John Fogarty: No league bluffing for Limerick
SHARP EYE: Limerick manager John Kiely before his side’s Allianz League win over Westmeath on Sunday. Limerick have reverted to a win-every-game philosophy. Pic: INPHO/Evan Treacy
Over the weekend, all four managers whose teams are currently in Division 1 semi-final spots were asked about their attitude towards the rest of the competition.
You might be led to believe Tipperary manager Liam Cahill gave the most convincing answer. Cahill stressed the league was one of only two national titles that can be won. He said he would be taking the same approach to it as he did when his Waterford outfit beat Cork in the final only for the Déise to then fail to make the top three in Munster. That experience has been cited as a scare story but Cahill, after his side secured top spot in Division 1, Group B on Saturday, appeared keen to dispel the theory.
“The proof of the pudding will be in the championship to see whether I got it that badly wrong last year, so looking forward to seeing how that goes with these boys,” he told TG4 with a wry smile.
Cork manager Pat Ryan, who will have three weeks to plan for the start of the Munster championship should his side reach the Division 1 final having qualified for the last-four, gave a compelling reply when asked about their approach to the knockout stages. “It’s excellent for us because we have a bye in the first round of the Munster championship.”
John Kiely, whose Limerick may need a point against Wexford to join Cork, was also positive. Although, the proximity of the league finale and the provincial championship has been a factor for him in the past, he doesn’t seem to be perturbed by it this time around. “The championship is still six weeks off, so there’s no rush in terms of focusing on that yet. That will come in its own good time. For the moment, we just want to see if we can keep improving going from week to week.”
While Derek Lyng echoed similar sentiments as they moved within a point of a semi-final berth. “We’re very much that want to win our next game, get into the knock-out stages and go as far as we can. For sure, that’s our ambition.”
The jury is out on believing all four men considering surviving if not winning the provincial championship is the be-all and end-all. If Limerick and Kilkenny aren’t judged on their line-ups and performances this weekend, they will be the following weekend should they win through to the semi-finals. Having beaten them twice already this year, do Cork want to go all the way to a final where they might face Limerick a third time knowing there’s a fourth date six weeks on?
Still, three weeks is a suitable gap to their championship bow against Waterford on April 30. For psychological purposes if nothing else, it might be in Tipperary and Cahill’s interests to arrest a run of defeats to Limerick but this isn’t the league that matters to them. And for all Cahill’s pronouncements for finishing the league strongly, he acknowledged before the game on Saturday that the two weeks between the league final and the Clare game “just mightn’t be enough”, while later intimated the semi-final pairing could be a determining factor in his plans.
Who would lie to us? Kiely may not have enough reason to fib. As is the case with serial All-Ireland winners, their attitude catches. For the first four years with Limerick, save for giving his Fitzgibbon Cup players a break, Kiely went for everything. Covid forced him to alter his plans. As teams were only permitted to return to training for the 2021 season in April, a month before the start of the league, something had to give and it was that competition as they trained hard through it.
Last year, he had been wary of the league and championship virtually running back-to-back. “The league final is very close to the first round of the championship, which is something that teams are probably cognisant of,” he told this newspaper before the start of the 2022 season. With an extra month between the All-Ireland final and the start of the new season along with an extended pre-season and a week in Portugal completed, right now it appears he, Paul Kinnerk, and Cairbre Ó Caireallain are more comfortable to revert to the old win-every-game philosophy.
If anything, it has sharpened the competition for places, which is possibly healthier than it has ever been in his term. After two years of hoodwinking in the league, a double bluff if you will, they now seem to have rediscovered their affection for the secondary competition.
Clare, Dublin, Galway, Waterford, and Wexford may be replicating elements of Limerick’s indifferent 2021-22 view of it, but the champions have moved on.
The big three of Cork, Kilkenny, and Tipperary, all jockeyed by new managers, have elected to go with Limerick’s pace. Can they stick it is the question.
Promotions, provincial finals, All-Ireland semi-finals, and an U21 All-Ireland final appearance punctuate an inter-county managerial career well led by Liam Kearns.
On Twitter on Sunday, a disbelieving former Limerick dual star Conor Fitzgerald posted a poignant photo of him, Stephen Lucey, and Colm Hickey with Kearns after they beat Westmeath in the 2000 U20 All-Ireland semi-final. With these accompanying words, Fitzgerald wrote: “Thanks for all the lifelong memories you gave us. You brought us on a journey we never thought was possible.”
Kearns never did get to manage his native Kerry, reconciling with the fact a few years ago that the opportunity had passed him by. But how he, like a wandering prophet, enriched counties like Limerick who came within a Darragh Ó Sé catch of a Munster title, and Tipperary with whom he bridged an 116-year gap to the county’s previous All-Ireland semi-final in 2016 made him no less a manager.
Aside from keeping Offaly in the shake-up for a quick if what would be a surprising return to Division 2, Kearns was eternally no-nonsense. It was evident earlier in the year when he took exception to how the O’Byrne Cup was being treated and wanted out of it. Privately, he hoped the county would stand behind him, and they did.
Kearns was also pro-football. In his time at Tipp, he recognised an attacking style was the only way for the team. Last September, in his first press briefing as Offaly boss he described Gaelic football as “boring” and called on the advanced mark to be removed. “The skill element is suffering all the time,” he bemoaned.
Kearns was never afraid to tell it like it is — or sing it, for that matter. On the final night of the 2016 All-Stars tour in Dubai, his was the sweetest voice in an impromptu singsong in the JW Marriott Hotel.
Deepest condolences to his wife Angela and daughters Rachel and Laura. May he rest in peace.
Dublin manager Micheál Donoghue’s unprompted criticism of the officiating in Nowlan Park on Sunday may have been interpreted as an attempt to take away from his team’s remarkably flat performance against Kilkenny.
“Like, what we have to do sometimes to get a free is beyond me and it’s the biggest thing I have noticed since we have come back, the inconsistency that’s there, so we have to navigate our way through that as well,” said the 2017 All-Ireland-winning manager.
Donoghue’s comments rang a bell, though. After losing the opening round clash with The Cats in Belfast, Antrim boss Darren Gleeson was making similar remarks. “If you get a name for getting up early, you can stay in bed all day,” stated the former Tipp goalkeeper.
“Kilkenny have the name for physicality and they use their physicality, and they’re really good at it, and they’re allowed to hit with the body and hit with the shoulders. When we hit with the body and hit with the shoulders, it’s a free. So them inconsistencies are very frustrating for everybody watching it. We put a big emphasis on how we tackle and our discipline.”
With Kilkenny facing both counties in the forthcoming Leinster SHC, both managers, if not their county board executives, will undoubtedly raise concerns with the referees’ administrators. Whether it means anything is another thing but the “smaller fish” are biting back.
