Limerick show consistency in a world gone mad to claim All-Ireland honours
Limerick's Seamus Flanagan celebrates after the game. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie
This was the performance these Limerick players had been waiting to give. Their timing, like their season, was perfect.
Up to now, they had been playing within themselves but here they delivered what observers, supporters, but more importantly themselves knew was in them.
Hot off wins against Clare and Kilkenny, Waterford had expected to be an improvement on their Munster final selves. Instead, it was the provincial champions who powered on to produce close to the best version of themselves.
Limerick thrive on hand-to-hand combat but that’s to fatigue their opponents. To kill them off with scores it is sniping they prefer and they won this from distance as they have done so many previous games. Scores from both sidelines in both halves illustrated just how much of a zen zone they were in.
Sure, Stephen O’Keeffe had to pull off a couple of majestic saves within seconds of each other in the 13th minute from Kyle Hayes and Cian Lynch. But for Limerick goals would have been bonuses; for Waterford they were necessary and in the first goalless All-Ireland final since 2004 their inability to net a single one was damning.
It wasn’t that the opportunities to score them were thin on the ground — there was Jack Fagan’s second minute wide, Stephen Bennett’s first goal chance in the 26th minute was blocked by Diarmaid Byrnes and his other four were negotiated by Nickie Quaid. Dessie Hutchinson also had a half-chance while Quaid was also on his toes for Calum Lyon’s 58th-minute effort.
“Yeah, we needed to score two to three goals today, we said that,” admitted Liam Cahill. “We needed to. We created, we had one or two half-chances in the second half as well playing poorly, and playing maybe without any real energy. The energy was kind of sapped out of us, but we needed them two goals to go in.
“I think Jack’s (Fagan) flashed across the face of goal and Stephen’s was blocked when pressure came on. So we needed to be in 2-24, 2-25 territory to counteract whatever points Limerick were going to put on the board and the scoreboard told the story at the end when we didn’t have them two or three goals to put beside the 19 or 20 points.”
From the outset, John Kiely sensed his team were up for this. Just as he did in the semi-final against Galway, Tom Morrissey was showing the way in that early period and with the first score of the game.
“Going forward, I think we showed fantastic teamwork in terms of our support running and our lines of running, just wave after wave of attackers. I think there were a couple of incidences during the game where, the very first play, that first 40 seconds, it was a very defining moment in the game. We took it forward, there was huge resistance put up against us and we still managed to get the score. That set the tone for us.”
Sending over some majestic scores from under the Cusack Stand between the Davin Stand posts, Limerick thrice led by four points in the first quarter and it finished that way, 0-8 to 0-4. Goals went abegging at both ends but what remained consistent was Limerick’s strength in the air and their ability to find space for taking scores.
Tadhg de Búrca’s game-ending injury seemed like the crucial Jenga piece had been taken out of Waterford’s structure and the difference grew to six points when Kyle Hayes pointed in the 26th minute. However, Iarlaith Daly performed well in de Búrca’s place up to half-time and the margin was down to three by the 29th minute.
As Aaron Gillane looked unaffected by his rib injury, his second and third points from play helped to widen the gap to six once more but Waterford ended up winning the quarter, the first time Limerick had lost the period before half-time in the Championship. A brace of Bennett frees couple with Austin Gleeson’s third of the game left it 0-14 to 0-11 at half-time.
Still, it felt like Waterford were hanging on. Just three of their first-half points were from play and in the face of Limerick’s brutishness they were relying too heavily on Bennett’s frees.
Reviewing it, Cahill didn’t feel they were all too different from the side that beat them by four points in the Munster final except for one key area.
“I just thought today they were even more aggressive, the way they were chasing everything and hunting everything and everything they touched went over the bar, and it did in the Munster final too for long periods. When you are a good team and you have the composure Limerick have, most of the time those chances go over the bar with the quality they have and hats off to them, well done.”
For the second game in a row, Hegarty’s immunity to a yellow card was almost as stunning as his hurling. Four fouls wasn’t enough for him to earn a booking but the damage he was doing to Waterford’s momentum was much more effective with the amount of white flags he was raising. Three points in the third quarter, a 17- or 18-minute part of the game when Waterford have been excellent in the Championship, had a huge impact on Waterford’s belief.
It helped that his fellow wing-forward Tom Morrissey was as effective in stymying the Déise putting any zip into their attacks from the half-back line as he was in teeing up his fellow forwards for scores. Five points from play was also a handsome return for a man who will challenge Hegarty for hurler of the year.
Set up by Morrissey, successive scores by Hegarty in the 42nd and 44th minutes may not have come as hammer blows to Waterford — they shaved the difference to six points by the 47th minute — but they demonstrated the might of that Limerick half-forward line.
Limerick led by eight again at the final water break — 0-24 to 0-16 — as Gillane began to sparkle in the space left by a Waterford half-back line now needing to take more risks. Quaid saw to it that his goal remained intact while Gillane and Hegarty continued to send over scores, Byrnes’ 69th-minute point then extending Limerick’s lead to double digits.
As was the case in the semi-final, Morrissey scored Limerick’s last point as he did their first and Limerick had completed hurling’s version of the triple crown in 2020. Ten wins from 10, they have been consistency in a world gone mad.
60-SECOND REPORT
Having lost the second quarter for the first time in the Championship, Limerick broke back in the third where Waterford had been so strong this winner. Extending their lead to eight points, they weren’t going to be caught.
The absolute comprehensiveness of this victory and season for Limerick. They saved their best ‘til last and Waterford, the second best team in the country, felt the brunt of it.
In his fourth season in charge, had Limerick not won this there may have been a whisper or two about John Kiely’s future but the ball is very much in his park now. The quick turnaround should also ensure the county’s most successful manager remains on in the position.
Waterford’s striking was just not what it was in the second half of the All-Ireland semi-final nor what it was for most of their quarter-final against Clare. They just didn’t seem to be on it and they have to be on it.
There is major concern Tadhg de Búrca has suffered a recurrence of the anterior cruciate ligament injury, which he suffered in a club league game last September. He knew he was in trouble as soon as he hit the deck. Kyle Hayes went off injured late on but it didn’t appear serious.
Limerick trusted themselves and their processes. Lining out one to 15 at the outset, they weren’t for moving apart from some manoeuvring of their inside forwards from time to time. The space given up by Waterford to Cian Lynch for most of the first half was killing them and again Limerick excelled on puck-outs.
A toss-up between Gearóid Hegarty and Tom Morrissey and while the one was Hegarty it was the Ahane man Morrissey who not only sent over four points but provided a few for his fellow wing-forward. An outstanding game by Aaron Gillane too and Dan Morrissey was dominant at the other end.
Four yellow cards dished out by Fergal Horgan yet it was a number that should have been double that. Hegarty fouled four times and didn’t receive a booking. It wasn’t that he was missing the frees but he was making no record of who was committing the fouls.
The league should be up and running by the end of February where Limerick will be defending the first of their three titles claimed this year.
A Gillane (0-10, 6 frees); G Hegarty (0-7); T Morrissey (0-5); S Flanagan (0-3); W O’Donoghue, D Hannon, K Hayes, P Ryan, D Byrnes (0-1 each).
S Bennett (0-10, 9 frees); A Gleeson (0-5, 1 sideline, 1 free); K Bennett, D Hutchinson, K Moran, C Lyons (0-1 each).
N Quaid; S Finn, D Morrissey, B Nash; D Byrnes, D Hannon (c), K Hayes; D O’Donovan, W O’Donoghue; G Hegarty, C Lynch, T Morrissey; A Gillane, S Flanagan, G Mulcahy.
P Casey for G Mulcahy (49); D Reidy for D O’Donovan (59); P Ryan for S Flanagan (63); A Breen for A Gillane (69); P O’Loughlin for K Hayes (inj 70+1).
S O’Keeffe; I Kenny, C Prunty (c), S McNulty; K Moran, T de Búrca, C Lyons; J Barron, K Bennett; N Montgomery, A Gleeson, J Fagan; D Hutchinson, S Bennett, J Prendergast.
I Daly for T de Búrca (inj 21); D Lyons for K Bennett (40); C Gleeson for N Montgomery (44); P Curran for K Moran (52); S Fives for I Kenny (55).
F Horgan (Tipperary).
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