A troupe of Limerick unbelievables: the best hurling XV of the half decade

With the first half of the new decade done, Kieran Shannon puts all the pieces on the board and divines what hurling standouts are on course to make the Best XV of the 2020s.

Clockwise from top left: Diarmaid Byrnes, Shane O'Donnell, Tony Kelly, TJ Reid, Gearoid Hegarty, Aaron Gillane. 

HURLING is well acquainted with domination. When the Irish Examiner did this exercise 10 years ago, seven Kilkenny men were on the team of the half-decade, representative of the county having won three of the five All Irelands that had been on offer.

For the decade before that, the same writer had eight Cats on the best XV, one for every All Ireland final they contested in the 2010s.