LIMERICK WON’T PANIC AT ANOTHER CRAZY FINISH, SAYS KIELY —
‘Our resilience was one of the pleasing aspects of our performance’
AFTER the marathon three-hour hurling extravaganza that was the League quarter-final against Clare on the Bank Holiday Monday, stretching across two separate bouts of extra-time and an historic freetaking shoot-out, Limerick manager John Kiely gives the impression that one long, nerve-jangling affair like that is enough in a season.
‘It will be a late finish if it does!’ he replies when asked about the potential of a repeat saga against Tipperary in Thurles this evening, which throws in at 7pm.
Of all the various scenarios being played out in his head this week — the starting 15, the match-ups, how to stop a team that has scored the most goals (seven) in Division 1A and broken the 100-point barrier for a record fourth year in succession — the prospect of another free-taking shoot-out to decide a place in the final is, naturally, way down the list.
A part of him is still trying to process all the drama of the last day against Clare.
The character Limerick showed repeatedly is one of the things that stood out. Nine down against the breeze at one stage in the first half, and three down at the end of extra-time until Diarmuid Byrnes somehow smuggled a free past a parade of bodies on the line, the maturity this emerging young team showed pleased him no end.
‘Clare took a commanding lead in the opening 20 minutes. We didn’t panic. Just kept doing what we were doing all along. We knew we were creating the chances; just weren’t maybe executing them.
‘With injury-time now, the game is nearly stretching to 80 minutes. You’ve plenty of time; you just have to keep your head. You saw that with Tipperary against Dublin at the weekend, they went down by quite a distance. Just kept going until they reeled it in,’ Kiely says.
‘That was one aspect. I suppose we showed great resilience and our work-rate was very good so those were the two primary pleasing aspects of the performance.’
‘A crazy event,’ is how he described the epic sweep of the afternoon that ended with the strangely unsatisfying shoot-out, where five players squared off in a free-taking contest from the 65metre line. When nobody missed, it went around again between the same players until Niall Deasy blinked for Clare and Colin Ryan ensured his name went down in the history books.
With the prospect of the same process being used in Championship in the preliminary All-Ireland quarter-final in the event of a draw after extra-time, Kiely would prefer to play to a finish. ‘From my perspective, I want to see the game finished in a normal hurling sense, with regular play. That’s just my own preference.
‘I’m pragmatic in my approach. I’ve no control over the parame- ters of the game. They’re short weekends so they had to bring in something to bring the games to a conclusion on the day. I’m sure the powers that be will look at the two examples they have, between the Gaelic Grounds and the Walsh Cup.
‘Who knows, there might be a few more before the year is out. Let’s wait and see.’
The option of a ‘golden score’, a version of soccer’s ‘golden goal’, is one popular alternative being floated; penalties another. ‘Anthony Daly prefers the penalties; some people are suggesting a two-point margin – the first team to get a twopoint lead, that would be another option. Ultimately, we take what’s handed down to us on the day and get on with it. If it happens to us in the future, that’s what will do again.’ In another sign of how the parameters of the modern game are changing, Limerick were one of four teams across Division 1 to hit over 100 points over the five group games — Kilkenny (106), Tipperary (105) and Wexford (101) in Division 1A – while Kiely’s team hit a whopping 114 in sealing promotion from Division 1B. As a manager, does he sense the fundamentals of the game changing?
‘Players are shooting far more often than they used to. That’s number one. There are far more scoring chances being created, and the players are taking them on. That then has a knock-on effect in that it probably reduces the number of attempts at goal if those shots are being taken from out the field. That’s one factor.
‘Defences are very well set up too. You can see that with Wexford with their sweeper — they don’t concede too many goals, although Tipperary did manage to score three in the League match they played.
‘The keepers are another factor. We have top-quality keepers out there at the moment who are bringing off quality saves. Their agility and the emphasis on goalkeeping coaching is huge as well. You have a real challenge to beat a keeper now because they are so agile and so sharp.
‘If you looked at the goal-scoring chances more than the goals scored, it might be more accurate.’
He admits that promotion from Division 1B after eight seasons stuck in hurling’s second tier was ‘a significant achievement for this bunch of players’.
This evening, though, represents another searching examination of Limerick’s credentials. ‘We’ve a really tough assignment against a Tipperary team who cruised through their 1A campaign, cruised past Dublin last weekend. They’ve tried an unmerciful amount of players in different
positions so they are in a great place. Michael Ryan has made no bones about it that he wants to win the League.
‘There’s a big prize at stake. Tipp will still be hurting from last year, how Galway caught them in the final. So we’re not underestimating the challenge going in to Thurles.’
The fixture will be a forerunner to the summer. Limerick face Tipperary at the Gaelic Grounds in the first round on May 20 as part of the new round-robin format to the Munster Championship, which involves four games, two home, two away. Kiely is excited about the radical change to the long-standing traditional knock-out format, dismissing any idea that it might dilute the competition.
‘The last thing the Munster championship will be this year is diluted. It’s going to be four Munster championships wrapped up into one. It’s going to be a phenomenally tough competition. ‘Listen, teams will be fighting for their lives in that competition when May and June comes around. It’s going to make for a very exciting five weeks of hurling. I think it will set the hurling championship alive when it comes around. ‘We don’t know really what it’s going to be like until we actually experience it. You get a flavour of it in the latter stages of the League, when you’re going week to week. But it’s only a flavour. For everybody involved, it’s going to throw up some very interesting scenarios along the way. It’s there to be embraced. Have a go off it and see how you go.’ No doubt Limerick will approach tonight’s game in the same manner.