John Fogarty: Have Limerick broken the hurling year?

LEAGUE DEVALUED: Limerick Manager John Kiely lifts the Liam McCarthy aloft at the TUS Gaelic grounds.

Speaking the morning after their All-Ireland final win over Kilkenny, Limerick manager John Kiely claimed the league was being “devalued - and that’s a very retrograde step”. He had stated his reason last Christmas, believing the league final taking place two weeks from the start of the provincial championships was too short a turnaround for those in the decider.

He was most certainly correct yet knowing one or two managers’ private opinions about Limerick’s indifference to the last two leagues they might argue to him that it’s Kiely and his team - not the GAA’s fixture planners - who have driven down the secondary competition’s stock price.