Eimear Ryan: Gillane masterclass worth the price but Tipp suffer in silence
23 April 2022; Aaron Gillane of Limerick with supporters after the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 2 match between Limerick and Waterford at TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
It’s a beautiful sunny evening for training. Having broken my ankle nine months ago, I’m slowly easing back into the sessions. My ankle is healed, strong as ever, but the muscles surrounding it are still feeling the effects of being in stasis for a summer. I’ve lost flexibility and am comically slow at running. I’ve found that I can go for 35 minutes or so with no hassle, but then comes the twinge: with each step, a stringy jolt of discomfort up the inside of my right ankle. I think of it as like interference on the radio, some overstretched or underpowered tendon creaking with the effort of propelling me forward.
Tonight is the sort of session I love: all ball work and possession games, so much striking and catching that your palm stings, running that you don’t even realise you’re doing because you’re so focused on the ball. I wait for the twinge to arrive, but not tonight. I close out the hour, half-anticipating a pain that never comes. I’ll be sore tomorrow, but for now I’m buzzing.
When I get out of bed, I’m limping. I should go to the sea. The sea cures all ills.
Down at the Red Strand, I go down to the water’s edge in what I’ve begun to think of as the hurler’s bikini – sports bra and O’Neills shorts. The slow wade is the hardest part, where your feet cramp up with the cold. Screaming helps, as do the bigger waves that crash over you and help acclimatise you to the cold. Once I get far out enough to immerse myself I feel much better.
We go to a pub in Clonakilty for a post-dip toastie, surprised that Wexford and Dublin isn’t showing on the telly. I follow along on Twitter, which lends an excellent game about as much drama and tension as Teletext did back in the day. There are two matches in the Gaelic Grounds that I want to see: Tipp v Limerick in the first round of the Munster camogie championship, which is the curtain-raiser for the Limerick and Waterford hurlers later on. Tipp win 1-17 to 0-8. This result is tricky to track down online: the official camogie website doesn’t really acknowledge the existence of the provincial championships, and when you click the Results tab on the Munster camogie website, you get the dreaded ‘404 page not found’ message. Twitter helps me out again, but it’s frustrating that, even for a high-profile fixture at a great venue, camogie information is thin on the ground.
Back at home, I give a tenner to the Sky gods to watch Limerick and Waterford. Across the weekend, I’m struck by the amount of injuries across all games, the number of lads pulling up or landing awkwardly: Cian Lynch, Iarlaith Daly, John McGrath. I’m not sure this happens to the same extent in other sports. Is it the nature of the game or is it partly to do with the increasing demands we put on amateur players?
My tenner is well spent for the Aaron Gillane masterclass alone. His point over his right shoulder from the left touchline just before half-time was a joy, the actions of a player knowing he’s having one of those golden days and has the confidence to go for it. Waterford’s strong performance was inspiring, too. They’re probably going to meet Limerick once more, maybe twice – if they’re going to catch the champions, they’ll want it to be further down the road.
A dilemma today. I’m part of an event at Cork World Book Festival at 3pm, and Tipp are playing Clare at two. I head into town early and station myself at a pub near the venue to watch the opening half at least. I imagine that it will be a tense tit-for-tat affair, and that I will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the event before full-time. It doesn’t quite work out that way.
The pub graciously puts the hurling on the telly for me but does not turn on the volume. I watch Tipp and Clare hurl to a playlist of reggae covers of popular songs. From a Tipp perspective, this does little to diminish the experience.
It’s alarming that it takes Tipp so long to register a score. It alarms Cathal Barrett too, who thunders up the field in the tenth minute to supply said score through sheer force of will.
Lockdown hurling was the poorer for Duggan and O’Donnell’s absences. It’s good to see them back, even as they’re gleefully shredding Tipp’s defence asunder.
It’s funny how it goes. Tipp display the sort of naivety and confusion we worried they would show in the opening round. When they acquitted themselves well against Waterford, we relaxed a bit. In the first round, all six starting forwards scored before half-time; against Clare, the six starting forwards manage just 0-3 from play over the course of the game. Back in our bosca.
I can’t tell what Davy is saying at half-time – still with the reggae – but he looks delighted, as well he might. Liam Sheedy looks ashen. I slide off to the book event looking similarly shook.
Positives? You have to look for them. Maybe on the bad days it’s even more important. Brian Hogan’s shot-stopping was heroic, if ultimately in vain. Seamus Kennedy did well on TK. Craig Morgan has put two strong performances back to back. Ger Browne’s goal was a breath of fresh air – only a pity we didn’t proceed in that fashion.
In the evening, I throw on , only to get that sinking they’re-starting-with-the-football feeling. I wonder if there’s enough time for an episode of before the hurling comes on. In the future, I’m sure there will be a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure format: press blue on your remote control for Ciarán Whelan, press red for Donal Óg. For now, we wait.
