‘We didn’t win enough’
Was that the highlight of your career Phil, 1973?
On the county scene I suppose it was, and winning the minor title in 1984 was big as well, that was fierce important for Limerick.
That was my first All-Ireland final, the day of the pushover try!
It wouldn’t be allowed today – Ned Rea and Mossie Dowling forced the ball over between them. And London nearly beat us that year! I was wing-back and had to go in centre.
We played ye in 74 then, ye beat us by a point or two below in Thurles. Liam O’Donoghue was corner-forward and Paul Flynn’s father was in goal for us, Pat Flynn. I’ll never forget it – a ball came in, Pat stopped it and whipped on it. O’Donoghue was running across the square, the ball struck him on the leg, rebounded and flew into the roof of the net!
We beat Clare out the gate after that. I’ll tell ye something lads, Clare will be involved in the shake-up yet this year. They’re galvanising.
Would ye have beaten Kilkenny in 73 if Eddie Keher had been playing?
We would – I beat Keher every time I met him. I hurled on Keher ten years in a row, he never got anything off me. I’d prefer to have been on Keher that day than anyone else. I wasn’t the best hurler in Ireland but I could read the game like a clock. I had it over him — everywhere he was, I was.
And there before him!
Yeah. I would say though, at this stage, it would be great if Limerick could win another All-Ireland, end all this talk of 73. You get bored of it too. For me, the first county senior championship with Patrickswell was the biggest thing. I captained and trained that team in 1965. Mount Sion beat us afterwards, in Mount Sion — they had half the Waterford team.
We’ve 18 counties won since then, and I was involved in 16 of them.
For me it would be similar. Portlaw won their first senior championship in 1937, we won our second in 1970! Between then and 1978, we won five titles. In 1970 though, I was only 17 and I was the sub goalkeeper. Portlaw were a point down in the dying minutes, and some lad got injured. They asked me to go on at wing-back. I did, got one puck of the ball and drove it over the bar for the equalising point. I was back on the bench for the replay, too young, didn’t get on again, but I had done my bit. That was the best memory.
With Waterford, I had no success. We got to two Munster finals and a league final, but we lost them all. In 1974, the year after Limerick won the All-Ireland, they beat us by a point in the Munster championship. Then Kilkenny beat us by a point in the U21 All-Ireland final in Thurles, and Mount Sion beat us by a point in the Waterford county final.
I played in all three, so that was a memorable year, but it wasn’t a great year!
I was lucky enough then to get two All-Star awards, and that was a fierce honour, but the biggest regret was never winning a Munster or an All-Ireland.
Yerra but the way I look at it, if you won the All-Ireland last year, but didn’t win it this year, the year is shagged – the past counts for nothing.
But isn’t it still nice to have it? Doesn’t matter what else happened, or happens, in your life, you have that medal – isn’t that the pinnacle of any hurler’s career?
You’ll always be remembered for that year, for winning that All-Ireland. It was some achievement, particularly for a Limerick team.
Ah, I don’t know, it’s all in the past.
If you look at Cork and Tipperary down the years, they were sharing the Munster title between them, but ye broke that, in 1973 and 74. That’s why tomorrow is so important for Munster hurling as well, that Limerick and Waterford are in the final.
How do ye see it going?
I’d see this one as 50/50, though Waterford will probably be favourites. But it is still a two-horse race.
It’s all on the day.
Waterford have found hurlers though, haven’t they?
They have alright. Going back to the time when Gerald McCarthy took over Waterford, he had 15 players and very little after that. He set up Waterford, he was the man who put all the structures in at senior level, the training regime and all that, he set the tone (John spent three years as a selector with Gerald). Then Justin came in, he got the likes of John Mullane, Eoin Kelly, all these talented fellas coming on the scene. Ken McGrath played minor in 96, in the Munster final against Tipperary, so did Eoin Murphy and James Murray. That’s three of the six backs.
He’s still young enough so, under 30. Are the Prendergasts related, the McGraths?
Brothers.
They’re nearly as bad as ourselves — there were seven of us when we won our first county.
What’s amazing in this Waterford team, you have three players, Clinton Hennessey and the two Prendergasts, all from Ardmore, which was always totally a football club. They never had a hurling team, as such, but they came from junior to senior in three years, won the county junior and the county intermediate one year after another. I think that’s where the turn has come, with Waterford hurling.
We have something the same, three players – Seamus Hickey and the two Tobins — from Murroe-Boher, which wouldn’t have been seen as one of the stronger clubs in Limerick. How many from Mount Sion?
Two, Ken McGrath and Tony Browne.
And from Ballygunner?
One, Paul Flynn. There’s also John Mullane from De La Salle, another city club.
There’s something in that, a lot of country fellas on the team.
I find that city fellas aren’t as hard as the country lads, do you know what I mean by that? The country fellas, when it comes to the crunch, seem to be that bit tougher. Going back to my time, there would have been five or six from Mount Sion, three or four from Ballygunner, the rest from outside the city. Now it’s the complete opposite, a few from Mount Sion and Ballygunner, but most of them from the county.
The big clash this week will be in the half-back lines.
Mark Foley is hurling very well for Limerick, as is Tony Browne for Waterford, on the opposite wing – two veterans, but still performing as well as ever. What I find impressive, however, look up the middle, both teams; you have Stephen Lucey, Brian Geary, Ollie Moran, Brian Begley for Limerick, you have Declan Prendergast, Ken McGrath, Seamus Prendergast and probably Dan Shanahan for Waterford – every one of them well over six foot. That must be unique, to have eight players that big down the middle.
Are ye tough enough now, for a Munster final?
We are, very tough especially all those country lads on the team now.
One thing about this Limerick team, they’re honest, their mentors are honest, and honesty will take you a long way (Richie Bennis, Phil’s brother, is Limerick manager, his nephew Gary Kirby a selector). We weren’t as honest as the present team. In the 60’s, in the 70’s, we had the hurlers, but we won nothing. Waterford could beat us, Clare could beat us – we won one All-Ireland, but we should have won a lot more. That could have been a great team, but it wasn’t, we didn’t win enough.
We should have won three or four All-Irelands. This present team is a lot more honest than we were. I think the lads who are over them are a lot more honest, and that will stand to them. People talk about Limerick passion — passion won’t win every day for you, passion isn’t enough against Cork or Kilkenny or Waterford. This passion thing is over, you have to be able to hurl now. And this Limerick team are able to hurl.
A lot of commentators don’t see that, don’t see the skills of Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Niall Moran, Ollie Moran, the Tobins, Seamus Hickey – all the rest.
No, they don’t see it at all. But there’s a cleverness factor as well. In our time if you beat Cork or Tipp in a league match, it was like winning an All-Ireland – we were stupid, weren’t we? Come the championship then they’d destroy you; they didn’t give a damn about the league, ever.
What’s been happening in Waterford in recent years though, they’ve been knocking on the door since 1998, but we haven’t make the breakthrough. Nine years, that’s too long. The year Gerald took over they beat Tipp down in Páirc Uí Chaoimh and the fans – we’ll call them the fine-day supporters – got carried away. Every time Waterford won a championship match, it was like winning an All-Ireland, but it’s like you say, we were stupid. Everyone was forgetting about the next match. You can win the first round, the semi-final, the Munster final, but really, you’ve won nothing ‘til you’ve won the All-Ireland. That is the real end result. Anyone who’s been involved in the game as long as you have, you know – you shouldn’t have to tell fellas that, they should know it themselves. I think these fellas do, on this team. After they won the league final, there was no great celebration, the cup wasn’t paraded through Waterford. It was the same when they beat Cork in the semi-final – they put it behind them straight away and were concentrating on the next game. You had the young fellas running out onto the field, but the genuine supporters went home to get ready for the next day.
No-one who’s close to Waterford hurling got over-excited this year.
An awful lot of Waterford people seem to think this is a done deal — they could be in for a surprise.
The people who know very little about hurling might think that, but the genuine supporter, who goes to all the games, they understand what it takes to win a Munster championship.
They know there’s going to be only three or four points between the teams, one way or the other. It’s going to be as tight as that.
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