Limerick…1-31
Kilkenny…2-26
In a game of 60 scores over 74 minutes, it almost feels somewhere between futile and knit picking to start looking for and talking about turning points. Yet though this will doubtless be painful by the banks of the Nore at the minute, there were a few vital things which went against Kilkenny and ultimately did make the difference in Croke Park.
Starting with Gearoid Hegarty’s deftness at rising the ball in a forest of bodies and breaking several would-be tackles before launching an RPG past Eoin Murphy barely two minutes into the contest.
Also, however, in what felt like a very quick few minutes either entering or in the final quarter when Richie Reid and Adrian Mullen were off target with handy scoring chances and TJ Reid got swallowed up in a Limerick swarm and couldn’t get a shot away.
Now, the following might seem daft in a match of such manic tumult, but it would be my feeling that the defending champions actually did their winning of the game in the opening quarter.
Simply because, after Hegarty’s ‘major’, the men from Shannon side sprayed points over the bar from all angles at the Davin End from the sticks of Diarmaid Byrnes and Declan Hannon and Hegarty and Kyle Hayes and Aaron Gillane and Seamus Flanagan.
Meaning that, John Kiely’s side – who have sent scoring rates in hurling off the charts in recent years – had amassed 1-17 by half time. To give some indication of just how epic the fare was, Brian Cody’s charges had managed to keep themselves within touching distance by posting 0-16.
Just thinking about that. When Cork beat Kilkenny in the 1999 All Ireland Final, as far as can be recalled, the score was 0-13 to 0-11. Fast forward to the second half this year and Kilkenny outscored their opponents by 2-10 to 0-14 and yet couldn’t shake off the irresistable force.
There are a few principles fundamental to every Brian Cody team. Patience, honesty of effort and complete selflessness being absolutely non negotiable. Nobody is above being taken off or left off. What you did yesterday is of no consequence to today’s business.
Cian Kenny was the runaway favourite for Young Hurler of the Year all season. On Sunday, he watched the second half in the dug out. Conversely, Walter Walsh made his debut in a Mac Carthy Cup decider some years ago and was the best player on the field.
In this season’s incarnation, the towering forward from the Rower had to wait until after the Jaffa Cakes for his summons.
As tends to happen, mind you, once he did enter the fray, he very nearly turned the day’s events on their head. Through his almost unstoppable ability to take down aerial missiles, the torpedo of a point he sculpted over Nickie Quaide’s crossbar and the deftness of touch which defies his gargantuan frame.
Deftness that was central to one of if not both Kilkenny goals from Martin Keoghan and Billy Ryan respectively. In the context of both Kenny and Walsh, Ryan’s story is an interesting case study of the Cody methodology.
Like many before him, the yellow-helmeted forward graduated from a good underage team some years ago but has had to bide his time before the master trainer threw the reins on his neck and let him loose.
Now, from the first time he was seen ‘on the box’, Ryan struck this observer as being in the mould of somebody like Eddie Brennan or Colin Fennelley. Quick, athletic, with a particular eye for goal.
Billy Ryan is not the first player to take a while to acclimatise to the Brian Cody system, nor will he be the last. Herein lies the glimpse into the great man in the baseball cap’s school of thought.
Viewed through a certain lens, Ryan hadn’t done anything during the Cats’ journey to final day which would exactly jump off the page at you. Yet Cody obviously saw something. The player gradually but steadily establishing himself as a vital if lesser seen cog in the machine.
Sunday, when you might have expected his to be the number go up in lights, he was spared. As the second half played out, Cody’s thinking not only held up but was substantially franked as Billy drilled low to the Limerick net as those from the Marble City somewhat unbelievably pulled themselves back to parity.
It wasn’t a solid parity though. Inclination was, and so it transpired, that those in green and white could and did glide up through the gears when the need arose. Such were the fine margins between the sides that both benches had their expected impacts. Meaning that not even those who were supposedly going to be the separators of the sides could be that as one bench cancelled the other out.
Where Richie Hogan, John Donnelly, David Blanchfield, Walter Walsh and Alan Murphy raised white flags upon their introduction, so too did Conor Boylan and Cathal O’Neill off the bench for Limerick. However, it was only fitting that the icing was lathered onto the cake by the man of the day, Hegarty, and of the season, Byrnes, courtesy of monstrous scores from inside their own half.
Which meant, strange as it might seem in a match of such epic proportions, those few Kilkenny misses as the contest entered its decisive phase did indeed leave Limerick with a buffer the challengers were never able to surpass.
So Limerick’s greatness is now properly enshrined. To hear Declan Hannon talk afterwards about the “Hunger in the group to drive on” is to indicate their story still has many chapters to be written into it. Coming from a different direction, the same will undoubtedly be the mantra for Cody and co.
They may have come up a bit short on this occasion, but mistakes made and lessons learned will be catalogued and filed away. Only to be produced when a war cry is needed once again. The road ahead looks mapped out, the viewing pleasure will be ours.
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