Éamonn Cregan: Playing Cork twice is bad enough... now you have to beat them again and again

Never in his wildest dreams did Cregan imagine he would live to see Limerick’s current riches. Over a 10-season period, he won four Munster medals. For the county to be on the cusp of a seventh in as many years, well it’s just utopian, he says

Former Limerick hurling manager Éamonn Cregan. File picture: Liam Burke/Press 22

For a man who stresses he has no social media presence, Éamonn Cregan was surprised by how many people knew he turned 80 last month.

But having contributed to plenty of pen pics down through the years, it wasn’t going to be a secret for long just as it wasn’t for his old colleague Richie Bennis when he hit the milestone last February or Tom Ryan last August.

Saturday’s Munster final fills him with excitement but, like Babs Keating who became an octogenarian in April of last year, he thinks it comes too soon. “They’d want to put on their thinking caps now above in Croke Park and in the Munster Council for this to change. You can no longer have teams going out of the championship before the summer months. It’s wrong. The club doesn’t attract the same crowds.” 

Cregan is no curmudgeon. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would live to see Limerick’s current riches. Over a 10-season period, he won four Munster medals. For the county to be on the cusp of a seventh in as many years, well it’s just utopian, he says.

“Many of this crowd lost a minor All-Ireland final (in 2014) and that was the best thing that happened to them because it showed that they weren't as good as they thought they might be. Then they progressed, and then suddenly 21s, two 21s, and then an All-Ireland.

“I was asked to speak to them after they lost that minor All-Ireland and my last sentence was to them, ‘You might think this is the end, but this is only the beginning.’ Now, I said that just to cheer them up because they lost an All-Ireland final. I didn't think it would come so fast. But it's a dream come true, I'm in heaven.

“I don't know whether people could understand 45 years of being in the desert, and I'm going to look back over it, and I'm saying to myself, ‘Jesus, what things were done wrong in that 45 years, and what things were done right.’” 

It's 50 years since Cregan lined out injured against Cork in a Munster final. “I pulled a hamstring in 1975 outside training, and I didn't even know what a hamstring was. I was being treated with vinegar and poitín. I asked, ‘Will it be alright for the Munster final?’ ‘Ah, you will, of course, of course.’ Ten minutes in, Willie Walsh turned me, and I wasn't taken off even though I told him I couldn't move. I wasn't taken off.” 

As someone who in championship lost to Cork (six times) more often than beat them (twice, one draw), Cregan is naturally wary of a Cork backlash after Limerick’s 16-point win last month. 

“They (Cork) didn't expect to be beaten the last day, and I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. A friend of mine has a bet with three Cork fellas and it was they who suggested the All-Ireland final will be Limerick and Cork. I wouldn’t even think of going that far.

“We would have expected Cork to be in the Munster final as much as Limerick played so well in the first half the last day. But playing Cork twice is bad enough. In our day if you beat them, you beat them and that was enough for you. Now you have to beat them again and again.” 

John Kiely’s unprecedented success with Limerick might suggest they will never look outside their county for a manager again. In 12 years, they had four Cork men at the helm. Kiely himself was a selector to one of them – John Allen – but Cregan is not so sure that Limerick have reached the point of self-sufficiency.

“Not necessarily. It depends on the people being put forward. We have an exceptional group at the moment, and we were very lucky to get them. John had the background experience of being a principal in a school, plus he had been involved in teams way before. During the time of the strike, the Limerick strike. John was in charge of that second (intermediate) team and I have tremendous respect for him because of that. He took over, he knew what he had, and he went on.

“John has an exceptional group, there’s no doubt, and it's a combination of all the small parts, plus good leadership. It's a very high standard, and for anybody to get to that level. Like, I was there three times, and I failed three times. It's tough going.”