Anthony Daly: Not a vintage Limerick performance but a classic Limerickesque display
Limerick goalkeeper Nickie Quaid celebrates with his son Daithi. Picture: INPHO/Ryan Byrne
When I went upstairs in Croke Park early on Saturday afternoon to do some pre-match analysis for Radio 1, the first I heard of the match being put back by half an hour was from Michael Duignan.
The Limerick and Waterford players weren’t affected by the traffic gridlock on the M7 but it still took them a while to get going, and that time delay was probably the reason the first quarter was so stop-start.
I remember the day of the Munster minor final in 2016, when I was coaching the Limerick minors, and we met up in the Woodlands Hotel in Adare beforehand. We thought we had left ourselves with plenty of time but he hadn’t because the traffic was crazy on the way into the Gaelic Grounds. You could sense the panic coursing through the bus beforehand.
The players would have been in the dressing room long before the match on Saturday to stave off that kind of panic but I’ve no doubt that John Kiely and Liam Cahill would have been on top of it all anyway as soon as word came through.
Limerick were a bit flat in the first quarter but that was more down to Waterford’s savage intensity and aggression from the first whistle. But it was always going to be difficult to sustain that level against Limerick, and particularly when it was Waterford’s fourth match in 21 days.
Waterford’s conversion rate was nowhere near as high as it needed to be when they were on top early on. The swirling wind did make shooting difficult. Stephen Bennett was having an off day on the frees. But after hitting every Limerick body that moved in that first quarter, and having largely dominated possession, to go into that first water break trailing must have been soul-destroying for Waterford.
When Limerick dialled up the heat in the second quarter to go in leading at half-time by eight points, the game was already over.
You knew there was no way back. Tipp were 11 points ahead of Limerick at half-time and that still wasn’t enough to hold them off. Waterford did make a right charge in that third quarter. They had it back to six points just before that second water-break. They had outscored Limerick by 0-7 to 0-5 in that period. But then Limerick, as they always do, just turn the screw. Once Aaron Gillane’s shot hit the net, the contest was on life-support.
It wasn’t a vintage Limerick performance but it was a classic Limerickesque display, loaded with everything they pride themselves on in how they go about wearing and grinding down the opposition.
Waterford players may have put Limerick lads on their backsides in the first quarter but that doesn’t mean that Limerick will stay down for long. As Sylvester Stallone famously said in his last Rocky movie, when Rocky fought his last fight: ‘It’s not how hard you can hit, but how quickly you can get up after you’ve been hit hard.’ To me, that was the perfect description for this Limerick display.
You can be hitting Limerick until they’re black and blue but you have to come up with a really smart plan to knock them out. I said here on Saturday that Waterford would need to do something different with Jamie Barron, as opposed to having him out around the middle and risk him being sucked into that Limerick vortex. That’s exactly what happened Jamie. It was only when they moved him into full-forward that he got any real traction in the game. And please, whoever is in charge of Waterford next year, don’t ever give Callum Lyons a man-marking job. Instead, let him roam free and reap the rewards as Waterford did in the third quarter on Saturday.
Darragh O’Donovan was brilliant. O’Donoghue was O’Donoghue. Kyle Hayes was pure Kyle. Diarmuid Byrnes typified Limerick’s spirit while Nickie Quaid was the emblem of their defiance. O’Donovan got man-of-the-match but Nickie can’t have been far behind him with a series of excellent saves.
Limerick were always the better team but Waterford just looked tired. Too many of their big players didn’t perform. Conor Prunty was their best player but that’s never a good sign when your full-back is having to deal with so much pressure.
The one huge caveat for Limerick is losing Peter Casey for the final. Caso didn’t start the incident with Conor Gleeson but you just can’t react at this level and the price is huge now with Peter missing out in two weeks.
Caso will be a loss, especially when he was playing so well. That will dilute Limerick’s threat off the bench now but you’d wonder if Kiely and his management will throw a real curve-ball now for the final. Could Kiely spring some unknown who is going well in training? It’s the type of move that Kiely and his management are certainly capable off.
I’m loving this championship but I don’t think it’s totally fair (although everyone accepts the difficult scenario the GAA fixture makers faced this season) considering how stacked things are in favour of the provincial champions, particularly when their semi-final opponents will have come through four tough games in 21 days.
God speed to the return of the round-robin next year.
