Time for Limerick hurling to move on

The departure of Donal O’Grady will not derail Limerick’s Munster

You can talk about Tipperary and the Munster championship but there’s no point in avoiding the elephant in the room when you’re in Limerick.

In fairness to Gavin O’Mahony, he doesn’t shy away from the shock departure of joint manager Donal O’Grady, pictured, inset, six weeks out from their championship opener tomorrow.

“It was a shock and TJ (Ryan, manager) addressed us,” he says.

“He said it is what it is and it’s not our business to be arguing over it or to be trying to be getting Donal back.

“We left him to look after that and we decided to focus on training and it did focus the minds for a couple of nights.

“We said, ‘look, we are down a man here’, and it put the onus back on the players and that’s a good position for players to be in — to say look, there’s no guru going to come in and help us or fix things’.

“You had to focus on yourself and fix yourself and hope that gets you in a position to compete.”

Was he surprised it had come to a head?

“Shocked, to be honest. There was no indication. We were training, training and next thing it went from that to that Donal was gone.

“There was a bit of a joke amongst the players because we thought it was a wind-up. The following morning it was made real.

“What I took out of it personally — that I would have to show some leadership. That even if TJ walked and all the selectors pulled out, we are still in Thurles on June 1 and we have to be prepared.”

Midfielder Paul Browne rang O’Mahony with the news “and was half-laughing, he thought it was a wind- up”, that someone had hacked O’Grady’s email account: “It says a lot about us that that’s the craic that goes on.”

O’Mahony acknowledged the key comment – the suggestion management team had apologised for poor league performances – could have been over the top: “I suppose it was because of last year — we lost the league final to Dublin, it was the end of the world and as players we felt very disappointed because we had targeted the league. And then for it to happen this year and the way it all unfolded it was, I don’t know, a disappointing couple of weeks where maybe have a small bit of trust and say, ‘I know ye didn’t perform last year but you managed to pull out two performances’.

“We didn’t over-emphasise the league, though we did want to get promoted, but we had a goal in mind, we trained really hard, and hopefully later in the year we will reap the rewards.

“Many of the players felt it was just a slip of the tongue, a badly phrased answer, and probably no more. It was a pity they couldn’t resolve it and come to some agreement but it shouldn’t have got that far.”

More’s the pity, says the wing-back who’s also a Games Development Officer for Limerick GAA. He saw the impact of the last year’s Munster title win in his day job: “It was a phenomenal summer last year. We had the Féile as well last year in Limerick and the whole thing just took off.

“I suppose in a way without realising it at the time we probably got swept along with it. It was brilliant and a great lift for everyone involved in the county in coaching.

“But when you achieve something like that you always want to experience it again. And know that you can.”

The downside was a lack of match practice before last year’s All-Ireland semi-final against a Clare team hardened by qualifier games.

“I felt in need of a match because after any big performance you need a grounding to say, ‘look, here’s something to focus on again and I didn’t do this or that well’.

“I felt that was a bigger issue than any of the hype or talk that was going on in Limerick. When we got to Croke Park it was just a case that Clare were a little bit sharper than we were.

“It definitely took us 15 or 20 minutes of the first half to start performing and hurling.

“I still believe that was the reason we didn’t – the lack of a couple of matches to ground fellas and put competition for places back into question again. Instead we were saying, ‘this is the team that won the Munster final so this is the team that’s going to Croke Park’. There was no competition to spur lads on.”

It starts again tomorrow, the road back to Croke Park.

“Tipperary were the best team in Munster for the past five, six or seven years,” says O’Mahony.

“When you beat a team like that there’s always a response. There’s always a kickback.

“From our point of view that’s going to be the ultimate test. To see if we can raise the bar because it’ll be a better Tipp team than it was last year, so we have to be better ourselves.

“They’re pretty much the team that won the All-Ireland but they’re after adding some really good forwards. That is the worry — that when you look at Tipp now you don’t pencil anyone in particular for special attention.

“For a long time it was a certain individual you’d pick out but now it’s a forward line that seems to have the right balance and mix.”

The pain of last year’s championship exit still stings O’Mahony, but starting tomorrow in Thurles, he and his teammates want to continue where 2013 ended.

“It was experience, fitness, ruthlessness that we showed last year but I still think there’s an element of doubt about this Limerick team from all quarters.

“From the media and even within Limerick as well as the rest of Munster. We have a lot to prove. It was very hard to watch (Clare winning the All-Ireland) but no more than it would have been hard for them to watch us go on and win it. And at the same time I’d say it convinced a lot of teams that there isn’t much between us and it can be done — that the Kilkennys and Tipps can be toppled if you train hard enough and prepare right.”