Tipp pile on agony for Limerick

If you’re an absolutely diehard Limerick hurling supporter, one of the dwindling few who were at the Gaelic Grounds yesterday for this NHL round four match, or if you were a Limerick county board official, or a member of the under-pressure management team, you could take the view that this defeat is actually a two-point improvement on the result of last August’s 24-point All-Ireland semi-final hammering by the same opposition, and you could suggest that Limerick hurling is still heading in the right direction.

That wouldn’t just be the optimistic view, it would be sheer, wilful blindness. For the three opening games of this year’s league this young and vastly understrength Limerick team has been truly heroic; against Galway, Cork then Waterford, they gave everything they had to keep their losses to a minimum, battled against overwhelming odds, fought to the finish every time and kept the final margin in each instance in and around the ten-point mark.

Always, however, with the ground quickening, with the opposition becoming sharper and more needful of points, a result like this was on the horizon. Yesterday, and though the Limerick youngsters again battled to the end, it materialised.