Fuelled on fury, Limerick's green machine rolls over Rebels
Cork’s Shane Barrett and Tom Morrissey of Limerick. Pic: James Crombie, Inpho
In full technicolor, this was the backlash.
All the grievance, all the fury, all the frustration Limerick had stored since last July was taken out on the Cork team who had obliterated their five-in-a-row tilt. As John Kiely said afterwards, his players’ “motivation levels are obviously absolutely through the roof”.
Fourteen years ago, Kilkenny had to wait a whole year before they struck back at Tipperary for ending their dreams of a fifth straight All-Ireland title. Limerick had to be patient two months less and even at that this act of revenge may the first of three battles, the second probably coming in a couple of weeks.
This meant more than just quasi-qualification for a seventh consecutive Munster final for Limerick. If there is no better sauce than hunger than there is no superior stock for it than defeat. That two-point reverse to Cork had been Limerick’s first in knockout championship in five seasons. What was rare was woeful.
It felt from early doors that Cork were on a hiding to nothing. Not that excuses how inferior they were to Limerick but the opposition they faced on the sod and the stands, even if on both counts they were equal in size, was ferocious.
The coin toss in Limerick’s favour and Cian Lynch opting to harness the breeze in the first half helped too, yet there was a sense in the opening quarter there was only going to be one winner regardless of the elements.
So many individual battles were lost by Cork and when Pat Ryan rolls the review tape in the coming days, he won’t have to add much commentary. “I suppose looking at workrate, it wasn't high enough,” he rued. “I guess that was the thing. We stood off Limerick and left them use the ball as they can. They were at a really, really good pitch, they were really up for it.”
In less than three minutes, Limerick were five points to the good. Tom Morrissey sent over a brace of points and then Aaron Gillane found the net having exploited a slip by Niall O’Leary after rescuing the ball from going wide. He then jigged past Ciarán Joyce and dispatched past Patrick Collins.
It truly was a taste of what was to come. Cork answered with three points but before Declan Dalton retired with a leg injury Limerick had another sight of goal only for Barry Nash to put the ball wide.
With four points in succession, Limerick stormed into a six-point lead. The amount of ball landing on top of the Cork full-backs was causing so much bother and Gillane penalised a couple of infringements while Adam English opened his ledger and Morrissey added a third.
In the Limerick half, Kyle Hayes performed a beautiful dispossession to deny Shane Barrett a run on goal. It was one of the many individual battles Limerick were winning and after a Brian Hayes point they hit Cork for another four scores without response.
By the time, Nickie Quaid kept out Patrick Horgan in the 23rd minute, the margin was eight points.
Lynch was weaving wonderful link play and he was integral to recognising a goal was on for English in the 27th minute that put Limerick 13 up. He added a point seconds later in a gorgeous 60 seconds of play for the two-time hurler of the year.
The hits just kept on coming for Cork. David Reidy became the final Limerick forward to score from play in the 29th minute and Diarmaid Byrnes their ninth scorer in total just before half-time.
Fifteen points down, Cork were in damage limitation mode and were far tighter on the likes of Lynch and Gearóid Hegarty. Cormac O’Brien was winning plenty of ball and another substitute Seamus Harnedy sent over a couple of points.
Cork strung together four points between the 45th and 49th minutes to offset the gap to 11 but Limerick were still finding so much space on Cork’s right flank. A Horgan goal from a free in the 61st minute made it a 10-point game only for Gillane to cancel it out with a green flag from a penalty he won against Eoin Downey.
Before the end, Horgan rasped the crossbar and Limerick’s catalogue of scorers had jumped to 11, their point more than made that their hurling still carries plenty of weight.
“We’d be a bit disappointed with a couple of pieces in the first 12 to 15 minutes of the second half,” reviewed Kiely. “We just made a few mistakes, dropped a few breaking balls that we had initially won and they turned them over. They punished you every single time so we’d be disappointed with that but really happy with the way we responded to that phase of play.
“Sometimes, that can get engrained in you and you almost sense things are sliding if you like and our response to that was super and we won the last quarter. For us to do that, it’s a huge takeaway. The last day (v Waterford) and the previous day (v Tipperary), the fourth quarter was the weakest quarter so we’ll take a lot from the final quarter and the impact from the bench I was delighted with that as well.”
Last autumn, Kiely spoke of Limerick being the hunters once again. Now that Clare are out, who exactly are they chasing? Cork will undoubtedly give a better account of themselves in future fixtures but this was a reminder that old money remains good money.
A. Gillane (2-7, 1-0 pen, 0-6 frees); A. English (1-2); T. Morrissey (0-5); G. Hegarty (0-3); C. O’Neill, P. Casey (0-2 each); M. Casey, S. O’Brien, C. Lynch, D. Reidy, D. Byrnes (0-1 each).
P. Horgan (1-9, 1-8 frees); S. Harnedy (0-2); M. Coleman, R. Downey, B. Hayes, S. Barrett, B. Roche (0-1 each).
N. Quaid; M. Casey, D. Morrissey, S. Finn; D. Byrnes, K. Hayes, B. Nash; A. English, W. O’Donoghue; G. Hegarty, C. Lynch (c), T. Morrissey; A. Gillane, S. O’Brien, D. Reidy.
D. O’Donovan for W. O’Donoghue (temp 37-40); S. Flanagan for S. O’Brien, C. O’Neill for T. Morrissey (both 51); P. Casey for D. Reidy (58); C. Coughlan for M. Casey (inj 67); A. O’Connor for D. Byrnes (68); B. Murphy for D. Morrissey (temp 70+3 to f-t).
P. Collins; N. O’Leary, E. Downey, S. O’Donoghue; M. Coleman, C. Joyce, R. Downey (c); T. O’Mahony, E. Twomey; D. Dalton, D. Fitzgibbon, S. Barrett; P. Horgan, A. Connolly, B. Hayes.
B. Roche for D. Dalton (inj 8); C. O’Brien for R. Downey, S. Harnedy for E. Twomey (both h-t); D. Cahalane for N. O’Leary (inj 55); R. O’Flynn for A. Connolly (66).
L. Gordon (Galway)
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