With scales tipping, Bennis can dream

EVEN when you’re on the bread line, it’s worth remembering that there’s somebody, somewhere, worse off than you are.

When you've eaten your fill from the top table, as Ritchie Bennis did back in 1973, subsistence living must be all the more galling, but the county's long years of frustration haven't blunted the Patrickswell legend's sense of humour.

Across the road from him, he says, is a Limerick woman married to a Mayo man. "Imagine that poor woman supporting those two counties," he chuckles. "They've hardly a win between them in Croke Park in 30 years."

Yep, it could be worse.

The trials and tribulations of Mayo teams in HQ have been carefully documented down the years. Limerick's have escaped similar inspection simply because they haven't made it up the N7 nearly as often. Bennis's ten points in the '73 final win over Kilkenny was the foundation on which Limerick's last All-Ireland title was constructed but, since then, the county has managed only two championship wins on Jones's road, both coming against Antrim (1994 and '96).

Success in Dublin has eluded their club sides too with the All-Ireland hopes of Ballybrown, Patrickswell and Kilmallock all shattered in the space of three years at the start of the 1990s.

The deepest scars were inflicted by Wexford but particularly Offaly in a pair of Hollywood-scripted All-Ireland finals in the mid-nineties.

"We were very unlucky in '94. That was the kind of thing that just happens, you can't blame anybody. In '96 though we left it behind.

"If we won one the duck would be broken. Croke Park has become a monkey on our backs by now."

Bennis can empathise as much as any man with the losses. Even a career that rewarded him with Munster and All-Ireland titles and ten county championships with Patrickswell had plenty of scope for disappointments.

In 1966, one year after he joined the panel, they fell agonisingly short to Cork. Five years later, they took their revenge in a match Bennis still treasures above any other before falling to Tipperary by a point in an exhilarating Munster final.

Both years their torment would be multiplied when their conquerors went on to All-Ireland success.

Then came 1973 and Lady Luck finally threw them a bone. Bennis was the catalyst, his dramatic late winner against Tipp handing Limerick their first Munster title since Liam Ryan's side saw off Clare 18 years before.

"After that, we were lucky enough to draw London in the semi-final because they were after beating Galway so, if we hadn't reached the final that year, you would have had to ask yourself why."

The final itself is etched into folklore by now. The ten-minute wait in the rain for President Erskine Childers before throw-in. JP McManus being pulled through an open window into the packed dressing room afterwards. Mick Mackey meeting the team at Castleconnell on the journey home.

Then there was Bennis's ten points from midfield, where he dovetailed so effectively with his captain Eamonn Grimes.

And yet, though Kilkenny represented that team's zenith, it was the Cats who engineered their slide back to obscurity in the following year's All-Ireland semi-final.

"We got a great start that day and were seven points to one up after ten minutes or a quarter of an hour," remembers Bennis. "The referee made a strange decision against us then, he gave a penalty against Pat Hartigan who actually had his hurl held on him.

"Eddie Keher scored a goal from it and then another ball dribbled over our line. That was six points in a minute and it changed everything. We were left kind of down-hearted by it."

Kilkenny never passed their bows again, until now that is and, even if Bennis will travel more in hope than expectation, Brian Cody's injury worries and the re-instatement of Andrew O'Shaughnessy to his favoured corner-forward spot swings the weighted scales ever so slightly towards parity.

"It doesn't look great but isn't it the chance of a lifetime as well? They're going in with a completely new half-forward line for an All-Ireland quarter-final and that would be my biggest worry. If that wasn't the case I would go up with some degree of confidence.

"Limerick are around 10/1 for the game though and I have a few bob on them. What were Wexford before they played Kilkenny and look how ordinary they were against Clare."

Even the hungriest of men can dream of feasts.