How Lee’s Limerick became the unlikely 2020 pacesetters

Name the one county football team to win each of their competitive outings in 2020?

And no, before jumping to the obvious response, it is not Dessie Farrell’s Dublin.

Nor is it Longford, the county who toppled a rookie Dublin brigade on their way to winning the O’Byrne Cup and who remain unbeaten in Division 3.

Nor, indeed, is it Cork, who sit top of the third division with three wins from three.

It is in fact Limerick. Yes, you read correctly. No need for a wiping of eyes.

Billy Lee’s charges are six from six across the McGrath Cup and Division 4 this season, and should they extend this winning run on Sunday, they’ll take a giant step towards promotion from the league’s basement tier.

No more than their impressive start to the league, Limerick’s all-conquering McGrath Cup campaign was not the least bit expected.

Granted, the county did benefit from being drawn on the opposite side to Cork and Kerry, but they still had to face down a Cork outfit containing a number of first-team regulars in the decider — which they successfully did.

Along with the Rebels, Limerick are the only other county to take maximum points from their opening three league games.

And to put this into perspective, Limerick’s three victories — over Waterford, London, and Carlow — equal the total number of league wins the county amassed across 2018 and 2019.

It is all the more impressive when you consider Darragh Treacy, Sean McSweeney, and Paul White emigrated before the new season got underway.

According to Lee, there’s been no fundamental change in their approach to pre-season, training, games, or recovery. What it boils down to, he reckons, is his panel being that bit more experienced and enjoying a smidgen more luck than they did in recent years.

“The lads took a lot of knocks last year, both within games, and from game-to-game. They learnt a lot in those 12 months,” the Treaty manager begins.

“Some of those knocks were self-inflicted, stemming from a lack of experience and so on. But they have carried those with them and learned from them.

There is a certain amount of having more experience than they did two years ago. They were pretty young and inexperienced back then. So that obviously helps.

“They’ve learned over the years that you make your own luck. Going into injury-time against Carlow in the last game, it looked like we were beaten (Limerick trailed 0-9 to 0-6).

“But the lads kept going and going (they ended up winning on a 1-7 to 0-9 scoreline).

“If they hadn’t had the wins prior to that, in the McGrath Cup and opening two rounds of the league, maybe they wouldn’t have had that energy to keep going at the end. It is of course a big positive that they have put this run of wins together.”

Indeed, for the vast majority of Lee’s squad, stringing together such a series of victories is “new ground”.

2017 was the last time a Limerick football team recorded three consecutive wins in any competition.

“Over the last number of years, Limerick football hasn’t been winning as many games as we would like.

“We are not getting carried away simply because we don’t have a tradition of winning games.

“Just because you win three games, there is no guarantee you will win the next three, or the next two, or the next one for that matter.

We have really got to keep our feet on the ground, keep focused, and find improvement within our performances.

Victory over visiting Wicklow at LIT Gaelic Grounds on Sunday would put the Treatymen in pole position for promotion with three rounds remaining. Lee, though, won’t countenance such talk.

“You risk getting ahead of yourself if you begin to think like that. I don’t want our focus to change and then look back in regret. It is one game at a time.

“Every win you get, you are getting nearer a number that would get any team promoted. We accept that. Talking about it internally or externally is not something I get involved in, though.”