Ref jeered at end of thriller

A THRILLER in Thurles, two magnificent sides still locked together at the end of a pulsating, nerve-jangling, mile-a-moment Munster championship bruiser.

Eight goals, seven from hurling’s top drawer, 26 points, this was hurling at its most spectacular. It was 4-11 each with just five minutes remaining in normal time, when Limerick take the lead for only the second time in the game, full-back TJ Ryan storming forward out of defence to lift the massive Limerick following and grasp the momentum from the Decies.

But hold on, Waterford hit back to tie it, then go ahead themselves with a phenomenal point from all of a hundred yards by Paul Flynn. Drama? It was not done yet. Limerick retaliated two minutes into injury-time with a point from a lovely piece of first-time stickwork by substitute Eoin Foley, and it’s all level again.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, two deserving counties survive to fight another day, and surely the crowd of nearly 35,000 would be on their feet, standing ovation. But it was jeers, not cheers, at the end of this game.

Boos, the sorriest sound in sport, make their ugly way down from the splendour of the newly-covered stand, from the massed ranks in both terraces, both sets of supporters, even the occasional loud moan from the exclusivity of the reserved area of the new stand. Anywhere you went, one word kept cropping up. “Referee.”

Well, not quite one word but this being a family newspaper, the accompanying adjectives aren’t fit to print.

A pity, such a great pity, that the man in the middle, the one supposedly there only as facilitator, should be the one so dominant in conversation afterwards, in reaction, because you know there was so much that was positive about this game. “Amazing, amazing, a credit to the game of hurling,” said Limerick’s amazing captain Mark Foley. “Fantastic spirit, and even though there were a lot of very debatable decisions all the way through, it was a fair result, no one deserved to come out losing that game.” And that was more like it, more pertinent to this final result than the performance of the referee, because you know what? He wasn’t that bad, not that bad at all, until right at the end.

Many times early on, he could have blown, would have blown, but allowed proper advantage. The first-half John Mullane goal for Waterford was a case in point. What should be talked about after this game is not what the referee missed, but what the Irish sporting public missed, when television coverage was pulled due to the refusal by a fire officer to allow the RTÉ cameras into the ground, for reasons that no one in GAA officialdom seemed clear on. “What a game they missed,” grinned TJ, heading for the shower in a clearly-upbeat Limerick dressing-room; “a lot of errors, but some brilliant goals,” added Foley, “it all added up to a great spectacle. For the neutral, that was some game.” For the neutral, yes, some game, more than that for the massed fans of both sides, but what then for Limerick manager Dave Keane? His first senior championship game in charge, nine points down after 20 minutes and looking like worse. What was it like for him after a start like that? Surely he must have been thinking of heading for the tunnel?

“And what harm, we were up for it, but the bit of disruption before the game, having to come into the dressing-room again after the throw-in was delayed, didn’t help. But we showed character, and before the game, that was the one thing I still wasn’t sure of. All through the game, they showed character, and I think if we had managed to get a goal up on them, we’d have beaten them. We didn’t, we got a point up, and they came back. Good game, and as regards the quality, I’m not so sure, but great excitement, some great scores, nip-and-tuck, score-for-score, and such a pity that television didn’t have it. I’d like to have seen it myself later.”

That’s what is worth talking about after this game, the positives.

And what of young Andrew O’Shaughnessy? Only 18 and the scorer of a goal that had even the hardened corps in the press-box gasping; the goal that set up the Limerick recovery. What of the even younger Patrick Kirby who set up Limerick’s third? O’Shaughnessy was making his Munster senior championship debut, a stern enough examination, but this week also begins his Leaving Cert. What must have been going through his mind beforehand, what of his performance given that pressure?

Surely that’s what is worthy of discussion? “Oh, it was tough now, very tough, but you would be delusional if you thought it was going to be otherwise. That’s what Munster championship hurling is all about. The exams are starting on Wednesday, I just had to separate both of them in my mind, will have to do it again now. But it’s great to be still in there anyway.”