Enda McEvoy: It's not personal, Limerick, serial winners inevitably attract snipers

The shine of Limerick's success has worn off for the neutral and people now want to see them taken down a peg or two? Big deal. Comes with the territory.

CIRCLE OF TRUST: The Limerick team huddle ahead of last year’s All-Ireland SHC final win over Waterford. 'If the established powers are affronted when a new team happens along, incidentally, the aspirants don’t like it on every level either,' writes our columnist. Picture: Daire Brennan/Sportsfile

Amid all the damage done to the ozone layer by the hurling community this past week – the claims, the complaints, the accusations, the apologies, the “game is gone” guff and the predictions of the imminence of the apocalypse - one observation passed largely unnoticed.

It was incisive, it was original and it was furnished by Danesfort’s Paul Murphy, a man who knows something about the realities of coping with success. The crowd, he mused, are beginning to turn against Limerick.

Not that the MacCarthy Cup holders are likely to be put out by any such change in the public mood and not that they should be. The shine of their success has worn off for the neutral and people now want to see them taken down a peg or two? Big deal. Comes with the territory. Let them hate me as long as they fear me, as the Roman emperor philosophised.

It’s a situation, indeed, Limerick would have coveted for years had they ever dared to allow themselves visualise it. Happens to every All-Ireland winner, even the ones who ascend the Hogan Stand podium to general goodwill after decades in the desert.

Murphy didn’t upholster his theory with examples of any supposed anti-Limerick animus, not only because his was a remark made in passing but also because there’s nothing specific in the way of evidence to point to. It’s more a vague sense of the wind changing direction, a faint hiss audible only to those who keep an ear attuned to hums from the railway lines, and it can be dated to the evening of last year’s All-Ireland final.

It wasn’t just that this was the county’s second MacCarthy Cup triumph in three years or that it wouldn’t have taken much for it to have been the third in a row, but that was part of it.

It wasn’t just that Limerick had gone the season unbeaten, also picking up the National League and Munster titles, but that was part of it too.

It wasn’t just their scoring returns during the championship (an average of 0-30 per game) or their winning margins: 10 points, nine points (in a tempest), four points, three points, 11 points. These were further constituent parts, however.

Add them all together and here was Cody’s Kilkenny upgraded for the 2020s, guided by next-generation software and tooled up with the newest hardware. All very Terminatoresque. And this cyborg didn’t look like stopping any time soon either. Hasta la vista, baby.

The latter, perhaps, was the most worrying bit for everyone bar Galway.

Tipperary? Outhurled and outmuscled by their neighbours in 2019 and 2020.

Cork? A better recent record against Limerick than anyone else but still in the second rank of contenders. Kilkenny and Waterford? Middleweights tilting against super-heavyweights. Clare? Next!

As Limerick are brisk and brusque and functional, easy to admire but difficult to be enchanted by, it was little wonder that the low-level carping began, amplified by social media. The swarm tackling. The tactical fouling out the field. The lack of goals. The lack of interest in trying for goals. The rugby physiques.

Certain unfavourable comparisons were easy to draw. too. The Tipperary of the past decade were handier on the eye, peak-era Kilkenny possessed a superior steel/silk blend while it scarcely requires stating that Waterford at their best were more engaging and entertaining. Then again, it’s no leap to imagine how quickly the badge-kissing and fist-waving and general Being Themselves would have palled had the Deise won a couple of All-Irelands. It’s nothing personal. Human taste buds constantly crave a new main course. Serial winners inevitably attract snipers.

With the Cork of Donal O’Grady and John Allen it was the near-heresy of their possession game and to a lesser extent a fondness for their own publicity. Kilkenny? Too on the edge, too good, not fond enough of their own publicity.

And leave it alone, of course, to Loughnane’s Clare. The nation rejoiced with the 15 bachelors in 1995. They weren’t rejoicing in ‘97, still less so in ’98, by which time it had become clear that Clare weren’t going to “feck back to Doolin and play their traditional music” and that in fact Loughane was set on nothing less than total world domination and no apologies either.

If the established powers are affronted when a new team happens along, incidentally, the aspirants don’t like it on every level either. The sight of someone from their level breaking the glass ceiling is initially inspiring until the realisation dawns that there’s not, and there can never be, enough air in the room for everyone.

Good managers are always on the lookout for firewood and fuel. If Kiely is seeking a cause for 2021, They’re All Agin’ Us – however grounded in reality or otherwise it may be - would fit the bill as well as any.