Aside from the obvious joy of winning, one of the great things about the Meath teams of the 1980s and ’90s was that they never knew when they were beat. Thus, we, as supporters, had that comfort too.
Have any counties or their fans currently got that luxury? Well, Dublin, obviously, in football, but, from a hurling perspective? Kilkenny, as best evidenced by Cillian Buckley’s late annexing of the Bob O’Keeffe Cup for Derek Lyng’s team last season. Temptation was to say last summer, but of course the Brains Trust of the GAA don’t give two hoots about summer anymore.
Anyhow, it’s only natural that, as those who succeeded The Cats as the best team in the game, Limerick are most definitely constituted of similar stuff. As best demonstrated by their jaw dropping dismantling of Clare in the closing stages on Sunday last.
Experience and mileage accrued probably dictated that Limerick weren’t as focussed as in previous campaigns on the National League. When one is as focussed as are John Kiely’s side on essaying themselves into sporting immortality, something has to give.
Even at that though, the really top teams will be doing groundwork behind the scenes to ensure the continued evolution of their operation. Witness how, at their given time, the lilkes of Eoin Larkin and TJ Reid and Richie Power and Walter Walsh were weaned onto Kilkenny team by degrees before totally earning the trust of Brian Cody.
Likewise, incrementally, almost unseen, John Kiely has been tweaking and bolstering his troops. Some of the outside noise distracting from those developments was understandable and – more pointedly – out of their hands. But all the while, Kiely has been inculcating players like Cathal O’Neill, Conor Boylan, Adam English, Shane O’Brien and Donncha O’Dalaigh into more prominent roles within the team setup. Though what exactly my namesake brings to the table is about as clear as mud.
And, though Brian Lohan’s League Champions appeared to have the history chasers up the stinky creek without a means of forward propulsion, the Treaty folk ran their bench and it was O’Dalaigh and English who conducted the orchestra when Limerick drowned out all outside noise with a deafening crescendo of brilliance.
Engineered by Diarmuid Byrnes, Declan Hannon, Cathal O’Neill, Tom Morrissey, Aaron Gillane, the aforementioned subs and Gearoid Hegarty. Even though there would be more chance of Jamie Bryson going for GAA President than Hegarty getting fair play from a referee.
However, you’d imagine, having hauled themselves back from the brink, it actually presents the champions’ boss with the ideal scenario ahead of facing Clare, in that, they pulled themselves back from the cusp of capitulation with a truly remarkable revival but, at the same time, were so far adrift of their best – even in terms of shooting efficiency – that Kiely would be still well within his rights to give them a bollicking.
You wouldn’t want to be in Cork’s boots this week. Limerick are hard enough to beat as it is, but with something to prove – even to themselves – good luck!
Leave a Reply