting apart, provided little in the way of high drama. Galway found that 2017 was past tense. Wexford found that the train left the station in 2019. Tipperary found yet again that there are no second acts in their lives when they hold the MacCarthy Cup.

Cork and Kilkenny found their level.

The vibrancy with which the Déise hurled a fortnight ago was no accident. Back in January, when nobody was listening, Stephen Bennett revealed that Liam Cahill didn’t mind them making mistakes provided they were “good mistakes”.

Yet after the way in which fortune abandoned them in 2018, as seemingly humble a feat as winning three of their league fixtures back in springtime helped put their world to rights again and replenished stores emptied of confidence.

When the sides met in the Munster final it wasn’t quite a hands and heels job for the winners, but once the jockey produced the whip at the furlong marker and waved it, the race was over.


Cahill was quick to acknowledge his charges’ fatigue in the closing stages and his own failure to drain the bench earlier.

If Waterford also felt they could have reacted quicker once Limerick changed their shape for the closing quarter, it was scarcely a cardinal sin. Kiely’s boys pose more questions of the opposition than anyone since the high Raj days of Cody’s Kilkenny.

The attacking element of the underdogs’ strategy looks straightforward. Win as much high ball and as many of the rucks as they can, then have Calum Lyons and Jamie Barron drive forward. Galway had heavy armour trying to do so; Waterford have guys on motorbikes. For all that hurling become a crucible of long-range markmanship, it still has room for people who can blow holes in walls and make incisions.

But — and here’s a sentence Shannonside folk could not have dreamed a few years ago would be written on the eve of an All-Ireland final — Limerick are not Kilkenny. Limerick think a good game; Kilkenny do not. Kilkenny leaked 2-16 from play in the second half a fortnight ago; Limerick will not concede that across both halves. Besides, setting Lyons back on his heels will be high on their order of business.

Taken off in their first three outings and irritating for the first half of the semi-final, what will Austin Gleeson do tomorrow? Man of the match or the first man subbed? Alternatively he could score three points, which would be more than acceptable.

Some other observations.

On a line through Kilkenny and Galway, the formbook points to Waterford, not Limerick.

Let’s peg 0-25 as the absolute minimum return for the favourites and 1-27 as a perfectly reasonable expectation. Before they can even think of winning, then, the underdogs will need at least two green flags and will need to break the 20-point barrier and then some. They managed 2-17 against Galway in 2017. It wasn’t enough then and it won’t be enough here.


That 2017 iteration included Brick Walsh, Noel Connors, Barry Coughlan, two Mahonys and one Ten (two Fives). All were management-level employees with a blue-collar ethos. That’s a lot of corporate know-how to have departed the building.

The other Limerick caveat?

A vulnerability about the full-back line, particularly in the air, albeit one unplumbed since the Clare game. Then again, Stephen O’Keeffe was poor for Kilkenny’s first goal and Conor Prunty was poor for their second Cahill has surely pondered parking Tadhg De Burca, one of the most important and influential players of his generation, in front of the full-back line for the opening quarter to guard against early exsanguination, with instructions to move upfield thereafter.

Never underestimate the ego of a previewer.

The temptation to plump for a realistic underdog like Waterford is ever a strong one, not least because one can preen oneself indefinitely in the event of victory.

The implicit roseate scenario is not hard to picture. Cahill’s men hang in there for three-quarters of the game and are properly steeled for the last push after the second water break; Gleeson magics up a blinder; a lucky break goes their way 10 minutes from the end; 61 years of hurt are swept aside in late deluge of points.

It’s easier to go with what we know, however, and cite Damon Runyon’s gag about the race not always being to the swift (“but that’s the way to bet”).

Limerick’s pragmatism, practicality, and remorseless functionality to carry the day. Not romantic, alas, but neither are they.


It’s part of what makes Kiely’s Limerick Kiely’s Limerick.

MORE IN THIS SECTION

[Mickmack]

Growing up in North Kerry there was always a great affinity with the hurlers of Limerick. The 1973 win by Limerick was like as if Kerry had won it.

Given that Limerick won it in 2018 i will be hoping that tomorrow is Waterfords day though.

It would be brilliant for the game.

There is also the point that what Enda McEvoy calls Limericks 'remorseless functionality' takes a lot of the unpredictibility and mayhem out of games Limerick are involved in.

By comparison Waterford are simply thrilling to watch.


The retirement of Shane Dowling seems to have taken the goal threat out of Limerick.

So i do give Waterford a chance as long as the occasion does not get to them.

Galway lost their two key players in the semi final yet Limerick reallt struggled to win.

Limerick profited from an absolute nightmare by the Galway keeper with his puckouts. A rake of scores by limerick ensued.

If Waterford do as well from their puckouts tomorrow as they did v KK then they have a huge chance. A lot defends on a Meath man Jack Fagan. He won 11 puckouts v KK and the Waterford fightback was on the back of that including the two goals Waterford got.

Of course they may be a fifth gear in Limerick that they are keeping for the final.

[Mickmack]

Malachy Clerkin


In the opening 20 minutes of last month’s Munster final, Tadhg de Búrca had the game on a string. It was one of those settling-in periods where Limerick and Waterford mainly took each other’s pulse – between them they shared 14 points before the water break and a level game at that stage was no insult to anyone. Limerick decided to take offence anyway.

Of the seven points Waterford scored in that opening quarter, De Búrca had been the instigator of four. Three of them began with him turning over Limerick possession, either tidying up at the back in the regular way or, once, sprinting 35 metres to intercept a Cian Lynch pass to Aaron Gillane close to the Limerick 65. For another, he was fouled coming out with the ball.

One way or another, Limerick clearly decided he had had his fun. It may well have been a coincidence that they changed their approach after the tactics board session during the water break, or else they spent it talking mostly about the Waterford centre back. One way or the other, they spent the rest of the half playing studiously down the Semple Stadium sidelines.

Each of Limerick’s next four points came down the wings, two for Peter Casey and two for Gillane. De Búrca went almost a full 10 minutes without any involvement in the game, save for some occasional barging and rifling at rucks. He went from being the game’s dominant force to virtual anonymity. Limerick trotted in 0-14 to 0-11 ahead at the break.

Post hoc ergo proptor hoc? For once, inarguably so. Limerick excised De Búrca from the game and the dual effect was that they both upped their own scoring rate and slowed Waterford’s. It’s not a tactic that will always work but on this occasion, it bent the game in their direction. By the end of the afternoon, Limerick had powered home with a powerhouse final quarter to tidy up a four-point victory.


Cruciates are obviously not the injury it once was but people still have a real fear of it. It’s the dreaded injury, it has that reputation
One stat from the game tells its own story – Tadhg de Búrca was the most fouled Waterford player on the day. Limerick fouled him six times across the 70 minutes, for five frees and one advantage played by Paud O’Dwyer. It takes a fair suspension of disbelief to assume that something like that could happen by accident.

“That’s a great compliment to him,” says Brian O’Halloran, his clubmate at Clashmore Kinsalebeg and part of the Waterford panel for a decade up until last year. “Other teams recognise that he has that effect. I would imagine they didn’t all set out to foul him but at the same time there would have been a collective decision not to allow him come out with the ball unimpeded.

“They would have seen how he came out with the ball against Cork and that had to be in their thinking. It might not have been, ‘Make sure and foul him’. But it would have been, ‘Make sure and get in his face and make it hard for him to come out’.”


If Waterford are lucky to have a player like De Búrca, this year more than ever he would probably admit to feeling lucky to have them. He is one of the few people on whom the ill wind of the pandemic has blown good fortune. In a normal year, the championship would most likely have gone ahead without him, due to a cruciate injury he picked up last September playing for Clashmore.

“At the time he wasn’t even sure whether it was his knee or his hamstring,” O’Halloran says. “It all seemed innocuous enough – he met someone slightly wrong in a challenge, that’s really all it was. It wasn’t at all clear at the time that anything major was wrong. But if the championship had gone ahead in the summer as normal, it would have been very touch and go as to whether he’d have been in the right shape for it.


“Cruciates are obviously not the injury it once was but people still have a real fear of it. It’s the dreaded injury, it has that reputation. There’s no guarantee you’ll come back as good as before. Everyone has dark thoughts about it. Will it ever come right? Will I be able to push it? There’s always little niggles with it – the knee might be okay but other little parts around it might suffer during rehab.

We take for granted how good he is as a hurler but to be able to mix it physically is a massive thing
“So he wouldn’t have been a certainty to make it. And in fairness, when he came back with us in the club in June and July, he was a good bit off the pace. That’s to be expected after a cruciate so really, if there had been a normal championship, I don’t think he’d have been in the right shape to play for Waterford.”

Whatever about June or July, there was no guarantee he’d be good to go by October. The outside world has probably become overly blase about cruciate injuries down the years, just because thew science has advanced to make the treatment of them theoretically straightforward doesn’t make the work involved any less arduous. De Búrca may have had the carrot of a delayed championship dangling in front of him but he still had to propel himself towards it.

Not that anyone doubted that he would. If anything has typified his hurling life, it has been the work he has put into it. De Búrca was one of the smaller underage players on the Waterford scene in his teenage years and only really developed a frame worth growing into during his final couple of years in St Augustine’s in Dungarvan. He was a forward most of the way through school but marked Shane O’Donnell in a Harty Cup game once and kept him to a point, sealing his fate as a defender forever more.


“And then he filled his frame with sheer gym work,” says O’Halloran. “He put in the time and effort in the gym over the years and didn’t lose any mobility, which was important. You see it most when he plays football for the club. His physicality really stands out when he plays there in midfield. We take for granted how good he is as a hurler but to be able to mix it physically is a massive thing.”

So whatever about June or July, it wasn’t going to be a lack of work that kept him out of an October championship. Man-of-the-match against Cork, he powered into the Limerick game before they worked out how to keep him out of it. Bravura performances against Clare and Kilkenny have him running third in the betting for Hurler of the Year going into the final.

He is also the only survivor of the Waterford defence that last lined out for an All-Ireland final just three years ago. The moving parts all around him keep changing but De Búrca remains the one constant. Plenty of teams play with sweepers but few of them are as critical to the fortune of their side as De Búrca is to Waterford’s.

“He naturally has an idea of where to be on the field,” O’Halloran says. “He fills the same role for the club as he does with the county. He’s one of the best at it that I’ve come across. You often see fellas who can read breaks and they seem to have a sixth sense of where to go. But that’s a very rare thing. He is very good at watching the striker of a ball at the other end of the field and judging by how he is shaping where the ball is going to go. He gambles on it a bit so as to get a split second headstart.


That ability to know what the right thing to do is, the right place to go, Tadhg has it in abundance but it’s nearly unique to him
“There’s an innate sense of judgment there. If I went in centre back in the morning and I had to decide whether to stick on my man or drift across behind where I thought the ball was going to land, I would most likely be caught between two stools. Am I going to get cleaned out by my man or am I going to leave a big hole behind me and leave them in for a goal? That’s the question that every centre back has to deal with. There’s such a fine balance because you have almost no margin for error. If you follow your man and leave a gaping hole, it takes very little for the opposition to get in for a goal.

“If I was marking Tadhg as a centre forward, I’d be trying to drag him everywhere with me. But he seems to have a lovely balance this year especially of pushing further up the field than he would have in the past. He intercepted a ball in front of Aaron Gillane beyond midfield at one stage and you would never have seen him do that before. But it was just him gambling on making a ball that nobody thought he could. It ended up in a Waterford point, coming from a turnover he made almost on the Limerick 65.

“You have so many questions to answer in that role. You have so many decisions to make. Most lads have their man to mark and they follow him and that’s that. Tadhg has a lot more to deal with. But his experience and the years he has put into it now mean that he is nearly a unique player in the game at this stage.


“I don’t know if you could coach a young fella to be Tadhg de Búrca. That ability to know what the right thing to do is, the right place to go, Tadhg has it in abundance but it’s nearly unique to him. That’s why he is the way he is.”

The way Waterford need him to be. The way Limerick can’t let him be. The fate of the final may well lie in the tension between those two states.

[Mickmack]

All-Ireland SHC final – Limerick v Waterford, Croke Park, 3.30 [Live, RTÉ 2, Sky Sports Mix]


Sean Moran



In summarising his views on Sunday’s All-Ireland hurling final for our Irish Times webcast event, Galway’s 2017 All-Ireland-winning manager Micheál Donoghue listed Limerick’s achievements in the past three seasons.

His point was that with back-to-back Munster and league titles as well as their All-Ireland from two years ago, Limerick were an established force that didn’t have to be judged strictly on the form they’d shown on the way to the final.

It was a strong reminder that breakthrough victories don’t come easy for any side, even one that has covered – or recovered – as astonishing a distance as Waterford have this year.

But reputation without performance won’t generally win All-Irelands. What Waterford do bring to the final is a great momentum and a sense that progress is dynamic and improving.

Given their historical relationship with Kilkenny, the comeback victory in the semi-final was like rocket fuel and even against formidable opponents they come to the final with prospects.

Liam Cahill has blended a team from experienced players who reached the All-Ireland three years ago and relative newcomers, three of them rookies, to produce an exceptionally athletic, fast side bristling with attacking threat and the top scorers in this year’s championship to date.

They ran Kilkenny ragged in the second half of the semi-final for an 11-point turnaround. Of course it raises questions about the first half but comments afterwards by Stephen Bennett indicated the nature of the psychological challenge of playing their neighbours.

Cahill also showed he wouldn’t procrastinate by replacing Jake Dillon with Neil Montgomery with less than 20 minutes on the clock – and sticks to that switch in his selection for Sunday.

Limerick might recognise all of this. It’s not entirely different to their own progress in 2018 – blend of experience and under-21 winning talent with a transformative comeback win over neighbouring provincial champions – in this case, Cork - in the All-Ireland semi-final.


They brought momentum to the final and kicked on, defeating Micheál Donoghue’s Galway – who were themselves at that point provincial and league winners but not quite firing on all cylinders – in the final.

Momentum counts for a lot.

Waterford’s best line is arguably their half-backs, which sets a collision course with Limerick’s half forwards, who have been the engine of the team this season.

They played their part in the Munster final when Gearóid Hegarty stepped up the challenge but the scoring was done on the inside line where 0-10 from play was shared between Aaron Gillane, who is named but touch-and-go with a rib injury, Peter Casey and Graeme Mulcahy.

Three goals
Significantly, there were no goals. Compared with the championship summer of two years ago, when their last four matches yielded 11 goals – albeit they had a preliminary All-Ireland quarter-final against Carlow and extra time against Cork along the way – this campaign to date has seen just three goals scored in the four matches leading to the final.

In 2018 the bench, which isn’t as formidable this year in the absence of the retired Shane Dowling, kicked in with 4-14 along the way as opposed to 1-10.

Other teams have found it quite possible to get goals against Waterford and you’d imagine it will be a focus for John Kiely’s team, who will hope to do a bit better with what chances they create than in the semi-final when although Éanna Murphy saved well there was a lack of conviction about the attempts.

Limerick look likely to put Cian Lynch on Tadhg de Búrca to try and exert pressure on Waterford’s field general. Clare intended something similar with Tony Kelly, who picked up an early injury – despite which he led the team’s turnover count – but Waterford were taking no chances and switched Calum Lyons in order to free de Búrca for more strategic work.


He was excellent in the Munster final when Limerick had Lynch at centrefield so it will be interesting to see if a new gambit cuts down that influence.

If de Búrca is the outstanding Waterford player at the back, Stephen Bennett has been the equivalent up front. Held to 0-2 from play in Thurles – and Limerick would happily take that again – he also put over 10 dead ball chances but also comes into the All-Ireland in confident mood with a Player of the Month award and a campaign of astonishing scores.

With him are the talents of Dessie Hutchinson, an out-and-out corner forward who stays close to goal all the time and the less predictable positioning of Austin Gleeson, who will look for a redemptive display after the disappointment of three years ago but whose combination of physique, athleticism and sheer skill lit up the second half against Kilkenny.

By Brian Cody’s admission, Waterford ruled the skies against Kilkenny and that’s unlikely to happen in the final – it’s hard to see Jack Fagan plucking ball effortlessly from Kyle Hayes – but they won’t be easily dominated either.

Limerick have the pedigree, the power and practised game plan but need a better performance. Waterford have been improving all the time. Momentum to trump reputation in this strangest of years.

[veteran]

Unfortunately, Waterford totally out of their depth. No more than a Sunday stroll for Limerick,

Dare one hope that next weekend’s match will be more competitive.

[dano]

Limerick brought an intensity to the battle for the loose ball. Somewhat like Tyrone did in the football all those years ago. Seemed there were more of them on the pitch at every minute. Very hard to match that and then you lose Tadhg De Burca as well thats that!.

[veteran]

Somebody recently said that Limerick could develop into the Dublin of hurling. While acknowledging that talk is cheap could it be that JP’s bottomless pit of money might create another monster?

[wideball]

Dec 13, 2020 20:55:59 GMT veteran said:

Somebody recently said that Limerick could develop into the Dublin of hurling. While acknowledging that talk is cheap could it be that JP’s bottomless pit of money might create another monster?

This team is still relatively young so they will be around for a while. Bigger issues ahead if they start to replace older players with younger players who are as good or better. Then I think they could compared to Dublin. Not sure how limerick are at u-20 or minor at the moment.

[Mickmack]

Limerick team that won the 2015 under 21 All Ireland


1. David McCarthy (Glenroe)

2. Sean Finn (Bruff)
3. Richie English (Doon)
4. Michael Casey (Na Piarsaigh)

5. Diarmaid Byrnes (Patrickswell – Captain)
6. Barry O Connell (Kildimo/Pallaskenry)
7. Gearoid Hegarty (St Patrick’s)

8. Darragh O’Donovan (Doon)
9. Pat Ryan (Doon)

10. Ronan Lynch (Na Piarsaigh)
11. Cian Lynch (Patrickswell)
12. David Dempsey (Na Piarsaigh)

13. Colin Ryan (Pallasgreen)
14. Tom Morrissey (Ahane)
15. Barry Nash (South Liberties)

Subs:

24. Peter Casey (Na Piarsaigh) for C Ryan (50)
18. Andrew La-Touche Cosgrave (Monaleen) for P Ryan (52)
19. Jack Kelliher (Patrickswell) for R Lynch (55)
17. Mark O’Callaghan (Knockaderry) for Finn (58)
21. Jody Hannon (Adare) for O’Donovan (59).

Referee: Johnny Ryan (Tipperary)

[Mickmack]

Limerick team that won the 2017 u21 All ireland



1 Eoghan McNamara (Doon)

2 Sean Finn (Bruff)
3 Darragh Fanning (Pallasgreen)
4 Dan Joy (Kilmallock)

5 Ronan Lynch (Na Piarsaigh)
6 Kyle Hayes (Kildimo/Pallaskenry)
7 Thomas Grimes (Na Piarsaigh)

8 Colin Ryan (Pallasgreen)
9 Robbie Hanley (Kilmallock)

14 Tom Morrissey (Ahane – captain)
15 Barry Nash (South Liberties)
12 Cian Lynch (Patrickswell)

10 Aaron Gillane (Patrickswell)
11 Barry Murphy (Doon)
13 Peter Casey (Na Piarsaigh)

Subs

18. Conor Boylan (Na Pirasaigh) for Cian Lynch (38)
19. Andrew La Touche Cosgrave (Monaleen) for Morrissey (47)
17. Oisin O’Reilly (Killmallock) for Murphy (53)
21. Lorcan Lyons (Monaleen) for Nash (62)

[Mickmack]

Limerick have their golden generation now and their have a great captain and management.

If they have the desire they can win 3 or 4 more.

They found another level today and nullified the big players on the Waterford side.

Goals are something they are not unduly worried about and when you can land 30 points for all distances why would goals be something to aim for. That said the Waterford keeper made a great save to deny them.

[glengael]

Dec 13, 2020 23:36:51 GMT Mickmack said:

Limerick have their golden generation now and their have a great captain and management.

If they have the desire they can win 3 or 4 more.

They found another level today and nullified the big players on the Waterford side.

Goals are something they are not unduly worried about and when you can land 30 points for all distances why would goals be something to aim for. That said the Waterford keeper made a great save to deny them.

I think Limerick learned from their wake up call last year. Regardless of how the championship was run off this year, they weren't going to get caught again.

[Annascaultilidie]

Dec 15, 2020 15:11:37 GMT glengael said:

Dec 13, 2020 23:36:51 GMT Mickmack said:

Limerick have their golden generation now and their have a great captain and management.

If they have the desire they can win 3 or 4 more.

They found another level today and nullified the big players on the Waterford side.

Goals are something they are not unduly worried about and when you can land 30 points for all distances why would goals be something to aim for. That said the Waterford keeper made a great save to deny them.

I think Limerick learned from their wake up call last year. Regardless of how the championship was run off this year, they weren't going to get caught again.

Shades of Dublin 2014?!

[Ballyfireside]

Wouldn't be too smart of hurling but there is an unusual steel to Limerick - is it the players or have they nurturing ala Dubs? And if they have then good luck to them!

[Mickmack]

Todays game between Kilkenny and Wexford is in the top 10 best games i have seen in all my years watching hurling.
Both are better than the 2020 version and both will have a big say yet.

Dublin were brilliant v Galway. Were Galway caught napping. I hope for their sake that they were.

Limerick did enough v Cork.

Waterford look off the pace this year.