Limerick footballers have people talking again. Now for action

Ian Ryan remembers the buzz of bygone years but says promising spring campaign can bloom into something even more meaningful 

Real momentum: Limerick and Billy Lee carry renewed hope into Saturday's Championship opener. Photo: INPHO/Lorraine O’Sullivan

Limerick people want to talk about the Limerick footballers.

Local interest isn’t always the most foolproof metric to gauge the graph of a county team, but in the case of Billy Lee’s outfit, the growing conversations on Shannonside run in perfect tandem with the recent progress of the Treaty footballers.

Ian Ryan wore the green shirt with distinction for just shy of 10 years. In his debut season of 2008, he kicked a sensational 3-7 against Meath in a first-round qualifier at the Gaelic Grounds, all bar a converted penalty of his tally arriving from play.

It was a performance that helped him secure a young footballer of the year nomination alongside Kerry’s Tommy Walsh later that year.

Ryan was part of a Limerick team that time and again put it up to Cork and Kerry, was part of a Limerick team that the opposition respected and the locals took pride in getting behind.

In recent weeks, the former Treaty forward has noticed something he’s not seen - or heard - since those heady days under Mickey Ned O’Sullivan and the early years of Maurice Horan’s tenure.

“It is the first time in a long time where you'd meet people in the street and they'd stop and talk to you about the footballers,” said Ryan.

“You are definitely talking a minimum of 10 years since that was last the case. In 2011, 12, there was a good buzz. After that, it tapered off. The amount of people that come up and talk to you about football now, it is great to see. There is great optimism in the county at present surrounding the footballers.” 

That Limerick people want to talk about their footballers is off the back of a spring campaign that saw the county move into the League’s top 16 for the first time in 15 years.

Promotion from Division 3 has also spawned a genuine belief that Clare can be toppled in the county’s championship opener tomorrow evening in Ennis - a Munster championship pairing that Limerick have not come out on the right side of since Ryan’s second season in 2009.

Equally important as reversing a run of five consecutive Munster championship defeats at the hands of the Banner, Ryan insisted, is replicating Clare’s seven-season Division 2 consistency.

“A win this weekend would be huge for the game in the county, especially for the young players. There are a lot more eyes on Limerick football at the moment, and that is what you want.

“You want people watching the matches, you want people following the games. Every time you win then, it improves your audience and creates more interest,” continued Ryan, who is the primary school development officer on the Limerick football development committee.

“Clare are the benchmark for a lot of counties. Ourselves and Clare for years would have been up and down in Division 4 and 3, but they have managed to stabilise in Division 2. That is where Limerick want to get to - a Division 2 team that is not being promoted and relegated, promoted and relegated.

“I always remember after we lost to Kildare in a qualifier in 2012, after extra-time, and Kieran McGeeney came in and he said to us, what are you doing being a yo-yo team between Divisions 3 and 4, will you get up to Division 2 and stay there, you are more than capable. Now, he said it in a nice way, but he was right.

“He basically said to us, you are going nowhere unless you are in Division 2. It was a great point and it stuck with me. For whatever reason, our team couldn’t do it.

“Clare have done it, and they have done a lot of other things right. I hope and I think we are following in that direction now with the academies, those players should start pushing through in the next couple of years.”