Magnificent, brilliant, glorious

SEMPLE stadium on Saturday evening was a great place to be a neutral, but no place to be dispassionate, as Limerick and Tipp played out yet another thriller in the Munster SHC semi-final.

Magnificent, brilliant, glorious – pick any superlative you like, multiply it, and you still won’t reach the dramatic heights that this game touched. Just before throw-in the sky darkened over this treasured temple of hurling, the clouds closed in and dropped low, and those of us who are used to the great outdoors feared the thunder, the lighting, the torrents that surely threatened.

Well, the thunder rolled, the lightning struck, and the heavens did open, but it was all on the field of play.

The thunder and lightning came in the first-half, an utterly dominant display by a revamped Tipp side (long-serving keeper Brendan Cummins dropped in a shock move, team captain Benny Dunne shifted from centre-back to centre-forward, Conor O’Mahony taking over Benny’s spot) giving them a ten-point lead over a Limerick side that simply looked lost; the heavens opening? That came thereafter.

Let’s get the first-half out of the way quickly because, unfair and all as it is on Tipp, this was the most forgettable part of this epic encounter.

Limerick opened brightly enough, led 0-2 to 0-1 after the fourth minute; it was then that Tipp clicked into gear. With their half-back line doing well under the Limerick puck-outs, midfielders James Woodlock and Shane McGrath completely dominant, a steady supply of ball began to stream into their inside forward line of newcomer Seamus Butler, Eoin Kelly and Lar Corbett – and they took full advantage, Butler especially. & He scored 1-2 from play, the goal manufactured from nothing when he turned no less a defender than Damien Reale on the inside, then scored from point-blank range. Corbett, too, was doing his bit, two points from play, while Eoin Kelly was Eoin Kelly, four points from superbly drilled frees, one from play, a hand in several others.

Limerick were in trouble, big trouble. 1-12 to 0-5 it was at the break, a ten-point deficit; it could have been a lot more, should have been a lot more, had Tipp taken the plethora of goal chances they created.

The break, when it came, offered little hope of anything positive happening, yet it did, very definitely it did. Its inspiration? The half-time team talk by Gary Kirby, says Limerick manager Richie Bennis.

“Gary gave a great speech in which he recalled that in 1996 Tipperary were ten points ahead below in the Gaelic Grounds, and they brought it back point by point. He said there was no reason we couldn’t do the same today. Every one of the players got behind each other, and we did it.”

The fightback began with a huge free from his deep in his own half by towering centre-back Brian Geary (my man-of-the-match); it continued through a third quarter in which Tipp gave back as good as they got, retained that ten-point lead to the 55th minute (1-17 to 0-10); then it began in earnest. From just before half-time Limerick had been introducing subs – Brian Begley, Michael Fitzgerald, Donie Ryan, Kevin Tobin, James O’Brien. In the final momentous minutes of regular time, every one of these would play a pivotal role.

The Limerick goal was brilliantly flicked home on the run from an Ollie Moran pass by Fitzgerald while of the nine points scored in that final pulsating push for parity, four of them were scored by the supersubs, two by Tobin, one each by Fitzgerald and O’Brien. The critical hook to set up the last of the brilliant Ollie Moran’s four second half points, done by the hard-working Ryan.

At the end of a stupendous 70 mins it was 1-19 apiece, just as it was six days earlier in the Gaelic Grounds and on we went to extra time, two periods of ten minutes each.

And again, high drama, again Tipp belting into an early lead, again Eoin Kelly doing the damage, setting up Darragh Egan for a goal less than two minutes into the first period.

And again, Limerick fought back; 1-22 to 2-21 they trailed at the break, reduced to the minimum after a real belter of a point from wing-back Mark Foley (what a battle he had with John Carroll!) .

Into the final minutes of extra time, into the final minute of added time in that extra time, and the final piece of drama. Long free by Geary, superb catch by the giant Begley on the edge of the big square. Outstanding defence, as we’d seen all game from the Tipp rearguard in which Buckley, Fanning and Fitzgerald were outstanding, forced Begley to look outside. His pass went to Ollie – hooked by Thomas Stapleton, ball breaks along the end line, out wide right.

Tussle, ball hits a Tipp player, but then strikes Ollie Moran’s stick, which he has just lost in the tackle, trickles over the end line. All eyes turn to the white-coated umpire, over by the posts; tentatively, slowly, he wanders over to the scene, obviously in the throes of making up his mind.

Then equally slowly, equally tentatively, the white-sleeved arm begins to rise – 65. “I can’t say, I didn’t see it,” said colourful Tipp manager Babs Keating, “But if the ball was in fact wide, it’s not good enough for us to be bursting our arses since last November and then to be treated like that. That umpire down there didn’t know his arse from his elbow at that stage.”

Perhaps, perhaps not; the last player to strike the ball was a Tippman, the last stick it struck was Limerick, but it had lost its owner at that stage – wide or 65?

On Saturday evening, it was the latter – up stepped Andrew O’Shaughnessy. Now understand this, things hadn’t been going well for Andrew. “Ah, I missed about four goals, easily,” he reflected afterwards; one of those goals was a poorly-placed first-half penalty (well saved by Gerry Kennedy, Tipp’s impressive goalkeeping debutant, another had happened just minutes before the end of extra time, a rasping point-blank shot that hit the outside of the post, would surely have given Limerick victory. And still he stepped forward.

Despite the close attention of a Tipperary player, probably a few verbals, the young army officer was true, right between the posts.

“It was mighty,” said Bennis, scorer of a similar last-second 65 in 1973 against Tipp, that one for the win; “It takes a man to do it and we had that man there in Andrew O’Shaughnessy, he took it on his shoulders.” Magnificent, brilliant, glorious.

Scorers for Limerick: M. Fitzgerald 1-3; A. O’Shaughnessy 0-6 (0-5 frees 0-1 65); O. Moran 0-5; N. Moran 0-3; K. Tobin 0-2; J. O’Brien 0-2; B. Geary 0-2 (frees); M. Foley 0-1.

Scorers for Tipperary: E. Kelly 0-9 (0-6 frees); S. Butler 1-3; D. Egan 1-2; L. Corbett 0-3; B. Dunne 0-2; J. Woodlock, E. Corcoran (S/L), 0-1 each.

LIMERICK: B. Murray; S. Lucey, D. Reale (c), S. Hickey; M. O’Riordan, B. Geary, M. Foley; P. Lawlor, D. O’Grady; M. O’Brien, O. Moran, N. Moran; P. Tobin, A. O’Shaughnessy, B. Foley.

Subs: B. Begley (Lawlor 33); M. Fitzgerald (B. Foley 35); D. Ryan (Tobin 50); K. Tobin (N. Moran 54); J. O’Brien (M. O’Brien 61).

Extra time subs: Maurice O’Brien (Reale inj. 80); N. Moran (O’Grady 82); P. Tobin (Ryan 83).

TIPPERARY: G. Kennedy; E. Buckley, D. Fanning, D. Fitzgerald; E. Corcoran, C. O’Mahony, H. Moloney; S. McGrath, J. Woodlock; J. Carroll, B. Dunne (c), D. Egan; S. Butler, E. Kelly, L. Corbett.

Subs: P. Bourke (Corbett 52); T. Stapleton (Corcoran inj. 62); D. O’Hanlon (Woodlock inj. 70+3).

Extra time subs: R. O’Dwyer (Bourke 70); L. Corbett (McGrath inj. 80); W. Ryan (Butler 90).

Referee: B. Gavin (Offaly).