How Limerick regained respect on road from football's basement

In spring 2019, Limerick footballers finished seventh in Division 4 and a report was published outlining the ill-health of the game in the county.

Limerick v Fermanagh

Limerick GAA chairman John Cregan headed up the selection committee charged with finding a new senior football manager in the autumn of 2016.

Also part of the committee were former players Muiris Gavin and Stephen Lucey, current football board chairman Gerry Phillips, and one Billy Lee.

Cregan recalls how the group had no difficulty in attracting candidates from outside the county, but that the preference of those sitting at the table was for a Limerick man to take the reins.

“When we were chatting about what we wanted in a Limerick manager, we looked around the table and said, maybe we already have our man here,” said Cregan.

Chatting to this writer a couple of weeks after he had gone from selection committee member to new Limerick manager, Lee was keen to stress that he had not once entertained the notion of managing the county team prior to the committee identifying him as a candidate.

“If I had considered it, I wouldn’t have joined the committee in the first place. My own young lad, Jamie, is around the scene and so I wanted to give him space. Subsequent events changed that, of course,” said Lee.

Those events were the conversations had by the selection committee while Lee was away on a family holiday in mid-September and the group’s consensus that the man who had served as Liam Kearns’ selector for six years during the heady days of the noughties was now deserving of the main bib.

“I was on holiday from September 14-21. They met at some point while I was away. There was a follow up meeting on September 22 at the Woodlands Hotel in Adare. I turned up to that and was told what was happening. The rules of engagement then are that you have to go off the committee.” 

As hardly needs restating at this point, the first three years of his now six-year term - during which results and player retention rates were as deflating as each other - was one step backwards after another.

The county’s seventh-place finish in the League’s basement tier in the spring of 2019 was followed in May of that year by the publication of a report by the Limerick football review committee that didn’t mince the ill-health of the game in the county.

“It became evident to all observers in 2018 that Limerick football was not in a very good place, despite continued increased investment in recent years we had lost our competitiveness across almost all grades and more worryingly had lost respect,” Cregan wrote in the report.

“The most disappointing aspect of our decline for me was the fact that many of our players whom we had invested in and who had come through the ranks of minor and U21/U20 no longer desired to be involved and we found ourselves fielding weaker teams than should be the case and therefore, shipping many heavy defeats.” 

The 24-page report contained 18 recommendations which ranged from increased focus on player recruitment and retention to the establishment of a Limerick football development committee.

Present-day members of that committee include former Limerick footballers Ian Ryan, Pa Ranahan, and Seanie Buckley, the trio holding down the roles of primary school, post-primary, and third-level development officer respectively.

“What they are doing is getting a handle on where we are at in those places and looking to see where we can improve. Coaching and Games have a huge impact in the schools, but if you are trying to improve football then you need to give it that extra bit of attention,” explains Cregan, who served as football board chairman prior to becoming outright county chair.

“There would be an opinion that we should be doing better in second-level college competitions, and we have been trying for a while to get the amalgamated teams back into the Corn Uí Mhuirí. The higher grade you can play in, the better.” 

The Limerick football academy, established by Paul Kinnerk in 2014 and which provides a pathway to minor and U20 level, drew favourable mention in the 2019 report, the committee remarking that the structure put in place by the multi-All-Ireland winning coach “is at times taken for granted”.

Kinnerk continues to draw up weekly coaching plans for the mentors and management teams involved in an underage academy led by another former Treaty footballer Stephen Lavin.

Ironically enough, the last recommendation of the 18 put forward by the review committee was the introduction of a second-tier All-Ireland championship that would enable counties to achieve greater player-retention.

That second-tier championship gets off the ground in the coming months, but Limerick’s promotion from Division 3 last weekend means they won’t be involved. They hold top-tier status now.

The lost respect Cregan wrote about in 2019 has been restored.

“It was not so long ago since Limerick were number 31 and there was difficulty getting people to buy into the Limerick football set-up. They have gone from bottom of the pot to a place where they have really restored credibility in Limerick football,” he said.

As outlined above, there are several individuals working away from the spotlight now shining brightly on the senior team who are doing their bit to foster improved interest in Limerick football and improved standards among underage players in the county.

But there can be no arguing that the man who has done most to turn around the fortunes of Limerick football, the man who refused to walk away in the face of 18 players leaving his panel at the end of the 2017 season and another 53 turning him down during the subsequent off-season, is the man who returned from holidays in Lanzarote in September of 2016 to find he was no longer required as an interviewer and was instead required for the job he is now thriving in.