Ryan is ready to give his all for cause

AS the hour of decision looms in Limerick senior hurling, Garryspillane’s TJ Ryan doesn’t mean to be taken literally when he explains how important a win would be to himself, and to his club.

But he does want you to understand. “I would kill for this, I would,” he says softly. “It’s massively important. For guys like myself, there are two huge medals to be won, senior county with your club, senior All-Ireland with your county. I have neither. I have Munster medals, Railway Cup, National League, all with Limerick. I have South medals with the club, Senior B, two intermediates won, 1990 and 1996, but the two major ones are still missing. I’ve lost All-Ireland finals with Limerick (1994 and 1996) and lost the only senior county final we ever played in, in 1997. I was captain and we didn’t perform at all, though Patrickswell were a great team at that time, exceptional. We had come up from intermediate, probably didn’t believe in ourselves, but this is another opportunity, for me and for the club.”

Nothing but hard luck stories to date then, for the Limerick captain. “That’s the problem we have at inter-county level at the moment, trying to get the breaks, but that’s the problem we’ve always had, and the same problem we’ve had at club level. We’ve had so many hard luck stories, beaten narrowly in quarter-finals, semi-finals, even the final. In 1997 we could have done better, last year, same sad story. Lost every championship game, got relegated to the B division, but every game we played, we could have won. The thing is, you have to create those breaks for yourself, that’s the only way.”