John Fogarty: In their great present, Limerick won’t forget past heartbreaks

NO WAY PAST: Limerick goalkeeper Nickie Quaid makes a flying save to deny Waterford a goal in Sunday’s All-Ireland SHC final at Croke Park. While his cousin Joe was twice a Celtic Cross on All-Ireland final day, Nickie now has two of them. Picture: INPHO/Morgan Treacy

“Like a knife through the heart.”

Words you might expect to hear from a Waterford man this week.

Instead, they are ones uttered by former Limerick goalkeeper Joe Quaid as he reviewed the finale of the 1994 All-Ireland final loss to Offaly.

Quaid features in Réabhoid GAA Wednesday night on TG4 (9.30pm).

Including a stunning soundtrack, it pieces together previously unseen footage from the seminal Breaking Ball series as it chronicles hurling’s revolution years of the 1990s.

Quaid’s recollection of how those final minutes played out, how Limerick lost that All-Ireland, is crushing.

“Absolutely stunned,” he said of his feeling after Pat O’Connor followed up Johnny Dooley’s goal with another.

“The tears just practically welled up in my eyes. All I was praying then when they started tacking on point after point was: ‘Jesus, don’t let one drop in’.”

Watching the review copy of the programme Monday morning just after his cousin Nickie spoke on Morning Ireland, the juxtaposition couldn’t be lost on us. One Quaid losing two All-Irelands in the space of three years, the other doing the exact opposite. Limerick have indeed gone the full 180 from being the hard luck story but the transformation was never a sprint.

Eight of Sunday’s starting team were born in those heartbreak years of 1994 (Diarmuid Byrnes, Gearóid Hegarty, William O’Donoghue) and ‘96 (Seán Finn, Aaron Gillane, Cian Lynch, Tom Morrissey, Barry Nash).

As Shane Dowling reminded people on Sunday evening, a strike took place only 10 years ago. Months before that came a crucifixion of an All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Tipperary which compelled John Kiely to get involved in inter-county management.

“I am going to do something to try and make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said to himself leaving Croke Park following that 23-point defeat. The following day, he rang county chairman Liam Lenihan and was intermediate manager by the autumn.

That loss also prompted Joe McKenna to get the band together in early 2011, along with Gerry and JP McManus and Mike O’Riordan to form an academy that is now the envy of the hurling world. McKenna told this newspaper the morning after the 2018 All-Ireland final victory that he was moved when a 70-year-old supporter came into his hardware shop early on a Monday morning and asked him to change things. 

His actual words were: ‘Would yourself and JP (McManus) turn things around for Limerick senior hurling? I wanna see Limerick win an All-Ireland before I die’.”

A glance at some of the west Limerick clubs featured in their county’s minor and U20 teams from Saturday’s Munster semi-finals — Newcastle West, Rathkeale, Feenagh/Kilmeedy, Templeglantine — illustrates that the academy’s reach is far and wide. No longer will the identity of a player’s club hold them back. Seamus Flanagan and Kyle Hayes would be the perfect examples of that.

But troughs followed. The Declan Hannon that has thrice lifted cups these last eight weeks, that has now joined Mick Mackey as Limerick’s most successful captain, is a different man, a back for a start, to the forward that missed three frees and a 65 in the first half of the 2013 All-Ireland semi-final loss to Clare.

“I suppose that was the killing thing, that you didn’t want to play for 10 years and that was going to be it with Limerick, that would be the memory that everyone has of you,” he recounted in 2018.

On Sunday, Kiely touched on how stung he was by those SHC defeats to Clare and Kilkenny in 2017. Starting their championship on June 4, they were out by July 1. We were there in the tunnel under Nowlan Park’s Carroll Stand where the suddenness of the county’s exit from the Championship was written all over his face.

“I’m disgusted the year is over because we’ve so much put in,” he said at the time. “If you only knew how much we’ve done. Like, the boys have dedicated the last eight months to this thing and to lose two Championship matches — one with a performance that we’re not happy with (v Clare) and the second one with a performance that brought us so close to the line, but we just couldn’t get across that line, you know. And we’re going to miss this, like, you know we wanted to keep going.”

Talk of dynasties won’t sit too comfortably with genuine Limerick supporters who know the rocky road that had to be travelled.

That’s not to say this group of Kiely’s won’t rule the Championship for the early part of this new decade — it seems very much like they will.

There remains plenty of fuel from losing last year’s All-Ireland semi-final. But while Tom Morrissey has proven to be correct, this Limerick team are not burdened by past lives, they don’t seem like a group that forgets them either.

Can hurling tackle cynicism without black card?

Waterford's Stephen Bennett is fouled by William O'Donoghue of Limerick. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Before Diarmaid Byrnes mishit a free from distance and a 65 in Sunday’s first half, we had been drafting a column calling for the hurling pitch to be redrawn. But then Stephen Bennett split the posts from further out and we thought the idea still has merit.

Bennett did chance his arm with a couple of other long-rangers, which went wide, but they were speculative. There are limits to these pure strikers but that’s not to say the GAA shouldn’t reflect their skills and “Tiger-proof” the game starting with pushing out 65s to 80s, perhaps?

As for the black card/sin bin, the worm is certainly turning. After Limerick selector Donal O’Grady said he was now in favour of it having been against the idea, Waterford manager Liam Cahill said his opinion had also changed. “I think now, not just today, but throughout the course of our championship this year that it is something that has to be looked at.”

The black card/sin bin remains unpalatable to a lot of the hurling fraternity, though, but might there be a solution in extending the penalty area out so that any cynical foul — pulldown, trip, body check, shoulder grab — in that part of the field is punished with a one-on-one free from the 20-metre line and a yellow card?

Fógra: Just because the senior hurling season has come to an end, doesn’t mean you still can’t get your fill with live U20 action on TG4 over the next seven days. Then there is TG4’s 1990s offering Wednesday, which we mention elsewhere, and on RTÉ One on Thursday (10.15pm) there is Christy Ring — Man and Ball, which involves the input of Mike Moynihan of this parish. A must watch for any follower of the game and admirer of Ring, the man who mastered it.

Clubs must come second in calendar to be treated fairly

Ger Mulryan, GAA director of finance, right, alongside director general Tom Ryan in 2019. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

GAA director general and the organisation’s former director of finance Tom Ryan and his successor in that department Ger Mulryan wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t present the financial concerns attached to the county season commencing in February.

You would like to think that by highlighting central funding will be sparse for counties preparing teams in the first two quarters of 2021 they weren’t trying to change opinions ahead of this Friday’s vote. Money sure is a major worry for counties although it can’t be the prevalent factor when there is more sense about county preceding club in the split season.

County going first ensures the chances of provincial and All-Ireland club championships taking place are greater. The meat of the county championships will also be played in good weather months as opposed to spring.

Not only that, there will be no attempts by county managers to siphon the time of players as they prepare for the business end of county, provincial and All-Ireland championships.

Aside from money, there are a couple of drawbacks about county running from February to July such as the quick turnaround from the League to a two-bites-of-the-cherry Championship in April. That may see a more developmental approach taken to the League by teams.

Also, there will be no opportunity for club players to catch the eye of county managers to actually play in 2021 and in some county panels — maybe not Cork’s hurlers — there will be inertia.

But weighing up the pros and cons and to be treated fairly, to be given their own space clubs must come second.

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