Limerick v Galway: Can conveyor belt produce glory to match talent?

Galway v Limerick Allianz Hurling League semi-final: Of the 35 players Limerick hurling manager John Kiely has looked at this spring, nine fall into the U21 bracket.

From this group, Na Piarsaigh’s Peter Casey will be eligible for U21 in 2018, while Kildimo-Pallaskenry forward Kyle Hayes, who started five of the county’s six league fixtures over the past two and a half months, will still be hurling U21 in the summer of 2019.

To put it another way, one-quarter of the players to see game-time for the Limerick seniors this year were born in either 1996, ’97 or ’98. Now, factor in Mike Casey, Richie English, David Dempsey, Pat Ryan and Darragh O’Donovan — all of whom hurled U21 under Kiely last year and have since played senior on his watch — and you have almost half a panel who weren’t even born when Offaly’s Johnny Dooley and Pat O’Connor broke Limerick hearts in the ’94 All-Ireland final.