Coping with hope and the hype hasn’t been easy for Limerick

We’d know within 20 minutes if one plank of John Kiely’s masterplan had held. But nobody could plan for the last 10.

Kiely had promised, warned, threatened to protect his players from the want, the need, the ache that was palpable on Drumcondra Road yesterday.

That showed its face in the minutes before throw-in when old John Hunt appeared on the Croke Park big screen, 98 and home from Chicago. There in ‘73 and back now “to see something I never thought I’d see happen in my lifetime.”

You could feel that want in the guttural dry-run roar for Gary Kirby in the parade of the team of the 90s.

And it was stretched across the anxious faces sporting green finery in the Hogan Stand even as Sinead O’Brien from Patrickswell sang her tribute to Dolores O’Riordan. As she sang about dreams.

The depth of their want had been touchingly plain in the way old heroes had stayed on message so bashfully in the build-up. Heroes of ‘73 reluctant to talk about ‘73. Doing what they could to lighten the load.

John Kiely had vowed to keep the players away from all of it, all the hype, to make sure they lived normal lives.

But what could he do for them now?

He talked afterwards about the generations within a county and who had left a county who yearned for this. He knew minds would wander in the car yesterday morning. On the bus.

He had little triggers in place to “distract us from our own thoughts”.

On Saturday, Dalo likened that first dash into the cauldron to a splash in the Atlantic off West Clare. Spanish Point maybe.

“The greatest buzz imaginable. A surreal fusion of magic, elation, excitement, and absolute pride.” He was addicted to it, went back to the sea to replicate it. But he knows fellas it broke.

“Their legs went to jelly when they suddenly realised the magnitude of the occasion and the colossal pressure that it instantly landed on their shoulders.”

"We were always the bridesmaids - but today we got over the line" - John Kiely #rtegaa pic.twitter.com/O7n3DOgXbV

— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) August 19, 2018

Limerick’s history - all of it, not to mind a final as good as lost in 10 minutes just 11 years ago - made these choppy waters.

Could they stay afloat? That’s the first question their people wanted answered. There were no giveaways in that first splash in the waves of noise. Neither crowd took the door off the hinges coming out. Controlled urgency. Though Galway missed their cue to let Limerick out first. Second roar advantage.

No clues either in the warm-up or the parade. Still nobody knew.

Aaron Gillane in at full-forward made the first ball stick. A reassuring mark of Paul Kinnerk’s coaching? But the shot dropped short and we still didn’t know. Tom Morrisey caught another but drove it wide. Gillane missed a free and frowns deepened.

But then he caught and looped and nailed one. The Hogan Stand let out a great breath.

But it was an elegant Gearoid Hegarty pickup to feed a Graeme Mulcahy that put Limerick’s feet under the table. Three up and Galway looking the nervous team.

“We just wanted to get into the game, I didn’t want a big lead early doors because it becomes a weight on you,” Kiely said.

They didn’t take a big lead. They really only had Graeme Mulcahy’s scruffy goal to show for how calm they looked, how calm Kiely swears they were. But they were in the game after 20 minutes. A box ticked.

They thrashed around at times in that first half, the wides piled up. And only Kyle Hayes could punctuate messy stretches of the second half with dollops of composure, But goals arrived at convent times, whenever Joe Canning threatened to pull off a Shefflin 2012 style rescue.

But still nothing could prepare them for the ghosts of ‘94 that would eventually rattle around the old stadium.

Was it the weight of history that saw them buckle after Conor Whelan's goal?

“I don’t know yet. I’ll have to ask the lads. I felt, oh crap, this isn’t going to happen is it?

“I was there in ‘94. I saw it happen.

“It’s an incredible thing when the momentum shifts back to the opposition, it’s so difficult to stunt that momentum and reverse it.”

“You’re imploring those players to win those final few balls. Can you imagine the pressure they were under those last few minutes?”

They couldn’t plan for it, but everything they’ve been through prepared them for it.

“We spoke about that all year, the need to respond at key moments when things go against you - Richie Hogan’s goal in Thurles, here against Cork when we were six down with 11 minutes left. Something had to happen.

“It slipped a bit today but we just managed to squeeze enough of a response to hold our ground. That key ball Tom caught, the ball Graeme won and got a point from - we managed to win just enough balls and to get those shots off to deter Galway and to withstand that onslaught.”

One of the heroes of ‘73, Eamonn Cregan, spoke fondly - in an interview with PM O’Sullivan in Saturday’s paper - of these players.

“I have great time for this team. I think there is more to them than other Limerick teams. Maybe a lot more.”

Maybe there is a lot more, but Dolores O’Riordan herself brought a warning from the tannoys, singing about dreams but also about lives changing in every possible way.

And even with his own wildest dream fulfilled, John Kiely’ protective instincts, as they have done these past three weeks, kicked in again, for these players and their prospects of living normal lives.

“It isn’t easy being cast in the middle of all that. These lads have to be as good in their ability to be post-successful as they were in their quest to be successful if that makes sense. They need to carry themselves well as All-Ireland champions. That is very, very important.”