Tom Morrissey: ‘You’re always going to be hungry if you want to improve’

Hunger will likely be no obstacle to Limerick in 2022, Morrissey explained

Limerick's Tom Morrissey celebrates. Picture: INPHO/Morgan Treacy

A third title since 2018 for Limerick and yet much of the wonderment that met their performance yesterday was married with the cold realisation that this could well have been a day when the county sealed a fourth on the trot.

The sense that John Kiely’s team are well down the road of a hostile takeover of hurling’s boardroom is undeniable and that makes it hard not to drift back to that semi-final in 2019 when they were denied their shot at an equaliser against Kilkenny.

Footage of the game showed that the then reigning champions should have been awarded an opportunity to level the scores deep into injury-time after Darragh O’Donovan’s sideline cut spun over the end line via Cillian Buckley’s stick.

One that got away? Maybe. A source of angst to feed the fire ever since?

“No, I wouldn’t say we use it,” said Tom Morrissey. “We lost that day, we weren’t good enough. Yeah, we did look back on it and assessed it no different to any game, win, lose or draw, and we look for improvements.

“That’s all we did with that 2019 semi-final. We did that but it wouldn’t have been a driving motivation or anything looking back on it. The nature we have as a group is just constant improvement and that’s all we took from that semi-final loss.”

Constant improvement. How much more can there be after this? Limerick’s first-half masterpiece will take some topping and yet everything about this team and this wider panel points in the direction of a road only half-travelled.

Their age profile is ideal. The structures in place, the people making it work, the backers providing the funds and the talent at their disposal all add up to a collective and supporting cast that could dominate hurling for some time yet.

Kieran Kingston said that they were operating at a level above everybody else. The thought that they could do better again is bewitching and terrifying in equal measure. It’s 1978 since a Munster county won a hat-trick of All-Ireland senior titles. What price Limerick in 2022?

Hunger will likely be no obstacle. “I think I said it there: you’re always going to be hungry if you want to improve,” Morrissey explained.

“With all the additions to the panel and people chasing your spot, if you have that desire to be a better hurler and a better athlete then you can always improve on all different facets to your game off the pitch and on the pitch, whether it be sleep or nutrition or in the gym, your hurling ability.

“It’s just that desire to be better. If you’re not moving forward then you are going to be passed out.” If this Limerick team is a stew of talent and time and structures and people then they themselves, like so many habitual champions, see nothing more than workrate as the secret sauce separating them from the rest.

Gearoid Hegarty spoke of this commitment to the grind after the final whistle — as well as the guidance given by Kiely and Paul Kinnerk, it must be said — as if every other team in the country isn’t loading up on the same protein shakes and using the same training cones.

And yet Kingston offered a variation on this when asked what one thing made it so difficult about facing them. He didn’t speak of tactics or individual brilliance or the confidence that winning has bred in Limerick. Far from it. Physicality, the Cork manager replied.

“I wouldn’t say we have an edge (there),” said Morrissey. Yeah, we go after tackles and if we are smaller than the opposition then we go after tackles as well. That’s just part of what we want to do.

“You’re not going to get onto the team unless you are prepared to work for the team. That’s something we pride ourselves on. The team comes first. It’s not just all about getting on the ball and easy scores.” Easy scores aren’t the end game. Neither are All-Irelands. Sports psychologists talk about internal motivations and Limerick are judging themselves by their own metrics rather than Celtic Crosses right now. The future remains theirs to shape.