Hurling inter county championship

[Mickmack]

Aug 9, 2021 14:28:24 GMT taggert said:

Has there ever, in the history of both GAA codes, been a more impressive demonstration of optimal strength and conditioning than that of this Limerick team. Combined with brilliant and daring passing, touch and control at unbelievably close quarters, they are a joy to watch.

To have Kyle Hayes and Gearoid Hegarty arriving on the scene at the same time is freakish.

I agree with what you say about them and i would add teamwork....give the ball to the guy in the better position.

Cork will need to score two goals more than Limerick i feel to be in with a shout.

Limerick were always the team i supported in my younger days and i used to travel to see them play especially in the 80s with Jimmy Carroll in midfield and Joe McKenna at full forward.

Cork was always the big red dog to do down the smaller counties back then such as Limerick, Clare, Wexford, Waterford and Galway. Only KK seemed to be able to match them. Tipp were nowhere.

I nearly want Cork to win this one though so that Pat Horgan gets an all ireland medal. No one deserves one more.

[taggert]

Agree on the goals in the final - Cork's goal stats are hugely impressive this year and with a speed merchant like Jack O'Connor and the low centre of gravity of Kingston, you can expect Cork to look to strike for more in the final. Not sure its possible to stop the former by fair means when he starts galloping!

Horgan has been some soldier for the sleeping giants and absolutely deserves at least one. Seeing Canning leave the stage with just the one shows the scant pickings that are available.

It is brilliant to see a force like Limerick emerge just like it was with Loughnane's Clare. I think before the end of this decade, Dublin will emerge - a function of botg the extra-ordinary numbers at juvenile but more importantly greater attention and better coaching for underage hurling than ever before.

[veteran]

Mickmack, you mention Jimmy Carroll and Joe McKenna as two of the Limerick hurlers you enjoyed back in the eighties . Two fine players indeed , Joe McKenna being a goalsmith. Incidentally, I presume you know he was an Offaly man.

Like you , Limerick has always been my hurling team, being down the road with a lot of relations in that county. However, I do not want to see them becoming the Dublin of hurling. Now, talking about Limerick hurlers, I presume you are too young to remember Eamon Cregan. Without question he was the best Limerick hurler I have seen, one of the best from any county. Of course , by the time this Limerick team is finished I may have him down the pecking order! The first time I saw him play was circa 1966 in Cork against Tipp who were going for three in a row. Eamon , playing at wing forward and barely out of the minor ranks, gave a sensational display , propelling Limerick to an entirely unexpected win. Even though it is decades ago , I can still see him striking those long, raking points . I think Cork won it out that year. Eamon played in the forwards for the succeeding years until they struck gold in 1973. Limerick moved him to CHB , where in the final against. Kilkenny, he was colossal. He truly was a masterful hurler. He was also a very good footballer and played in Munster final in 1965 , after Limerick had surprisingly beaten Cork in the semifinal. I think that Limerick team may have been coached by Garry McMahon.

[Mickmack]

Oh i remember Eamon Cregan well as a player. I never saw a manager so pained as Cregan was when his Offaly team ambushed Limerick in the final 5 minutes of the all ireland final to turn a 5 point deficit into a 7 point win.

[Mickmack]

Last weekend really was one for the purists. I mean, yes, the hurling was good, but the sideshows were just 100 per cent pure, uncut GAA gems.

First, to Saturday. A trailer of hay bales taking down an entire All-Ireland semi-final is the sort of sentence that you just don’t get a chance to write in any other sporting sphere.

Let’s call it a hay-us ex machina.

And then there was Sunday, where one man’s eagerness to drop his own son for the biggest game of the lad’s career pays off – or backfires, depending on your point of view – spectacularly.

What I loved about the Kingston family melodrama was that everyone immediately saw a corollary in their own life – if it wasn’t your own mother and father treating you entirely unfairly just because they happened to manage your team, then you had first-hand knowledge of it happening to someone else in your club.

It’s a tale as old as time. It’s not enough for justice to be done, justice has to be seen to be done . . . even if ‘justice’ in this case is a young lad getting substituted after 15 minutes to teach him a lesson about talking back to the referee, kicking a ball wide, showboating unnecessarily, or sundry other offences you can be made an example of for doing.

It’s an awkward balancing act, as many parents get involved in training and taking teams precisely because their kid is pretty useful. Their enthusiasm is driven by the fact that their offspring is good at something and they want to nurture that.

So it’s all well and good when you’re mucking in at training, helping to ferry kids to games, and generally doing your bit. It gets more complicated when you have to sit down and pick a team and calm, objective opinions have to be formed about your own kids. That’s no easy task, no matter how talented he or she is.


If it’s unavoidable in many ways in small rural clubs, it takes on a different level altogether when you talk about intercounty management. One way of dealing with it is to follow the lead of Peter Canavan, who has effectively sworn off the Tyrone job for the duration of Darragh Canavan’s career.


Speaking to the Irish News last December, he said – “from my experience, when you have direct family involved it impairs your judgment one way or the other. Darragh’s only emerging on to the team, I’ve a son-in-law in Peter Harte who’s been there.”

We should all take a moment here to contemplate the absolute minefield that is the father-in-law/son-in-law dynamic at the best of times, and then transpose it into a GAA dressingroom. But Peter, please continue, you were talking about the 2020 Tyrone minor team . . .

“There’s a possibility that I’ll have a son and three nephews on that team so in another year or two there’s every possibility that some of those lads could be at the stage where they’re ready to make an impact at senior level. So I think it’s easier for me, and certainly easier for them, to develop and get on with their games without me looking over their shoulder”.

Leaving aside the sheer potency of the Canavan bloodline, it seems like the smart choice. But he also added the caveat that if he was concerned that Tyrone were drifting, then he would feel a responsibility to put those personal concerns to one side and offer his coaching services.

It boils down to that – should you put aside your personal ambitions as a coach, just to facilitate your son or daughter’s ambitions as a player? It hardly seems like good parenthood to doom your child to successive years of failure under a manager who’s not fit to roll up your match programme.


If Kieran Kingston truly felt there was no one better than him to take the Cork hurling manager’s job (a fair assumption to make, on recent evidence), then it’s a dereliction of duty on his part to take himself out of the running for that job just because his son is extravagantly gifted.

And there’s no doubt that Shane Kingston has got it. To come on in an All-Ireland semi-final and make a game-defining difference, score seven points from play against Kilkenny, and win the man-of-the-match award . . . that is the stuff that dreams are made of.

But there’s also the issue of whether Kingston fils would have reacted differently to the same decision if Kingston père wasn’t his manager. Maybe it was easier to file this demotion into the general 23-year old’s file of father-son micro-aggressions. 1) Refuses to pick me up after niteclub, forcing me to run the gamut of the taxi-rank; 2) Denies me unfettered access to the car; 3) Drops me for All-Ireland semi-final. I’ll show the bo***cks!

Is it, in short, easier to accept ridiculously unfair treatment at the hands of your father than it is from a random stranger? The evidence, going on last Sunday, appears to be perfectly clear.


Ciaran Murphy

[Mickmack]

Maybe its simply that Kieran Kingston wanted to finish with his strongest team!

[Mickmack]

Peter Casey: Why Limerick forward got red card rescinded ahead of All-Ireland final
Audio of the conversations between the match officials on the day was presented at the disciplinary meeting


FRI, 13 AUG, 2021 - 09:00
JOHN FOGARTY


Referee John Keenan’s decision to take the advice of his umpire over his linesman was a factor in Limerick successfully contesting Peter Casey’s red card.

The Central Hearings Committee (CHC) on Thursday took the decision to rescind the suspension arising from last Saturday’s All-Ireland semi-final, thus freeing up the Limerick forward for Sunday week’s final against Cork.

Audio of the conversations between the match officials on the day was presented at the disciplinary meeting, which was held virtually. Keenan, who did not see the incident, heard from both his linesman Liam Gordan, who saw it from the Cusack Stand sideline, and an umpire, who witnessed it from the Davin Stand End. The other umpire stationed there did not see what had occurred.

It was Gordan’s interpretation that both Casey and Conor Gleeson warranted yellow cards for their clash, whereas the umpire advised that Casey used his head against the Waterford defender.

Keenan was to come back to Gordan after speaking to his umpire but opted not to, going straight to Casey to show him the red card in the 60th minute. Next to Keenan, Gordan was the closest match official to the incident as well as being an inter-county referee having taken charge of a Leinster SHC games and a qualifier this summer.

Audio recordings of in-game conversations between match officials in Croke Park and some other venues are provided to counties in disciplinary cases.

Limerick also provided video footage of the incident, which they believe illustrated that Casey did not headbutt Gleeson as it was claimed. Manager John Kiely also spoke at the meeting in which Limerick made their presentation to the CHC from the Munster Council offices in Castletroy.

On receipt of the CHC’s decision, Casey and his club Na Piarsaigh were informed by Limerick officials last night. Official written confirmation will be issued by the GAA later today.


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[Mickmack]

Jackie Tyrrell


As I looked out from the RTÉ gantry in Croke Park on Sunday, I was far from alone in being able to see the Kilkenny ship sinking under water. It was clear to everyone that a new hole was being pierced in the hull every time a Cork player rifled the ball over the bar from 60 yards. Jack O’Connor, Shane Kingston, Séamus Harnedy – one after another after another. “Rebels! Rebels! Rebels!” came the cry from the crowd.

I knew Kilkenny were done and that is a very hard place to be. I felt for the lads down on the pitch. Some of them were out on their feet. Lots of them had abandoned their normal positions on the ship and just gone for it. Pádraig Walsh had left his spot at the heart of the defence where had orchestrated everything so well for most of the day and thrown himself into all-out attack. It was a desperate bid to save a game that was essentially gone.

It reminded me of the scenes in Road Runner cartoons when Wile E Coyote is holding a stick of dynamite and it’s about to explode. He looks at the dynamite and then looks out from the screen. He knows it and the viewer knows it. There’s nothing to be done now except wait for the bang.

Still, I stood there a proud Kilkenny man watching it unfold. I was proud of the way the team fought and kept fighting. Staying alive in normal time when we had no right to push the game to extra time was something special. Somehow the team and panel found a way to force a draw despite Cork clearly having the upper hand over them.

What we do have is a team that are getting the most out of themselves in most areas. I look at the current crop and admire their resilience
When we sit down to weigh up where Kilkenny go from here, we have to be realistic and we have to be fair. I am not going to look back or compare and contrast. That is not fair to the current crop of players. And anyway, it doesn’t get anyone anywhere. The past is the past. I am just going to look at now and where they are going.


It’s pretty clear where Kilkenny rank on the intercounty scene. In the past two seasons, they have won back-to-back Leinster titles and they have been beaten quite well in both All-Ireland semi-finals. All the evidence says that this is as good as they are. A top-four team. Nothing more, nothing less. That will not be acceptable in Kilkenny where Celtic Crosses are as common as tourists in the Marble City. But reality is the only starting point worth considering.

Let’s look at the bigger picture. We have been seriously underperforming at underage for this past decade. No All-Ireland minor title since 2014. No All-Ireland under-20/21 since 2008. Because of our culture, we have fabricated the last two Young Hurlers of the year – Adrian Mullen and Eoin Cody – both hailing from Ballyhale. They have been exceptional, in every sense.

This overall lack of underage talent has hurt our progression levels. For years, there was always talent streaming into the senior set-up. Some of the good years, they couldn’t even make it into the set-up. They had to take a number and wait in line for the standards of those ahead of them to drop.

But more importantly, Kilkenny had a steady stream of what I call a ‘wow’ player. One or two coming through the system every two to three years. Henry Shefflin, JJ Delaney, Tommy Walsh, Cha Fitzpatrick and Richie Power, TJ Reid and Richie Hogan. Players who came in and made the senior players catch each other’s eye and nod. But we haven’t had one of them enter a Kilkenny set-up in over 13 years.

What we do have is a team that are getting the most out of themselves in most areas. I look at the current crop and admire their resilience. They are constantly being compared with teams from the recent past, which is both demoralising and irrelevant. They don’t bow to anyone, they get on with their business and work like dogs for the sacred jersey. I admire that.



This is 2021 and these are the Kilkenny players. They work like demons to improve. I take my own club man Conor Browne and his development in the past four years has been astounding. He was never earmarked for huge things from early doors in our club but he has turned into a serious hurler for Kilkenny.

He’s one of the first names down on the teamsheet for Brian Cody now. He marked Joe Canning last year in the Leinster final and did a really good job on him. If you told me that five years ago, I’d have laughed. But through hard work, determination and talent, this is the type of level Conor has got himself to. He will keep improving the further he goes. There are others like him and they will keep working and improving too.

There will obviously be talk about whether Brian Cody will go again in 2022. But really, it is a pointless conversation to have or to get into. Brian is his own man and will leave when he wants to and when he feels it’s right for him and the future of Kilkenny hurling. Nobody is going to push him out – and nobody should.

Of course, there will be stellar men waiting in the wings for when that day does come. Whenever it does, I would love to see Henry assume that position. You’re talking about the biggest boots in the GAA to fill so you’re going to need somebody who won’t be fazed by the task ahead. Henry has all the attributes to take on that role whenever it becomes available.

But all that is for the future. Whether it happens in the next few months or the next few years, it’s a conversation for down the line. In the here and now, there are some fundamental things that we as Kilkenny hurling people have to reckon with. Another year will pass without us making the All-Ireland final. We haven’t won Liam MacCarthy since 2015. Why not?


I just feel when the level of competition goes to a certain height, we struggle for oxygen and make poor decisions. That’s not something you can coach
Something that struck me on Sunday was how there were common threads between losing to Cork and losing to Waterford at the same stage the previous year. When the opposition got on top of Kilkenny, outside of TJ’s aerial ability we didn’t have any ball-winners. We lacked punch up front.

Between the 60th minute and the 67th, we went long on our puck-outs six times and lost every one of them. That is crunch time and that’s not good enough. And it’s especially not good enough when the same thing happened on the same stage at the same point in the competition last year. Waterford were able to hold TJ for a crucial period near the end of the 2020 game too and we couldn’t win primary possession in the forwards.

This is not a problem unique to Kilkenny. Most other teams have that issue too at crucial stages in games because their go-to men are naturally targeted. But the best counties go other routes to fix it.

Cork were quite happy to play the ball around the back and be patient. They were totally relaxed about using their goalkeeper and waiting for a run or an open patch and then distributing. Limerick have perfected working the ball out to the most lucrative platform on the pitch – their own 65. Kilkenny haven’t mastered that yet and when the pressure comes on we revert to type. Long ball, let the best man win it.

When Waterford ran at us in the second half last year, we couldn’t deal with it. Gaps appeared where they had been air-tight in the first half. We were chasing shadows at times, which is the one thing you don’t want in the second half of an All-Ireland semi-final. You need every lift you can get at that stage but if you’re always half a yard off the ball, getting there half-second too late, it’s so demoralising.



When Cork ran at us in the second half on Sunday, we couldn’t contain them. We lost our shape and the tight man-marking that we had in the first half started to loosen out. I don’t think it’s down to tiredness – whatever problems Kilkenny have, physical fitness isn’t one of them.

I just feel when the level of competition goes to a certain height, we struggle for oxygen and make poor decisions. That’s not something you can coach. Players have to get there themselves through trial and error over a number of seasons.

There is plenty you can coach, however. The short game isn’t our natural way of playing hurling but it is something that we must respect more and welcome as a way forward. To beat anyone you need to retain possession and keep working it into an area where the ball going into the forward line is stacked in your favour.

The 50/50 ball is no good anymore because you’re playing against teams that make it their business to mind possession. They have drilled it and played it for so long that it becomes second nature to them. In the height of championship intensity when there isn’t time to breathe or think, they still look to keep the ball regardless.

We need to rewire our mindset and accept and promote the short ball as being just as important as the long ball
Whereas our instinct in Kilkenny in that situation is to go with the long ball and trust our forwards to sort it out. That is ingrained in Kilkenny hurling and it has brought generations of success. Changing it is not a simple job.

Go to a club match in Kilkenny over the coming months and watch what happens if players start tip-tapping stick-passes around at the back. Or, God forbid, start flicking short puck-outs. The locals will react as if you had put up a banner on the clubhouse saying ‘Tipperary is the home of hurling’. The groans from the sidelines will be palpable – and woe betide you if it leads to a mistake and a score against you.


But I really think there needs to be a change of attitude. Hurling has changed at the highest level of the game. We need to embrace it as the future. We need to rewire our mindset and accept and promote the short ball as being just as important as the long ball.

For now, all is quiet and pensive on Noreside. But with time comes reflection and with reflection comes hope of new days. Kilkenny will rise again.

[Mickmack]

Big change in Tipperary as Liam Sheedy steps away as manager after three years


August 16 2021 08:28 AM
Liam Sheedy has stepped down as Tipperary manager after three years in charge of the Premier County.
In a statement he said ‘the time was right for him to step away.’

In this year’s championship Tipperary were beaten by Limerick in the Munster final and lost to Waterford in a pulsating All-Ireland quarter-final, having exited at the same stage in 2020.

Sheedy guided Tipperary to their last All-Ireland success in 2019, having previously been at the helm when the Premier County won the Liam MacCarthy Cup in 2010. He ended his first three-year term in charge shortly after that win.

In a statement Sheedy said:

“When I returned towards the end of 2018 as Tipperary SH Manager, it was with the primary objective of Tipperary winning another All-Ireland SH championship. We did so in 2019 and having completed 3 years, I have decided that now is the right time for me to step away.

“I have enjoyed the 3 years immensely and even though none of us expected or wished for the heartache and disruption that Covid-19 caused, I am well aware that sport, even when it was without attendances, played a big part in lifting people’s spirits in the last 12 months.

“I could not have undertaken this role without the help and support of so many people. I want to sincerely thank my wonderful management and backroom teams.

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“The players I worked with over the last 3 years are an incredible group. Their ability, attitude and commitment were inspiring. I want to thank them all very much and wish them the very best for the future,” said Sheedy who also thanked his family for their support.

The Tipperary Board in a statement expressed their thanks to Sheedy and his management team of Darragh Egan, Eamon O’Shea, Tommy Dunne and Eoin Kelly.

“Liam leaves the position today having brought great success to the county, guiding a great group of players to All Ireland success in 2019. We wish him well in his retirement and we thank him once again for all he has done for Tipperary GAA and in particular Tipperary hurling.”

In 2018, Sheedy got the job ahead of Liam Cahill who had enjoyed much success with underage teams in his native county. Cahill subsequently became Waterford senior manager, guiding them to a surprise All-Ireland final appearance last year and a place in the last four this year.

He will now be a leading contender to succeed Sheedy with Tipperary.

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[Mickmack]

Will Liam Cahill leave Waterford if offered the job to manage his home county?

[Mickmack]

Shane Kingston has to start to keep Cork in the hunt, reckons Tommy Walsh


THU, 19 AUG, 2021 - 12:46
PAUL KEANE


Kilkenny great Tommy Walsh believes Cork must start Shane Kingston in the All-Ireland final, arguing that the game “could be gone” if they wait until the second half to spring their supersub.

Boss Kieran Kingston has a giant decision to make regarding his son, after dropping the attacker for the semi-final against Kilkenny, only for Shane to make a huge statement with seven points as a sub.

Nine-time All-Ireland winner Walsh reckons Cork will need Kingston from the start simply to keep them in the game.

He also claimed that if Kingston is held in reserve, Limerick will have a carefully crafted plan for dealing with him and gave the example of Cathal Naughton’s experience as a sub for Cork against Kilkenny in the 2006 final.

“I would not be waiting for 20 minutes to go, the game could be well and truly over at that stage,” said Walsh. “If it’s a 50-50 game it’s different, you can bring him on then to finish off the game. But for Cork, I think it’s about staying in this game for the first 50 minutes and then using their speed to finish off Limerick, like Mayo did against Dublin in the football.

Former Kilkenny star Tommy Walsh: 'I would definitely start Kingston because he seems to be in the form of his life'.


“Mayo were out of the game at first but they got back into the game, so when it was close with 10 minutes to go, suddenly Dublin were asking themselves questions, they didn’t have that confidence of a three or a four-point lead anymore and that’s what Cork have to do to this Limerick team — make them question themselves.

So I would definitely start Kingston because he seems to be in the form of his life, seven points from play the last day.
“The other thing is that if they leave him until the 40th or 50th minute to come on, the first thing that’s going to be in your head as a Limerick guy, it’s going to be in their team talks all week, ‘If Kingston comes on lads,’ whoever they pick out, if it’s Sean Finn maybe, ‘you pick him up and just nail him. Stick with him. Put him off his game. Wherever he goes, you go. You’re lying in his pocket’.


“That will upset Kingston because Kingston got the run of Croke Park when they came on and kind of surprised Kilkenny because nobody thought of Kingston coming up to the semi-final.

“When he came on, it wasn’t in Kilkenny players’ heads that, ‘We need to nail this guy, we need to mark this guy tight’. They stayed playing their positions and he seemed to be able to rove between the half-forward line, midfield, and full-forward line, pick up all these balls and hit them over the bar.

“If that happens on Sunday, I would imagine John Kiely will have his homework done. It happened to us in the 2006 final, Cathal Naughton came on in the semi-final against Waterford, ran riot.

“It was in our heads all week, especially the backs and our goalkeeper, James McGarry, ‘When Naughton comes on we’re going to take him, so be ready for him and do not let him do what he did against Waterford’. You’re just so mentally tuned in, so focused, so if that’s the way Cork are going to play it, leave him to the end, then I think Limerick will be ready for him.”

Walsh tipped Limerick for victory though spoke of a ‘Red Wave’ flowing through hurling generally with Cork teams excelling at all grades.

The former wing-back also gave a glowing tribute to Patrick Horgan, arguably the greatest current hurler without an All-Ireland medal, whom he played for Ireland with in hurling/shinty internationals.

“You can’t catch the ball so as a forward you have to be able to control it and turn without it touching your hand, which is next to impossible if there is a lad marking you, and I thought Horgan was the best man I have seen skill-wise at that game. I was blown away by his skill.”

- Electric Ireland ambassador Tommy Walsh was speaking ahead of the Electric Ireland All-Ireland MHC final between Cork and Galway on Saturday in Thurles.


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[Kerryman Randy Savage]

Aug 16, 2021 8:34:23 GMT Mickmack said:

Will Liam Cahill leave Waterford if offered the job to manage his home county?

I'd be very shocked if he didnt. He should have gotten it last time, his work with u21s was impressive. A Tipp man offered, in their eyes, the biggest job in hurling will never say no.

I heard McGrath was offered Wexford if he wants it but since there are questions about Cahill moving maybe he is waiting for the return to Waterford.

[Mickmack]

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Paul Rouse: 'In hurling terms, Cork is Tipperary with a sense of humour'


THU, 19 AUG, 2021 - 15:28
Paul Rouse



Cork hurlers long made much of the importance of their grand tradition. What defined this tradition most of all was winning. Across long sweeps of the 20th century, Cork stood as the most successful county in hurling history. This was something that was used to present a certain cockiness, even arrogance. This became a story of inherited greatness.

And it made perfect sense: it allowed Cork to approach All-Ireland finals bathed in the warm perception of imminent victory. The creation of an atmosphere where Cork were understood to be perennial contenders — even when the bulk of the evidence suggested they were a long way short — was useful in fostering an idea whereby Cork could produce a team out of nowhere.

And it was rooted in reality. There were times when Cork won All-Irelands having started a season where they were scarcely considered real contenders.

But every story changes. And with this story, the problem is that the 16 years since Cork last won the last All-Ireland senior hurling title is the longest wait in the county’s hurling history.

No senior All-Ireland has been won since 2005 and, indeed, just two senior All-Ireland finals have been contested by Cork since that year.

In the meantime, Kilkenny have passed Cork in the All-Ireland winning roll of honour. While Cork have remained stuck on 30 titles, Kilkenny surged out into the distance with 36 titles to their name.

Indeed, the fact that Tipperary have moved to 28 titles leaves Cork in danger of slipping down to third in the roll of honour.

During these years, Cork’s attempt to walk convincingly with a swagger looked like more of an act than anything else.

It is interesting to consider how the burdens of this recent failure — historic in its scale — falls on the players who will play for Cork on Sunday. In keeping with the idea that team sports place players in the same dressing room who are wildly different in temperament and psychology, it will most likely be the case that there are those who see the past as an irrelevance, those who see it as an inspiration, and those who carry it as a small burden.

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Despite more than a decade and a half of failure, this idea of ‘confidence’ rooted in tradition is something referenced by John Mullane this week. He said on the Throw-In podcast: “Cork are Cork. The mission is tradition. And while all us pundits, everyone in media circles, everyone outside of both camps will all be tipping ‘Limerick, Limerick, Limerick’, Cork going into a final, they won’t care less about Limerick and that’s being straight with you. I’ll tell you now, the way Cork will see it, albeit this is a great Limerick team, Cork would see Limerick as a Waterford, a Clare. There’s always this belief that we are the Rebels, we are Cork, they are Limerick.”

While other counties would possibly go up hoping to beat Limerick, within that circle, within that camp and within Cork county as a whole, they’ll be going up believing ‘we are Cork, we’re going to go up and we’re going to beat Limerick’. And that’s why I would give them every chance in the final.”

But is this really the case? Or does the idea of Cork’s cockiness only gather real meaning if it somehow also infects the Limerick psychology? How likely is it that a team which is attempting to win a third All-Ireland in four years will worry themselves in any sort of meaningful way about Cork’s tradition?

William Murphy, as associate professor at Dublin City University was for many years a hurler and footballer in Limerick. He offers a quick reminder that Limerick has its own hurling lore and a historical hinterland of success. And in terms of a rivalry with Cork, this can be reduced to comparisons between Mick Mackey and Christy Ring.

Asked to choose between Ring and Mackey, Prof Murphy offers no equivocation: “Mackey every day. Both were great hurlers, Ring may even have been better, but Mackey had real personality. He smiled, regularly, and he was aware that there was more to life than hurling. You’d have a second pint with Mackey.”


He had a very clear perspective on the Limerick view of Cork’s ‘confidence’: “Generally, we smile because the sense that Cork is the centre of the universe seems both so Cork and so obviously misguided. We roll our eyes, of course, but mostly we smile because usually, Cork’s brand of confidence is cheerful and breezy. In hurling terms, Cork is Tipperary with a sense of humour.”

In comparing the nature of Limerick’s relationship with Cork with the relationship the county holds with other Munster counties, Prof Murphy notes the impossibility of generalisation. The rivalry with Cork sits beside rivalries with the other neighbouring hurling counties of Clare and Tipperary — it is something that is conditioned largely by geography: “There is no one Limerick relationship to the other Munster counties. A Limerick person in Broadford no doubt regards Cork in the same way that his fellow county man or woman from Pallasgreen regards Tipperary or from Castleconnell regards Clare. We don’t like losing to any of them. And we especially hate losing to them when they are in a period of ascendancy. I think our neighbours are beginning to feel that way about us right now.”

And this is the key point: every sporting rivalry is conditioned by who holds the whip hand.

As Prof Murphy says, Limerick’s recent successes have reshaped the balance of power: “Limerick may be viewed by Cork people with a sort of benign superiority but this might just turn more to envy if we can manage one more win.”

He gives short shrift to the idea that Cork’s sense of their own tradition or pedigree will have any influence on Sunday’s match: “It’s hard to see how it can have much influence, because it doesn’t matter to Limerick anymore. John Fenton does not live in Dan Morrissey’s subconscious ready to reveal himself with 10 minutes to go if the game is in the melting pot. For Cork supporters, it probably adds to a sense of optimism. For the Cork team, it may help to mitigate the doubt that must come from their knowledge they had Limerick by the throat for 10 minutes of the second half in Thurles in the Munster semi-final and failed to take the opportunity.”

What is obvious in this is the current absence of bitterness in the rivalry. This is manifest most obviously when Prof Murphy is asked about his instinctual reaction to the red jersey: “It looks just grand, till some eejit calls it ‘the blood and bandage’.”

- Paul Rouse is Professor of History at UCD.


MORE #HURLING ARTICLES

[Mickmack]

Jackie Tyrrell

In one key respect, Limerick go into this All-Ireland final with an advantage. They have been here before. They know the terrain and they know how to navigate their way through it. Cork haven’t been in an All-Ireland final in eight years. They can tell themselves they’re getting ready for just another game but they won’t be able to avoid the fact that this is different.

All-Ireland final week is like no other week in your life. There is nothing normal about it. All you want is for it to be 3.30pm on Sunday afternoon. You want nothing to change between now and then. You want every minute of every day to be exactly the same. But that’s not how life works. It’s impossible.

Your mind races in bed at night. You try to dodge as many people as possible in your day-to-day life. In work, in the shop, going for a coffee, getting petrol, at the butchers. You can’t get away from it, it’s relentless. And even if it isn’t relentless, your guard is up so high that it feels relentless.

Your phone is an open gate to anyone who wants to contact you for tickets or for hurling talk or just wish a general good luck. I found myself making sure my conversations got shorter - if they had to happen at all. Short, brief and to the point. I never left room or a gap for a “how ye fixed for Sunday” tangent.

I couldn’t abide loose talk so I tried to push my mind into a prison cell to avoid it all. You hold the key to who you want to let in and who you keep out. I found that keeping the head down is very important.

Long before Teresa Mannion ever became famous for it, I was living by an All-Ireland final week mantra that said: “Don’t make unnecessary journeys.” Walking into the supermarket pretending to be on the phone. Logging off social media by the Wednesday. Locking myself away from the world. Home is your safe house. Netflix is your best friend.


Carnival
You can overdo it. I didn’t know it then but I can see it now. I remember before an All-Ireland in 2014 my mam and sister were shopping in town on the Saturday before the game. Kilkenny city has a buzz about it, it was like a carnival because of the game. Black and amber everywhere, all sorts of colours and flags and all the rest of it being sold on the streets. Everywhere was filled with chat and anticipation. Hurling is our religion.

My mam and sister were walking down the street when they were approached for a word from the local radio station KCLR who were out and about sampling the atmosphere. It was harmless chat - just stuff about being the family of a player before the game, about how the nerves were holding up, all that stuff. Small talk, really. Nothing to see here.

You wouldn’t have thought that by the way I reacted. I got wind of it through a text from a friend who had heard them on the radio. Well, I let them have it over a text message, both barrels. I was so tetchy the week of a match - and especially a final. I had been building myself up for three weeks for this game and I saw this as a complication that I didn’t need from them.

Which, of course, it wasn’t. They hadn’t said anything remotely out of place. I felt really bad the week after the game when I reflected on it, as I know my mam would be very low key and reserved. I could imagine her going into the credit union and being too polite to say no or offend anyone when asked for a brief word. But 24 hours out from war with Tipperary, I couldn’t see it that way. My bad!


Most of the Cork lads will be living through all this for the first time this week. Even the small few who aren’t still haven’t experienced it since 2013. Limerick well know the drill at this stage. They know how to leave the sideshows to the supporters and how not to get distracted. It’s not the winning and losing of the game but it is an energy drain that they know how to avoid.

I see this final being decided in a couple of key areas. What Cork do about picking up Cian Lynch is the most obvious one. There are a handful of players in the country who absolutely need to be man-marked regardless of what else happens on the pitch and he is right up there with Tony Kelly in that regard. So a big part of Cork’s build-up will be focused on dealing with him.

You can’t allow Lynch to drift around without anyone shadowing him. If your plan is to pass him on to the next player across, he will think all his Christmases have come at once. A combined effort is too loose an arrangement for some like him because a yard is too much space to leave someone with a hand like Harry Potter. He could score or engineer 1-2 off his first four possessions and by then it’s too late to send a man-marker out to him. The damage is done.

Price to pay
Cork would love to have Ger Millerick fit and able for a full 70-75 minutes. My sense of it is that it’s very doubtful he has had enough time to recover. Eoghan O’Donnell couldn’t do it in the two-week turnaround for Dublin earlier in the summer and it’s hard to imagine Mellerick can either.

If he’s not there, what can Cork do? There has been talk of pushing Mark Coleman onto him but personally I think this would be too big a price to pay. Coleman is too important to the game Cork play coming out of defence. If you send him off after Lynch for the day, you take out a key building block of what has got you to the All-Ireland final. I don’t think they will do that.


A leftfield move would be to draft Damien Cahalane back in as a man marker. But I think it’s more likely that Luke Meade gets the job with Cahalane as a Plan B if it doesn’t go well. This is slightly by process of elimination - I don’t see Cork taking any of the others out of their usual role for the job. It’s a huge assignment for Meade and it will be fascinating to see how he measures up.


Against Kilkenny, Cork were able to open up space and channels for their runners to exploit. This was particularly fruitful when they went at the Kilkenny half-back line the further the game went on - look at what havoc Shane Kingston and Jack O’Connor were able to wreak.

A lot of these spaces came from good possession retention in the Cork defence and a patient build-up. They watched for the space and waited for the runs of the Cork forwards to happen before pinging it to hand or into space to run onto. The Cork backs weren’t afraid to go back to Patrick Collins if they did not like what they saw up the field.

There’s going to be a really interesting tactical battle in this area. Limerick are experts at setting traps in their forwards to tempt teams to run the ball out. One of their big ideas is to get a team running out with the ball so they can swallow them up and turn them over. But what happens when the opposition actually want to run the ball out and when they have planned it and drilled it and had lots of success doing it?

It’s one thing trying to trick the opposition into doing something they don’t want to, ie try to run the ball out of defence. But if they’re going to do it anyway - and if they’re actively good at it - how good are your traps going to be? The Cork defence uses lots of width, looking to create space for Coleman to float around picking up ball and then delivering it with pinpoint accuracy.


They might just be good enough at it to avoid the Limerick traps. And if they do, then the Limerick defenders suddenly have more on their plate than they’re used to. Will the Limerick half-back line be pulled all over the place in tracking the Cork runners? I doubt that. But those Cork runners are going to have to be matched somehow. It’s a problem Limerick haven’t come up against so far.

In a lot of ways, Limerick remind me of Kilkenny in the mid- to late-noughties. The success we had around those years made us feel bulletproof. It gave us huge self-esteem going into finals.

We had built up a serious level of confidence through our silverware. Most of all, we felt that if we were right, we could beat anyone. We would analyse the opposition and see what they did. But above all, we would trust that our gameplan would win out, seven days a week and twice on a Sunday.

Skilled stickmen
Limerick have a distinct style of play. Nothing they do on Sunday will surprise any of us. They have a power game built on massive work-rate and energy levels. They have a deep lying half-forward line, they have excellent distribution levels from defence, they have a clinical full-forward line and they have a wizard in Lynch in the middle of it all. To a man, they are skilled stickmen.

So there’s no rabbit they will pull out of a hat here. Their Plan B, if it’s needed, will be to do Plan A better. Water breaks offer them a chance to break down the opposition, make subtle changes and go again. And a bench to call on if needed and keep them all grounded. They are strong, strong favourites and deservedly so.

Cork are coming. And, much as it pains the rest of us, Cork are Cork. When they come to Croke Park, they bring the lot. Colour, blood and bandages, Rebels, Rebels, Barry’s Tea, calling everyone langers, Cyril Kavanagh and his sombrero, Jackie Lennox’s chippers, all that stuff. They bring a swagger, genuine belief. That’s admirable.


They are underdogs here but you can be certain that nobody in Cork is thinking it’s okay to go up to a final and lose. It’s a young team, yes. But this is an All-Ireland final. Go and win it and we’ll talk about what age you are afterwards. None of this lose-one-to-win-one carry-on. Nobody in Cork thinks like that.

I actually think it will bring them very, very close. And I think it will get them there eventually. But here and now, in 2021, Limerick have too much and they will complete their two-in-a-row.

[glengael]

This match has the potential to be a great one, with Cork possibly chasing their 3rd All Ireland hurling title in a week. They have waited 8 years since Domhnall O'Donovan, ironically a grandson of Cork, denied them the title. Finals don't come around every year and with other contenders on the wane, it's a good moment to strike for glory.
Limerick have a title to defend and having made such mistakes in trying to do so in 2019 will want to make no mistake this time.

[Mickmack]

Aug 20, 2021 8:31:25 GMT glengael said:

This match has the potential to be a great one, with Cork possibly chasing their 3rd All Ireland hurling title in a week. They have waited 8 years since Domhnall O'Donovan, ironically a grandson of Cork, denied them the title. Finals don't come around every year and with other contenders on the wane, it's a good moment to strike for glory.
Limerick have a title to defend and having made such mistakes in trying to do so in 2019 will want to make no mistake this time.

The pureness of how Cork play the game was there for all to see at the end of the drawn final when they were a point up. They could have gone down the cynical route but its not in their hurling DNA.

As for Domhnall, i think that was his first ever score from play.

Can't believe its 8 years ago either.

If both sides play to potential,Limerick will win. Limerick will want to suppress the 'rebel rising' for as long as they can.

Doing back to back isnt easy though

[Mickmack]

PM O'Sullivan meets Justin McCarthy:




FRI, 20 AUG, 2021 - 08:50
PM O’SULLIVAN

Justin McCarthy is talking about photography. His sitting room fascinates, one in which career memorabilia are arranged in low key but arresting fashion. There hangs a framed Cork jersey, number 8. There stand mementoes from teams with whom he worked, plaques from Ballarvan and Ballymartle and Shamrocks of Ringaskiddy, photos of jubilant Cashel King Cormacs players. There is a painting of Whitepark Bay in North Antrim, gifted to him in thanks for his time with that county’s hurlers.

Yet I am struck equally by a couple of landscape photographs on the wall. McCarthy made himself a highly accomplished lensman. One shows round bales under a flurry of clouds that seem no more than a few yards above the shorn field. “Taken two fields back from the house here,” he notes. “When I shot it, I felt I could have reached out and pulled the clouds down onto the ground. They were woolly. Five minutes later, they had gone back up in the sky.”

The other photograph focuses on a water scene, some still stretch in dappled light. The fancy words? Sylvan and bucolic and autumnal. “Taken in Doneraile Court, up in North Cork,” he clarifies. “An old estate. Fantastic place to visit. I love the autumn, all the colours. I took it standing on a little bridge there.

“It’s like scoring a goal. You have to be watching for the opportunity. I have a good eye. You have to be watching out the whole time. It’s all about light and opportunity.”


Unique pespective sees two passions converge. Born in 1945, a star player and a gifted coach, Justin McCarthy counts as one of the GAA’s most intriguing figures. Hooked: A Hurling Life (2002), his autobiography, remains one of the code’s most important publications, a repository of wisdom and insight.

This man could x-ray a player’s style. One passage in Hooked describes how Clare’s corner backs, Johnny McMahon and Jackie O’Gorman, got coached to mark Kilkenny’s Eddie Keher and Mick ‘Cloney’ Brennan before 1977’s NHL final. McCarthy had spotted that Brennan could manage the feat of striking with his arms fully extended, a trait that necessitated a different approach on O’Gorman’s part.


To this day, he can x-ray styles of play with similar incisiveness. A question gets posed: “Is there any real marking going on in hurling at the moment? Long ago, if a player was loose, they’d say: ‘How did Johnny play?’ And the reply would come: ‘Ah, he got a few points, but he was on nobody. He was getting them on the other side of the field. He is a real loose player.’

“Today, it suits Johnny. It suits a lot of loose players, because it’s all running around the place. So you’ve no responsibility. Shane Kingston got seven points the last day against Kilkenny. But who in the name of God was picking him up? Pádraig Walsh?

“If Kingston got two or three points, you’d say to Walsh or whoever: ‘Come on, you need to smarten up. Start actually marking him. He’s running amok there. Put the shackles on him.’ But a fella gets seven points and nobody says anything. Walsh was cleaned out. He was cleaned out seven times.”

He elaborates, instancing Limerick’s success in 2020: “Their wing forwards, Tom Morrissey and Gearóid Hegarty, scored a dozen points between them in last year’s All-Ireland final. I said: ‘Come on, who’s meant to be marking them?’

“That’s grand in its own way. But if that stuff was stopped, there would be teams less successful. I think Limerick are great to go into space, drift into situations, and next thing it’s over the bar. But surely someone should try to tie them up?”

A broader issue is discerned: “The game of hurling is coming into football terms now, whether we like it or not. There’s a lot of simplicity in the game too, at the end of the day, without complicating it too much. Managers have brought a lot from Gaelic football and maybe even from soccer. They got barging into lads from rugby.


“There is this upper body strength idea and a lot of fellas capitalise on it. People now say: ‘We had better find a strength and conditioning guy, because we are not tough enough.’ Next thing, we have fitter teams, physically stronger teams, but totally congested, with so many frees and
melees that the game itself, as a spectacle, slides. There are pluses to the current game but there are plenty of minuses as well.”

For him, certain approaches can become too scripted: “I don’t think players today study other players anything like as much as we did. They’re shown videos from trainers or management. But can the players today visualise as we tried to do, from studying other players?

“I remember watching Séamus Hearne. He played with Wexford, and he also played club here with Blackrock, when he was working on a big dam scheme out beyond Ballincollig. He’d go up for a ball and he’d bring it right down here [indicates cupped hand].

“I was maybe only nine or ten and I said to myself: ‘God, I’d love to be able to do that.’ I used to be practicing that touch, non stop, out the back at home. Wasn’t it an amazing thing to be able to kill a ball straight down into your hand? And I got that from just watching Séamus Hearne.”

Time’s advance has blurred Justin McCarthy’s status as a pioneer. Before the mid-1970s, few people got involved with a non-native county. For him, this dynamic was compounded by Clare meeting Cork in both the 1978 and the 1979 Munster Final. Much criticism was vented on home ground about coaching against his own crowd, noise amplified when Cork won on both occasions.

“I heard all that giving out at the time,” McCarthy recalls. “And I suppose it was much the same when I managed Waterford. There were an awful lot of games with Cork during the early to mid-2000s, an awful lot of great games, brilliant contests. Most spectators loved that kind of fast and furious hurling.


“I suppose if I had been given a chance, or if I had been given a choice, I would rather have been with Cork. That’s being entirely honest. But I didn’t fit the bill, for whatever reason. Maybe I was too outspoken or too independent. Maybe they didn’t want my judgement.”

He widens the frame: “See, it’s really the appetite I have for hurling, and the energy for it. I wanted to be involved with the game. I like to see people doing well. You would like to try and give them a lift, to let them experience something they maybe haven’t done before.

“When I went to Waterford, or to Clare, or to Limerick or to Antrim, I never tried to change them to a Cork way of thinking. I just tried to enhance their own situation, and to bring in ideas and things that would help them along and help them to be successful.


“I would hate to coach or manage a team in too programmed a way. I feel you are taking the goodness out of the game a bit. Hurling is a game of a variety of shots and strokes, a variety of things you have to do with the ball, every position and so on. I’d hate to have it be too clinical or too programmed, because I think you are taking the soul out of the game.”

You could say Justin McCarthy is a Cork native with a particular handle on Limerick. But this claim, in significant part, would be misstatement. Yes, he did have a close relationship with the county’s hurling, in that he managed their Senior panel in 2009 and 2010. Player unrest sped his departure. But this man established a bond with many hurling cultures across the island. The most beautiful game was what mattered, once he travelled outside of Cork.


As early as 1970, McCarthy coached Antrim to an Intermediate All-Ireland victory, their first success at that level. Then Clare were coached to successive NHL titles in 1977 and 1978. He coached Cork to 1984’s Centenary All-Ireland Final. But his abilities, patent and well established, got discarded after 1985’s All-Ireland semi-final loss to Galway. His outspokenness grigged influential administrators.

McCarthy managed Waterford between 2002 and 2008, winning three Munster titles and an NHL title during the county’s most successful period, before that move to Limerick. He enjoyed intimacy with Tipperary hurling via a stint managing Cashel King Cormacs, which culminated in 1991’s Munster Club title.

His standing in the game originated in unusual brilliance as a player. As per that framed jersey, he generally hurled at midfield but was comfortable in any spot from right half back to left half forward. He arrived young and he arrived elegant, footwork and stickwork impeccably in tune.

Cork beat Kilkenny in 1966’s senior final, ending a 12-year famine. Justin McCarthy got chosen as Hurler of the Year. He was surging towards prime, hurling with uncontainable brilliance, when fate intervened. A motorcycle accident shortly before 1969’s senior final against Kilkenny gravely injured his right leg.

He did return to the game, against massive odds, but his inter-country career more or less ended after defeat to Kilkenny in 1972’s senior final. Much was achieved but much more could have been achieved. This bad luck ended up good fortune for the x-rayed players he honed into better hurlers.

McCarthy remains forthright: “I wished Limerick well before I went there and I wish Limerick well at the weekend, while obviously hoping as hard as possible for a Cork win. And Limerick will be wary of Cork, even though they are a better team than Cork. Limerick are the best team there, in all the lines of the field, from the goalkeeper up to the full-forward line. They are very effective. They are a better team today, Tuesday, but the match will take place on Sunday.”


He glosses his experience: “I was with Limerick at a time when there were a lot of fellas I thought weren’t serious inter-country hurlers. And even if they were good enough to be a decent inter-country hurler, I felt a lot of them weren’t serious about what was required. There was a lot of messing going on. The GPA was very strong there. There’d be GPA meetings here and GPA meetings there.

“I didn’t think they were serious. So that’s why we got rid of a lot of fellas and sort of cleaned the whole thing out, so as to move forward. But obviously, there were too many ‘palsy-walsy’ there, backing one another up, and they wouldn’t go forward. That was okay. That happened.”

Sunday’s happenstance is his true pre-occupation: “Limerick will be that bit cautious. Cork are the one team that could slip Limerick. They could slip them. But Cork must be good enough to take the opportunity, because when they played in the Munster semi-final, earlier this summer, Limerick were there for the taking, that day. But Cork weren’t good enough to take them down.

“Cork have improved since, because of the additional games. But so have Limerick improved. You have contrasting styles. Limerick are a big team, a physical team, but they are very good hurlers. Their first touch is excellent.”

History’s previous contour likewise gets glossed: “Limerick, before this bunch came along, always had seven or eight very good hurlers. But there always was a tail, seven or eight slashers who would just get stuck in. They’d be tough and all that, but they had very little hurling, those fellas. But every one of the 15 Limerick hurlers today has a high level of skill. They lack nothing in skill. Their long range striking is top class. Their accuracy is very solid.

“If they win on Sunday, Limerick become a great team. If they don’t win, Limerick are so so. It’s a big game for Cork, but it’s a massive game for Limerick. I wouldn’t say Limerick have to win it more, because Cork are down 16 years at this stage, and flopped in 2013, at two attempts.

“So Limerick have a lot going for them. The question might be whether they can get into their stride. They are a stride team. Can they get into a pattern of play that will suit them? If Cork can stop them doing that, Cork get their chance.”

This contest compels: “Waterford made a mistake by trying to outmuscle Limerick. You wouldn’t do that with an extra strong physical team that are mature. Whereas Cork will have to be able to stand up to them, yes, but play around them too. Otherwise Cork will get bogged down and Limerick will thrive.

“And they’ll have to watch the aerial balls, because Limerick are strong in the air. Cork will have to make sure they are not catching too many balls in the air. If they can’t make a clean catch themselves, they’ll have to knock it down, or break the ball, because Cork are plenty happy with the ball on the ground.”

Concentration and application are his recurrent emphasis: “They need to take responsibility for the six or so fellas that make the Limerick team tick. Cian Lynch, for instance, at centre forward. He is their playmaker, orchestrates a lot of moves. Can they limit him? Or is the fella on him just going to be roaring around the field, just playing his own game, and Lynch off doing damage. That’ll be crucial.

“Séamus Flanagan is a real threat. He is kind of more old-fashioned Limerick, tough and hard but very accurate. Can hit it over his shoulder, can hit left and right.”

There exists a default description of Justin McCarthy as a dour aloof man. My experience ends up the exact opposite. Here is a man who insisted on picking me up from Cork city centre, brushing off apology for the lateness of my bus (“The traffic from Castlemartyr in can be a terror”).

Then he drives out to his house in Rochestown, passing the two ball alleys in Rochestown College where his gift was honed during the 1950s, and gives me lunch. This man and his wife, Pat, become the soul of hospitality and kindness. He was well able to laugh at many things, including some of his own decisions. Justin McCarthy is a man who understands that foibles underwrite every fable and never more so than in sport.

“I suppose I am a spiritual person,” he states. “I talk to Our Lord and Our Lady every day. I need it. I love nature. I love birds and animals. We are making an awful mess of the planet, which is a crime.” He cycles every day. He strikes a sliotar 70 times out the back in his garden every evening.

“I have plenty I still want to do,” he says.

Justin McCarthy had his fallings out with people and went his own way when the situation dictated. But I think he was a man before his time. He was a youth sure of his ability and strikingly handsome, self asssertive in an Ireland where compliance and meekness were expected except for the chosen few. That young man possessed, innately, a confidence most young Irish people now take for granted.

That young man carried himself like a rugby idol, like a Tony O’Reilly or a Brendan Mullin, at a time when a young fellow from Rochestown, a boilermaker in Verolme Dockyard, should have been more reserved. I find it oddly pleasing that RTÉ’s Justin McCarthy, the political journalist, is their son. His grandparents were young when the Irish state was founded and now he is a commentator on Irish affairs.

My reverie is interrupted by an entrance. Suddenly the air is full of ticket talk’s confetti, as the McCarthys’ daughter Úna arrives back from a break in Killarney with her husband and two children. Her parents had been minding their dog, Millie. Their son, Jamie, and daughter, Grace, both play for Carrigaline. “It’s an upcoming GAA area,” Úna relates. “Lots of young families. There is a good energy and buzz not just to the hurling club but to the other community groups.

“There are a lot of blow ins, like myself, but everyone is pulling together as Carrigaline. It’s a fine place for children to grow up. All we need now are tickets!”

Their grandfather draws a moral: “If Cork win next Sunday, it could unleash a tsunami in the county. Every young boy, same as Jamie, will be mad to hurl. And young fellas are the future, not hyper critical old fellas.

“A Cork hurler is every boy’s hero. You hear maybe his father saying: ‘There was three points scored off that lad.’ Maybe he has it right and maybe his comment is accurate. But the young fella does not care about what was scored off his hero. He just sees a Cork hurler. And if he sees a Cork hurler winning the All-Ireland…”

This weekend will frame 2021’s hurling for all time. The moment of a match will become the eternity of a result. Justin McCarthy, in so many senses, has an expert but human eye. Going home, I recall his wry coda about that photograph in Doneraile Court.

“There was a swan there on the water, when I first walked onto the bridge. But by the time I got the camera up and focused, he had drifted around the corner. So there is no swan in that picture, but he was there.”

Then that charming, undecipherable smile: “I suppose you can’t have everything.”


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O

[Mickmack]

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OPINION
Ed Coughlan: John Kiely is the model of the modern-day manager


FRI, 20 AUG, 2021 - 17:00
Ed Coughlan
Ed Coughlan


Hurling has never been short of charisma or characters, least of all when it comes to managers that have prowled the sidelines on some of the biggest days in the sport’s history. For charisma and even mystery, Kilkenny’s Brian Cody stands head and shoulders above the rest for how he has always managed his team and himself, leaving people with more questions than answers about the secrets of their success.

Cody’s modus operandi was always to put forward as simple a philosophy as possible. If you allowed yourself to be lulled into his rhetoric you could be lead to believe that all Kilkenny ever did was throw a sliotar out onto the pitch and let the players figure it out amongst themselves and those left standing were the 15-plus men who would take to the field.

For characters, there are more to choose from, such as Babs Keating, Ger Loughnane, and more recently, Davy Fitzgerald. Managers who wore their hearts on their sleeves and played every ball as if it were meant for them. The atmosphere in their dressing rooms before, during, and after matches have a folklore to them that would make for cracking viewing in a documentary and would probably leave you exhausted from watching it let alone what it must have been like for those present in the room.

However, the modern-day hurling manager appears to be moving in a different direction.

Not necessarily better or worse, just different. Possibly more informed and definitely more supported.

Managers of yesteryear had to be a jack of all trades and master of a few, if not everything. They were pulled from left to right, up and down, in and out, with every decision having to go through them no matter how big or small. Managers would get to the end of their time in charge looking like twice the number of years had passed as seasons had gone, all for the love of the game.


Learn more
Today’s manager has a team of people working with the team of players. In fairness, football had been building comprehensive backroom teams for quite some time before hurling realised the merits of sharing the load.

This is not the first time that football has pushed the boundaries of tradition first only for hurling to follow shortly thereafter. The win-your-battle narrative from hurling is now coupled with a far more detailed game plan and set of principles of how to play that lends itself to a far greater spectacle.

Of course, the more detail applied to the preparation of a team the more personnel required to help deliver on the promise of such detail. And not just any personnel, the days of bringing a former player into the fold for his presence alone are coming to an end with more and more informed, educated, qualified, and experienced coaches emerging with every passing year.

Limerick’s John Kiely is the model of the modern-day manager. He cut his cloth with the underage section of his club before a string of roles that eventually led to his current position as bainisteoir for the senior hurlers. The learnings with Limerick teams from his time as intermediate manager, U21 selector, U21 manager, and senior selector will have given him ample time and space to see what goes into developing a high-performing environment and a culture of excellence.

This step-by-step progression will also have infused him into a long-standing system of player development that started over 10 years ago when Limerick were one of the first hurling counties to commit time, patience, and resources to the physical development and skill development of their youth.

Limerick invested in coaches who were given the licence to educate players at the same time as training them. Players in the underage system didn’t just do gym sessions, in fact, the size of the weight being lifted was never what was important, it was how it was lifted and even more importantly, how the young player moved.


This premise enabled players to develop an understanding of what was important for their bodies to develop at a pace personal to them and not to someone else’s timeline.

Hurling sessions were about principles of play and focused on developing a greater understanding of how a team needed to collectively respond when they were in possession or out of possession. This was learned through scenarios and small-sided games, with little repeated drilling of moves in search of perfection, and more about exposure to the unpredictability of the game, leading to more adaptable players.

The days of tippy-tappy hurling to get your eye in were numbered in Limerick, it just needed a manager strong enough to break away from convention with a leadership style based on trust to support his staff in doing their jobs.

This describes John Kiely’s approach to management and will be reflected on in years to come as the standard by which all managers will be measured. Everyone involved has a distinct performance-related purpose.

Everyone involved is operating under the assumption that they are either already one of the best in their area or have the drive to be one of the best which results in a thirst for knowledge and the development of an ever-evolving philosophy.

People like Michael Kiely who oversees the physical preparation of the squad, Caroline Currid who leads the psychological aspects of the player’s welfare, and Paul Kinnerk who is responsible for the tactical readiness of the team have all spoken of the collaboration with John Kiely in their roles. He supports them in what they want to do as they lead the conversation based on their expertise.

No doubt this relationship runs smoothly when things are going well, as seen in 2018 for their first All-Ireland title since 1973. But the measure of the leader is to stay strong on your trust of your people when things do not run so smoothly, like when Limerick failed to reach the final in 2019. In fact, following this disappointment, Kiely was said to have given his backroom team even more responsibility and with this seal of approval and vote of confidence a greater sense of shared contribution to the cause of returning Limerick to the summit, as they did with last year’s 11-point win over Waterford in the final.

What John Kiely is doing for hurling management is appreciating and respecting the size of the task to lead a county to be consistent contenders. Consistency in approach, consistency in staffing and consistency in vision. High-performance sport does not like radical change, it feeds off continual, gradual progression where people are given time and space to find their strengths and a safe environment to tackle their weaknesses.

In this century Kilkenny and Cork are the only counties to have retained the All-Ireland hurling title. Should Limerick do so on Sunday afternoon it will be more than just a win for Limerick but it will also be a win for long-term planning and investment in systems and structures for sustainable growth.

Limerick play a modern form of the game with a modern form of manager at the helm, expect other counties to follow suit in the years ahead and the game to benefit along the way.

[Mickmack]

KEITH DUGGAN

The old giddiness has returned to Cork. You could sense a kind of rising Corky energy drifting up through the Republic all summer.

You could see it too in the face of Micheál Martin on his television appearances during the week. There were days during the endless and intolerable pandemic winter when the Taoiseach, understandably, looked worn out. This week, though, he looked refreshed and sounded lighter.

That’s what happens to Cork people when Cork hurling teams play in a way that reflects the essential optimism and delight that comes with being from the place. On Wednesday night, the Cork under-20s swept to the All-Ireland hurling title with a performance of princely assurance against Galway. Thurles was filled with light, fleet-footed young Corkonians hurling with an irresistible gladness of soul. Their minors will look to make it a double over the young Tribesmen on Saturday night, and tomorrow, of course, the Cork senior team will play for the county’s first All-Ireland senior hurling championship in 16 years.

Being locked out and not winning stuff doesn’t suit the Cork disposition. The county turns morose and the river city itself becomes drained of colour. Thriving and celebrating is the essence of Cork. What is the point in being from Cork if you are not winning?

The opening quarter of this new millennium has been tricky for Cork. Any time you visit Cork city you always get a sense of a place that hasn’t fully evacuated the 20th century, at least not spiritually and emotionally. You flick through the compendium of Cork’s sporting achievements – and it’s as thick as the Domesday Book – and imagine what it must have been like through those decades: endless seasons of silverware lifting and back-slapping and a ferocious obligation to keep winning.

Since Cork won its last All-Ireland in 2005, Kilkenny, their rivals and opposites, have lifted eight MacCarthy Cups. They moved silently past Cork on the all-time honours list, with 36 heavenly hurling summers marked while Cork remained stuck on 30. Nobody in Kilkenny ever explicitly pointed this out because of their belief that trumpet-blowing is not a Noreside virtue. And besides: there was no need to. The sweetest words are left unsaid. But imagine how bewildering the sight of those annual ticking of Cody-successes must have been for Cork men and women.


Those of us not from Cork – and there are billions of us – can’t ever expect to truly understand the place. Cork city’s facility for excelling at sports is bewildering. It is, of course, a hurling city. But it’s also a soccer town and it’s a basketball labyrinth. The county has produced the iconic modern Irish track athlete in Sonia O’Sullivan and every word of Roy Keane’s waspish, funny football observations can be traced back to the streets of Cork city.


The pubs and streets are tripping up with local sporting gods and legends. But the truly intimidating thing about the city is that if you so desire, it will present itself as a music town, as a waterside winter dream, as a literary haunt and as a photograph, through which all visitors move, all shadows and angles. It’s whatever you want it to be.

Sport is just an obvious means of expression. During the World Cup in Russia, Keane took English football culture to task for basking in World Cup final glory before they’d even played the semi-final. The more he chides them, the more the English love him. Ian Wright laughed and retorted by trying to imitate the Cork pronunciation of ‘final’: the flat first syllable emphasis. Keane rolled his eyes to heaven.

There’s a wonderful description in an essay by John A Murphy, emeritus professor of history at UCC, which includes a passage on an old BBC documentary about Cork. After interviewing a number of workers in a northside brewery, the producers at the Beeb decided that there was nothing for it but to use a translator. The local reaction, Murphy wrote, “was torn between resentment at the depiction of their standard English as a patois and pride that interpretative help was essential to unravelling the mysteries of their highly distinctive speech.’


And few tribes pour as much energy and imagination into the pronunciation of words in such luxuriantly different guises as the Corkies. The long pandemic has been brightened by the parodic sermons from Reggie from the Blackrock Road, one of the Captains of Cork Industry, who is perpetually obsessing about what ‘to do’ about the hordes of commoners trampling on sacred Cork soil.

In one episode, he bemoans “the situation on the Marina”, subject to unwelcome visits from the residents from the north of the city. The Captains set up a checkpoint in which visitors are identified by having to pronounce certain words. “Pilates. Norries can’t say pilates. They say: Pil-Ah-Des of Bila-teeez. Everything’s a performance with them.”

It’s a big hearted send-up of whatever trace of merchant-prince class snobbery still exists. But more accurately, it’s a celebration of everything Cork, including the truth that even if they laugh along with the joke that Cork people feel blessed to be from Cork. They believe it too.

There will always be a generation of Corkonian men and women who will never quite get over the fact that Jimmy Barry-Murphy is no longer 25. Who can blame them: there’s never been a more nonchalantly glorious Gaelic star of Gaelic games?

The folklore of Cork hurling in the 20th century was so dense and eventful and so much of it revolved around the pulsing intensity of Christy Ring’s charisma that it was always going to be a tough act to follow. It’s all contained in that echoing closing exit Val Dorgan wrote in his elegiac biography, Christy Ring.

‘The older man in the bar said: “He never left us down.” His friend asked him if he had heard what Paddy Barry of Sars said after the relay of friends, including many Cork team-mates, had borne Ring’s coffin to the grave. Barry said: “We carried him at last.”


The 21st century opened promisingly for Cork hurling with the back-to-back All-Irelands of 2004 and 2005. But looking back, those were achieved on the vapours of the old regime. Donal O’Grady was, and is, Cork city royalty. Donal Óg Cusack and Diarmuid O’Sullivan and that gang were and are scholars of those who wore the jersey before them.

For a full decade Cork seemed caught between the two centuries. Maybe it took the felling of the old Páirc Uí Chaoimh to snap them out of it. The ghosts, the inadequacies and the shambolic grandeur of the place: maybe they had to erase it all and start again to unleash this new wave of irrepressible Cork hurling happiness. Anyhow, here they come.

[gaelicden]

4 mins gone, cork 1-1, Limerick 1-1. As I type now Limerick 1-2, cork 1-1. As I type again Limerick 1-3, Cork 1-1. As I type (again) cork miss a shot, catch a breather! Makings of a classic early on.

[gaelicden]

For all the early promise, Limerick are all over Cork. Playing some great hurling. Cork defence extremely poor and porous. Touches and puck outs also poor. Cork may be the team of the future but after 27 mins in the 2021 AI Final they're not the team of the present; that's Limerick.

[gaelicden]

What was Kilkenny's half time score in 2008 lads? This must be one of the great first half displays by Limerick.

Edit: still don't know that half time score but Limerick have just scored 3-18 in 35 mins. 2 points more than they scored in the entire 2018 final (3-16).

[Annascaultilidie]

2-16 to 0-05 was Kilkenny.

[gaelicden]

Aug 22, 2021 15:21:34 GMT Annascaultilidie said:

2-16 to 0-05 was Kilkenny.

51 mins gone and Limerick are only 4 points away from Kilkenny's full time total that day😱

[Premier]

How many All-stars will Limerick get from this? They had 9 last year, they’ll surely surpass that. Honestly it would be a disservice to them to get less than 12

[gaelicden]

If the fizz wasn't gone before,it is now. Pure stop start, quite annoying.

[taggert]

Awesome side and a joy to watch.

Their ability and desire to crush sides sets them apart from others such as Dublin who ended up boring themselves out of the football c'ship when a forlorn and insipid Mayo should have been buried in the first half last Saturday week....

[kerryexile]

I agree that their fitness and skill and attitude are of an incredible standard but the jury is still out on the excitement of “ruckless hurling” as a spectacle.

[Mickmack]

Aug 22, 2021 17:12:40 GMT kerryexile said:

I agree that their fitness and skill and attitude are of an incredible standard but the jury is still out on the excitement of “ruckless hurling” as a spectacle.

They dominate you in the air and blow you away physically if you try to 'play it through the lines'.

The '3inarow' looks assured if they want it.

Losing in 2019 has had the same effect on them as Dublin footballers loss in 2014 v Donegal.



This was the third one sided final in a row.

They played the game today utterly on their terms. KK would surely have made a better fist of it.

Its a pity the KK team of 10 years ago are not around now to challenge this awesome Limerick side.

[kerryexile]

Aug 22, 2021 19:23:36 GMT Mickmack said:

Aug 22, 2021 17:12:40 GMT kerryexile said:

I agree that their fitness and skill and attitude are of an incredible standard but the jury is still out on the excitement of “ruckless hurling” as a spectacle.

They dominate you in the air and blow you away physically if you try to 'play it through the lines'.

The '3inarow' looks assured if they want it.

Losing in 2019 has had the same effect on them as Dublin footballers loss in 2014 v Donegal.



This was the third one sided final in a row.

They played the game today utterly on their terms. KK would surely have made a better fist of it.

Its a pity the KK team of 10 years ago are not around now to challenge this awesome Limerick side.

I know all games evolve but I would like to see a Kilkenny team under Cody take them on. The big question would be could they they turn it into a game of traditional rucks and stop Limerick playing tippy tappy hurling (to borrow a phrase from critics of Barcelona in the recent past).