John Kiely: In any other society, war would have broken out
John Kiely said the Limerick hurlers are "very much attuned" to how precious Munster title wins are for the county. Pic: John Sheridan/Sportsfile
As the manager of the most successful team in Munster SHC history, it’s entirely appropriate that John Kiely marks his 50th senior championship game in charge of Limerick with a provincial final.
Not every final success is the same, of course, and Kiely has six to choose from but for anyone with Limerick affiliations the two claimed on home soil stand out for obvious reasons.
Beating Tipperary in 2019 was memorable because it was the first in six years and first under Kiely. Fending off Clare four years later was special as their neighbours had made it so clear they were happy to play the game in TUS Gaelic Grounds having beaten them there in Round 2.
“There's one great beauty,” Kiely smiles of such home comforts. “You can relax afterwards. You don't have to go get on the bus. You've done enough as it is, so there are long days, there are hard days, but when it's over, you just want to relax.
“When we have been here in the Gaelic Grounds, we have relaxed afterwards and taken our time, because they do take a share out of you.
“You want to be able to sit down with your team-mates afterwards and just say, ‘Listen, we gave our best version of ourselves,’ which was either good enough or wasn't good enough on the day. Just enjoy each other's company, because they're rare days.
“We've been very fortunate. We've been part of these for the last number of years, but it's not lost on us. In 2013, the previous Munster title was in 1996, so I keep reminding the boys of the longer periods of time that Limerick experienced without a Munster title winner or maybe even a Munster title appearance or Munster final appearance. They're very much attuned to that.”
Sitting on the team coach going up the Ennis Road for the final two years ago will live long in his memory.
“Outside the Greenhills Hotel, there were 5,000 or 6,000 Clare supporters and we drove through them and it would make the hair stand in the back of your neck. It was just an incredible moment. You looked up the road and there were about 10,000 Limerick supporters coming out against you. In any other society, war would have broken out.
“Thankfully in the GAA it's a shared celebration of a really special sporting event that people far and wide from Ulster, Connacht and Munster want to come and savour and enjoy. Long may that be the case.”
Limerick’s couple of victorious Munster final days in the early 1980s left an indelible impression on Kiely in his formative years.
“We had a pub at the time, you see, so it was always a rush to get back to the pub because the pub would be busy.
“We were trying to squeeze these matches in, if you like, but I think as a young fella, those are the moments that kind of encourage you to either get out into the yard with a hurley when you go home and stay there for the week or you'll get up on a bike and cycle down the road. It'll either sow a great seed or it won't hit at all.”
You would have to be as dumb as a rock not to realise how much defeating Cork last month meant to this Limerick group. As clinical as they were, it was an emotional victory and the question is just how much more can they drawn from that well on Saturday.
“Obviously, the process of preparation is very detailed. But on top of the detail you have to have that little piece of the reality of the emotion of what's at stake, number one, and what it would mean to be successful, number two. Those rivalries with your opponents add that extra layer to it because it does bring additional meaning to it. That's what sport is all about isn't it? It's what we all enjoy about sport.
“There's always that certain amount of emotion in there. I suppose it's controlling it and having it in the right way and using it for the right purpose to get the right outcome. It should be an energy giver rather than an energy taker and managing that emotion is a task in itself to make sure that's what happens.”
It wouldn’t seem like the wound of missing out on five-in-a-row is going to be balmed by a Munster round robin win as emphatic as that 16-point win was. Even if Kiely is glad the uber-expectation around that quest is gone.
“It was almost the first line at Mass – ‘We'll pray for the five-in-a-row and we'll move on to the more important matters of life and death’. So it's definitely no harm that it's finished with. It would have been lovely to do it, of course it would, but such is sport and we move on to the next challenge.”
Saturday’s prize is the prize but the bonus is an All-Ireland semi-final and Kiely certainly doesn’t consider the four-week break as the reason for Limerick’s downfall to Cork last year.
“If you go back maybe five years ago, I think the narrative was it worth winning the Munster title because of the four weeks off? Do you remember that? That seems to have disappeared. Whereas now, I think we've proven that it is a very worthy route forward from Munster and one that's worth fighting for.”
Until Limerick lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup, there will be doubts but Kiely is convinced that they have already illustrated in this campaign that an era didn’t end last year – “That narrative has been debunked now.”
And he is absolutely certain that his group’s story is extremely far from over.
“We've always done right by the lads medically. If they weren't fit, they didn't play, and we've always treated them extremely well that way, and I think that's been borne out now.
“You know, they're strong. They're really strong, and I think the support is there for the players now. I think it means that they can go on for many more years than what they would have done 20 years ago even.”
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