Underage glory has shaken off Limerick’s fear of Kilkenny hurlers

That it has been 45 years since Limerick last overcame Kilkenny in the hurling Championship won’t play on the mind of John Kiely’s younger troops this weekend.

It might have been a different story had Limerick come up short to the stripey men in last year’s All-Ireland U21 decider.

The relevance of that game?

For starters, there is the sheer number of players who featured at Semple Stadium last September that will do so again tomorrow. Looking at the Kilkenny side which fell to Galway in last weekend’s Leinster final replay, John Donnelly, Richie Leahy, Billy Ryan, Liam Blanchfield, and Luke Scanlon were U21 in 2017.

Add to that list Martin Keoghan and Conor Delaney, both of whom featured throughout the round-robin phase.

On the Limerick side, there are 14 players in John Kiely’s squad who were togged last September. Included in that group are first-team regulars Kyle Hayes, Tom Morrissey, Cian Lynch, Seamus Flanagan, and Aaron Gillane.

There’s also Seán Finn and Peter Casey.

That Limerick team lost an All-Ireland minor final to Kilkenny in 2014 which, in truth, they shouldn’t have. Had this been followed by another final defeat at U21 level, it would have dealt a significant psychological blow as they headed for the senior ranks.

A Brian Cody team is tough enough to beat without having the mental baggage of an underage career that was defined by two defeats to the black and amber.

As it transpired, they were never troubled in that U21 decider. Pat Donnelly’s charges were 0-7 to 0-1 clear after 17 minutes, 0-12 to 0-4 ahead early in the second half.

Come the final whistle, the Treaty were comfortable six-point victors.

Three-quarters of an hour or so after the presentation of silverware, captain Tom Morrissey emerged from the winning dressing room to address the handful of reporters who had hung around to soak up that last drop of reaction. And, boy, aren’t we glad we stuck about.

“You’re not going to forget a team that beats you in an All-Ireland final,” said Morrissey of the 2014 minor defeat.

“Going forward to senior, you don’t want to have lost to them twice. We wanted to get even. I know we’ll have plenty of battles with some of them as we go up along. It is nice to go in one all and not let them get two up on us.

“Senior is another step up, but you have to be successful underage. It will definitely give lads confidence going forward.

“Our path to the final shows this team doesn’t fear anyone (Clare, Tipperary, Cork, Galway and Kilkenny were taken down). At the end of the day, we go out, we believe always we are better than our opponents and we always go out and beat them. That has been our philosophy.

“There was success at schools level, at U16, and minor. There’s a winning mentality in this group since 2013 and 2014. It just doesn’t seem to have left the players. We just need to bring that mentality and that culture up to senior and hopefully, get results with it.”

So far, so good, even if it is very early doors.

Morrissey, a fringe player in 2016 and 2017, has started each one of Limerick’s Championship fixtures in 2018. He’s contributed at least two points in every game and knocked over five frees when Aaron Gillane was dismissed early on against Cork.

The Ahane half-forward was also their top-scorer from play on the afternoon of their sole Championship reverse, that the Cusack Park defeat which derailed the county’s bid for a Munster final berth.

No more than Hayes or Flanagan, he’s been seamless in slotting into and establishing himself on John Kiely’s team.

“All the players are that little bit more mature now. They have the benefit of two years coaching and two years of physical development. Lads have more experience under their belt and more game-time against better opposition,” Kiely said this week.

After the 0-20 to 0-17 qualifier loss to Brian Cody’s side 12 months ago, Kiely remarked that it would take a “watershed” victory to bring this Limerick group to another level.

You could argue that arrived on the opening weekend of the Munster round-robin when they sent Tipperary’s summer into a tailspin but, and this is rather crucial to note, that wasn’t a knockout fixture. Tomorrow’s is.

“We have moved up along in terms of the levels of our performance [this year]. We won no Championship match last year. We’ve won three this year.

“Even the performance against Cork, with 14 men and having lost Declan Hannon so early, it was a credible performance. But we know we have to keep improving and look for even higher levels of performance to progress through the Championship.

“We have ambition to go further. You have to produce the goods when it matters. That is what we are aiming to do on Sunday.

“We have prepared for the last eight months to be here and to be ready for these games. We need to back ourselves and I trust the players to do that.”