Anthony Daly: Victory secures Limerick's place as one of the greatest teams in hurling history
TOP OF THE TREE: Limerick's Declan Hannon and Cian Lynch lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup. ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne
What a day. What a weekend. What an All-Ireland final. I probably got a bit carried away on TV at the end of the match when I went on a rant about the All-Ireland final having to contend with the Open and the reaction from Ireland’s incredible win against the All-Blacks on Saturday, but, let’s be honest, there was only one show in town this weekend.
Of course I’m biased. Of course I’m always going to laud my own game ahead of any other sports. But how can any fair-minded sports fan say that the fare on show yesterday — which was put on by amateur players — could be topped anywhere else in the world? If anyone says it can, I’m not having it.
I was probably a little hyped up anyway because of the brilliant weekend we had as the Jubilee Team honoured before the match (along with Wexford), and the feelgood factor from being back among all the boys again two-and-a-half decades from when we were out on that field bringing glory to our county.
The ground was nowhere near full when we were waving to the crowd but we were all delighted with the reception we got from both sets of supporters. We were all roasting in our suits from taking a handful of steps on the hallowed sward so for those players to put on that exhibition in that melting heat further increased our admiration and respect
for what these players are capable of now.
You could see just how much it took out of Limerick at the final whistle when there was no mad outpouring of emotion, just a deep inhalation of satisfaction at such a job well done. The players just embraced those around them in a calm and understated way because they literally had nothing left to give. Incredible stuff.
The best team won, no doubt. Limerick hadn’t been hitting the heights on the scoreboard that they’d reached in other years but they did yesterday when the need was greatest. Even for Kilkenny, to hit 2-26 and still end up on the losing team says everything about the massive resistance they put up, and the quality they matched to that defiance and never-say-die-attitude.
Kilkenny gave it everything but they were just a little too disorganised in the half-back line to get a proper handle on the Limerick half-forward line, which ultimately was the deciding factor in the game.
Paddy Deegan did play a lot of ball but Gearóid Hegarty cut loose. I couldn’t understand how Hego wasn’t man-marked, especially when he’d started so well and you just knew he was in the kind of early groove and rhythm that was going to be hard to stop.
All of the Kilkenny half-backs scored but they could never get a handle on that triumvirate of Hegarty, Kyle Hayes, and Tom Morrissey. Kyle almost summed up their — and this team’s — endless reserves of spirit and endurance afterwards when interviewed on TV. “Ah, it wasn’t that warm at all,” he said after galloping around like a racehorse for the previous 80 minutes, when everyone else was nearly passing out with heat-stroke.
The fact that only the big three had done it before yesterday — Cork, Tipperary and Kilkenny — further reaffirms just how big the achievement is.
A final can only be great, though, if the other team produces what Kilkenny did yesterday. They are some hurling county. They just refuse to submit, refuse to give up, which is exactly what you’d expect from any team managed by Brian Cody.
Even the way in which they scored the last three points, when the game looked over, and how they gave themselves one last shot at rescuing the match, summed them up. They’ll rue the late misses from Adrian Mullen and Richie Reid but Kilkenny couldn’t have done a whole lot more than what they heroically did.
A lot of counties would have drifted out of the game and hit the canvass far earlier with the way Limerick kept landing haymakers on their chin. When Limerick had pushed the margin out to six points coming up to half-time, I was wondering if the match could get away from Kilkenny. But no, they just knuckled down and got it back to four.
That fightback was led by the imperious TJ Reid, who just gave it everything again. What a man. We’ll never see his likes again. Hopefully we’ll see him again next year.
We know for sure that Cody will be back. Getting this performance out of Kilkenny was another tribute to his greatness but the guy down the line from him yesterday is heading some way towards that territory.
Nobody will ever surpass Cody’s 11 All-Ireland wins as a manager, but John Kiely’s achievement in winning the three-in-a-row, and a fourth in five years, firmly underlined the job he has done with this bunch.
The way he has handled the whole group, inspired them, and got the maximum out of these players is so Codyesque. Even when some controversy rose its head again this year after the Tipperary match, when a player got involved in an altercation on a night out, Kiely handled it so well that nobody could even recall what had happened a couple of weeks later.
Limerick keep motoring on, keep reaching new heights. Even when Kilkenny charged at them late on and got the game level with seven minutes of normal time to play, you always felt that Limerick would find a way, as they have done all season.
They had huge performers and leaders all over the field. The scary part for everyone else is what they’re capable of and what they might achieve next. Cian Lynch will be back fit next year. Peter Casey will be fully recovered. Cathal O’Neill will be a year older and more physically developed. Whooh.
It's already scary to think that yesterday could have been the crowning of a five-in-a-row if Kilkenny hadn’t beaten them in the 2019 All-Ireland semi-final by one point, when Limerick should have had a late 65 to try and take the game to extra-time.
It’s been a remarkable journey but the beauty of this journey finishing on July 17 is the potential of what that could further open up for them, and safeguard them from the perils so many great champions were exposed to in the past.
The players will go back to the clubs now but they have an age to refresh and recharge before next January comes around again. You never get enough of winning All-Irelands but these boys are probably like Kilkenny when they were at their peak — the celebrations will last for a shorter period and they’ll already be looking forward to next year before they know it.
All that will come in its own good time but yesterday was a fitting end to the season which, let’s be honest hasn’t been as good as recent championships in the last 10 years. But we had a Munster final that will go down as possibly the greatest ever, while this All-Ireland final was as good as any I ever saw.
It was just a magic weekend all round. We had a brilliant night in the Castleknock hotel on Saturday night before being bussed into Croke Park yesterday by Dublin Coaches. The fact that everyone was there meant so much to us all.
Kieran Keating, the county chairman, spoke, before I told a few yarns, but none of us could hold a candle to Ger Loughnane’s speech. After Loughnane held the room in the palm of his hand, I said to Keating afterwards, ‘Now you know why we won a second All-Ireland.’
Loughnane spoke about the film A River Runs Through It. The general theme of that movie is based around two sons who have very little in common bar fly fishing. One of the sons was a little wild. The other fella was more introverted.
We’re all different. Every team is made up of different characters, with unique traits and personalities and idiosyncrasies. But as Loughnane rightly said, it’s the hurling, our love of the game and what we achieved, which will always keep us together.
Please God in 25 years time, when these Limerick boys are waving to the crowd, they’ll remember these golden days. Their hurling days aren’t done yet — not by a long shot — but long into the future, the memories of yesterday will have kept them together.
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