The Limerick machine just cranked into top gear

When I took my seat in the stand in Nowlan Park yesterday, near the 45-metre line, I found myself beside a nice man from Clara. He was a quiet fella, who said very little, until he felt like making a point or asking a question. When Limerick made their final substitution in the 69th minute, the gentleman asked me who was the Limerick player being introduced. ‘Gearoid Hegarty,’ I said. ‘Jeez,’ he replied with an audible groan.

It was only one word, but the tone, and the manner in which he said it, carried multiple meanings. The Clara man was almost saying, “God, they’re after taking us apart without half their team. What could Limerick do to us if they had everyone out there?”

His groan sounded like such an admission that I checked the programme again, to see if he was right. He probably was. No Cian Lynch, Declan Hannon, Mikey Casey or Seamie Flanagan. Tom Morrissey, Hegarty, Peter Casey and Pat Ryan used off the bench. Starts for Conor Boylan, Paddy O’Loughlin and Robbie Hanley. Tom Condon was man-of-the-match. Barry Murphy was back firing after failing to make the 26 for last year’s All-Ireland final.

Limerick definitely have the strongest panel in the country now. They had more marquee names on the bench if they needed to use them. They didn’t. The game was tight in the opening 30 minutes but when Limerick unleashed an unmerciful barrage of punches on Kilkenny’s chin, they hit the canvass hard. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. It was lights out for Kilkenny.

The Limerick half-forward line is central to how well they operate but they were able to function superbly yesterday with two of its main components, Tom Morrissey and Hegarty, who were on the bench. Boylan had another fine game in just his second start at this level. It’s seamless stuff.

It struck me yesterday as I watched the Limerick machine crank into top gear. They may not have any sponsor’s name on the jersey but they have numerous sponsors everywhere throughout the field. Condon’s performance summed up that attitude. He was almost screaming, ‘Hi, Mikey Casey isn’t here, and I’m going to do everything I can to keep him on the bench for as long as I can.’

Brian Cody said afterwards that he wasn’t too disappointed by the manner of the defeat. Kilkenny have the Ballyhale contingent, and other big names, to return but yesterday will also have been a wake-up call.

After Saturday night’s game in Páirc Uí Rinn, I went to Larry Tompkins’ pub with the crew from RTÉ. You couldn’t meet nicer or sounder than the Cork people, but maybe that’s one of the reasons why Cork keep beating Clare.

I often think of the line Des Clohessy, the former Limerick rugby player, once said to Johnny Callanan, the former Clare player. “Ye don’t hates those [Cork] boys enough.” You got a sense of that in Larry’s. ‘Ye were in hard luck boy. Wait for the cuckoo.’ This kind of stuff.

I met the great Cyril ‘The Bird’ Kavanagh down there. ‘Ah we have to go to Ennis on June 16,’ he said. ‘Nobody beats ye there.’

Dónal Óg Cusack and I were speaking about it off air afterwards. When he brought up the 1999 Munster final, I told him how we just didn’t have that raw desire to beat them that afternoon, after having beaten Cork in our four previous championship meetings. I told Cusack how lucky Cork were that we didn’t meet them again in that year’s All-Ireland final. “I know kid,” he said. “We dodged a bullet.” They did because we’d have been absolutely gunning for Cork.

Cork showed all their cutenes on Saturdays. You couldn’t see it in real time but Conor Lehane played Keith Hogan’s hurley just as the ball dropped in from Seamus Harnedy. It was still a soft goal to concede and when you ship a score that soft, and then miss a couple of handy scores, including frees, at the other end, you’re going to struggle.

The goal was ultimately the difference Clare dearly paid for their indiscipline. And if you’re that sloppy in the tackle against a team with Patrick Horgan around, you’re not giving yourselves much of a chance of winning. When you concede 0-15 from placed balls, and then only hit three points from frees, the only way you’ve any real chance of winning is if you get two or three goals.

Clare will be hugely disappointed to have lost to Cork again but what I loved about Donal Moloney’s interview afterwards was his honesty and frankness. He didn’t shy away from Clare’s faults on the night but he said that they needed to address them, and that they would.

That’s the beauty of this management; they will attack those issues now with absolute forensic attention to detail. Other teams might fail to iron out those creases but Moloney and Gerry O’Connor and their coaches will steam up the iron to the max to press out the kinks.

Liam Sheedy won’t be getting carried away with another defeat, especially when it was only by one point to Wexford, but it will have confirmed to him again that Tipp might just be back in the chasing pack. When Liam said after taking over that Tipp were outside the top six, nobody really believed him, or felt that Liam believed it himself. But there is still a lack of pace in sectors of that team. And you can’t buy speed in the modern game.

It was a massive result for Wexford. They should go all out for the league now. I felt they backed off last year when they got to the semi-final but there should be no backing off now. Even if the championship doesn’t go as well as Davy Fitz would like it to, having a league title in the bag would be a massive positive. Wexford don’t have a whole load of them.

Galway-Dublin was a big game yesterday but Galway apparently won far more comfortably than the six-point margin suggested. Galway didn’t score a goal again for the second game in a row but they won an All-Ireland in 2017 after only scoring one goal in six games so they know how to win games without goals.

The critics might say that they won’t win another -Ireland unless they start scoring goals again but there is no need to get hung up on this stuff. When Kilmacud Crokes won the Dublin quarter-final last year without scoring a goal, the narrative afterwards was that Crokes were not a goalscoring team. Then we went out in the semi-final against the All-Ireland champions and smashed Cuala for three goals.

You don’t plan for it. But when you keep doing the right thing – as Galway quietly are – the results eventually come.