Centre-back, centre-stage — a far cry from 2008
It should have preceded better times for Limerick, a team with a very good age-profile, but it didn’t. For the next three years the team went downhill, one year worse than the next until eventually came the major fallout – a player strike. Hard times recalled by Wayne.
“I was called into the squad after Joe McKenna resigned back in 2006. Richie asked me to come in and make up the numbers for training. ‘It’s not a trial’ he said; ‘No problem,’ says I, ‘I’ll come in’. And in I came, a Tuesday and then a Thursday. After the Thursday night he added me to the panel. A good day that day, then 2007, the first year on the panel was an incredible year.”
2008 though was when it all started to go wrong, in the same year as Wayne’s championship debut, an All-Ireland qualifier against Offaly – lost by 10 points, 3-19 to 0-18.
“There have been very bad times. That game in 2008 I remember one player getting hit with a cup of coffee [by a fan] coming in at half-time. We let ourselves down. We let them down too.”
2009 was a little better, a loss after a replay in the Munster semi-final against Waterford followed by three wins in the qualifiers over Wexford, Laois and Dublin. They got back to an All-Ireland semi-final but Tipperary went to town and won by a whopping 6-19 to 2-7.
Then came 2010. Two championship games. Two losses. Well beaten by Cork in Munster then finished off by Offaly in the qualifiers. Three years, and in his mind Wayne can’t separate them. “They were all just terrible. Ultimately we have to hold our hands up as players and say we were at fault too. I suppose 2010, the Justin thing [players’ strike], was a turning-point.
“We were kind of sick of it. We wanted a professional set-up and we wanted everything done right. We felt that there were lads coming through and we weren’t doing ourselves justice, weren’t doing the supporters justice, weren’t doing the jersey justice.”
In came Corkman Donal O’Grady, proven already in his two years at the helm in Cork after their first players’ strike. And since then, it’s been progress all the way.
“I said I’d give it one right go, do whatever it took to prove I was good enough for this level because, pre-Justin, I hadn’t proved to myself that I was good enough. I had a stubborn attitude, I wanted to prove to myself more than anyone that I was good enough. Donal O’Grady and Jerry Wallace came in and Jerry [trainer] was incredible. There was a discipline in training and off the field as well. It was great. We’d work hard but the team was improving, you could see the benefits of what we were doing.”
Donal stayed for just one year but as in Cork after 2004, he was succeeded by John Allen.
“John yeah... someone said to me that he follows on from Donal but I completely disagree. He’s actually probably the opposite. He empowers a lot of the players, puts a lot of onus and responsibility back on us. It took us a while to settle in. At the start of last year our results were poor but we realised what he’s about and we began to realise the ability we have.
“After the Offaly match [last year’s League, Limerick 2-16 Offaly 4-10] he told us, ‘Look, this is how we manage a team and this is what ye have to do if ye want to achieve’.”
A facilitator then? “Yes, I’d go along with that. He puts everything in place and really puts the responsibility on the players. If you want to achieve, you know… we all started buying into it and the results from then on started improving.”
Just how much they have improved will become apparent around 5pm tomorrow.
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