Horan says Limerick footballers won’t be holding back

Last weekend Limerick senior football boss Maurice Horan set out his stall for 2013, made it known that even this early in the new season he has already more or less decided on who he needs on his panel.

“Our approach this year is that we’re not experimenting in the McGrath Cup, we’re trying to get as far into the competition as we can,” he said after his side defeated Clare and thus qualified to meet Kerry tomorrow in the semi-final.

That isn’t to say that the door is slammed shut on anyone outside the panel who’s lighting up the home scene, just that there will be no large-scale experimentation, no blocks of new faces brought in and put through their paces in training and in the lesser competitions.

Not so on the hurling side of the equation, however. Though in his second year as manager, John Allen is still trying to reinforce a squad which last year disappointed in the league, failed to emerge from Division 1B, and which then fell short in both Munster and the All-Ireland series, albeit with much improved performances.

New blood, that’s what Allen is looking for as Limerick begins its competitive season this morning in Killmallock in a preliminary Waterford Crystal Tournament game against Limerick college Mary I.

“Everyone is doing what best suits themselves and we’ve decided to extend the panel to 40 for the moment.

“We need to make a call over the next few weeks on who’ll be staying and who won’t, and that’s the rotten part of this job. It has to be done though, financially you can’t have 40 fellas training for the year.

We’ve already played two challenge matches, we have Mary I this weekend and if we win that, we could have Tipperary the week after. We also have another few games lined up between here and the league opener. Having said all that though, we’ll be strong enough for this game though we will still be experimenting. We have a lot of fellas involved with different colleges, I’d say a dozen of the 40 will be missing before we puck a ball.”

On paper it looks like a gentle enough introduction to competitive fare for Limerick, Mary I hardly a Fitzgibbon Cup powerhouse, but they do have some big guns in their team in their attack particularly.

“We don’t know much about them but they’ll have Declan Hannon from our team, John Conlon (Clare) and Luke O’Farrell (Cork) are also with them so that’s three very strong forwards straight away. It’s a game where fellas can make an early impression, fellas we mightn’t have seen that much of before.

“All the inter-county teams are using the Crystal Tournament as preparation for the league, and with only five league matches it’s important to use all these games to set yourself up. The Waterford Crystal is knockout so you’re only guaranteed one game; you must win to progress.”