Limerick selector Liam Cronin: Hungry young players driving on our older players
HUNGRY: Limerick's Adam English battling to break free. Pic: Tom O’Hanlon/Inpho
Limerick coach and selector Liam Cronin maintains the county would not be competing for a sixth All-Ireland title in nine seasons were it not for their younger players.
Adam English, Aidan O’Connor, Cathal O’Neill and Shane O’Brien were not on John Kiely’s team that beat Kilkenny three years ago.
Their emergence over these last three seasons has been vital, according to the Mungret man who joined up with the group at the end of 2024.
“I don't think we'd be having a conversation, full stop. I think there's no question about it.
“It's not even, the fact that they're younger players. You take Aidan, Cathal, Colin (Coughlan), they've all served their apprenticeship. Even though they're still very young players, they've been around the group for a while now.
“John was very quick to realise when I was talking to him in the off-season of ’24 that he was well aware that freshness was needed from a management perspective but also from a playing perspective.
“Unless you have those younger players coming in, you need something to drive those older players. The hunger that those younger players have shown to have driven the older players on to, ‘Well, if I don't maintain my standards here, somebody else is going to come in ahead of me.’ That has been the reality of it.”
Several of the group passed through Cronin’s hands in Ard Scoil Rís. There was the likes of captain Cian Lynch, “an incredible free spirit”, with whom he won a Harty Cup in 2010.
“You could see his graph coming from a long way out. It's really pleasing to see the man and the leader that he has grown into now. There was never anyone questioning his technical and tactical ability on the pitch. He's just an incredible person and man at this stage. I'm not surprised to see the impact that he had.
“How he carried himself in the two weeks leading into the (Clare) game knowing that he had probably a battle to get in there was incredible. Selfless is probably a word that you'd probably describe him. He very much puts the team first. We were delighted that we were able to call upon him when he did and that he was able to last for the 15-20 minutes he was on the pitch.”
Fintan Fitzgerald is one of the latest crop to have been coached by Cronin in the institution on Limerick city’s North Circular Road.
“I had the Harty Cup team in school in ’24. Fintan was our centre forward. This is his first year in on the panel. I'm nearly sure one of the first evenings in he called me ‘sir’!”
Cronin, who was a selector with Clare when Limerick ended their 45-year wait for an eighth All-Ireland title in 2018 as they beat Galway, has an acute sense of the worth of the recent All-Ireland minor title, the county’s first since 1984.
“The manner of the minor win was hugely pleasing, just in terms of the resilience that they showed in the game, their hunger to work, a lot of traits that our boys would pride themselves on. It was a very Limerick-like performance.
“The fact that, as a county, we haven't won a minor All-Ireland since 1984, Tom (Morrissey) and Cian and a lot of those boys would have gone very close to winning one.
“There was no doubt it was a massive boost there. The likes of Joe McKenna and Gerry McManus have put in huge work with the academy. They'd be frequent visitors to our sessions too. It was fantastic to see the Limerick minors get over the line.”
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