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Limerick’s ecstatic fans welcome back heroes of ‘greatest All-Ireland ever won’
ALL-IRELAND final goalscorer Shane Dowling claimed that Limerick’s first senior hurling title in 45 years deserves to be considered as the greatest in the history of the game.
Limerick equalled the record eight games required by Offaly in 1998 and Clare in 2013 to win an All-Ireland but stand apart by beating Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary — the three traditional giants of the game — along the way. Not to mention seeing off reigning champions Galway.
‘What makes me smile as well, and I’m probably being biased here, but it’s probably the greatest All-Ireland ever won,’ he said at Limerick’s Citywest Hotel base.
‘It has to be. Look at the teams Limerick have beaten. How hard it is to get out of Munster this year. To beat a Kilkenny team with Brian Cody at the helm. And then to beat the Munster
champions. It adds to the whole thing. ‘There is nothing worse than if you were to win an AllIreland and go the easy route as such. To go down the route where there is only one way, and that’s forward, and to win it that way…’ For the second match in a row, Dowling lived up to his super-sub billing. After producing a grandstand performance in the All-Ireland semi-final against Cork, shooting 1-4 — including a match-defining penalty — he scored a vital goal against Galway just before the end of regulation time. ‘I went on and got two touches of the ball in 23 minutes. Obviously, one of them was special. Every sportsman has something inside them that they want to be part of it. Especially when you have been part of it in previous years. So to come on and play such a big role... it does make it all the more special, definitely. ‘What we’ve done is forever in the history books. And people in Limerick, I’m sure, will be forever indebted to us. But the show must go on. I’d hate to think anyone will get carried away. Not in hurling, but in life. That is something we’ll all be trying to focus on.’ He described how his ‘heart bleeds’ for all those players who missed out, from the previous generation through to Gavin O’Mahony and James Ryan, only recently retired, and his best friend Alan Dempsey, who didn’t make the squad. He knows that Limerick’s first senior title since 1973 comes with no guarantee of future success. ‘We hadn’t won the thing in 45 years. It’s definitely going to be difficult. But to be honest, that’s a conversation that will need to be had in December and January. ‘You need so much luck to win an All-Ireland. I mean that last free for Joe Canning, a hurley could have went to that, and it ended up in the back of the net very, very quickly.’ He admitted that the memories of the 1994 final when Limerick coughed up a late lead — that time getting sucker-punched by Offaly — crossed his mind as Galway came from nine down to within just one. ‘It went through everyone’s head. And I met JP McManus last night, I asked him, and he said the same thing. ‘It was nothing to do with us. Some lads weren’t even born, but it was such a big game. I remember 72 or 73 minutes, of 1994 all over again. Now it didn’t affect the performance, but it runs through your head. It has to. And if yesterday did go the other way, I’d say it would have been 10 times worse to take than 1994. Definitely. ‘A replay yesterday would have been like a loss to Limerick. Obviously we would have regrouped and gone again, but it would have felt like a loss, definitely. If we drew that game yesterday it would have been a disaster. ‘But it’s mad how this game has changed. Ten years ago, you wouldn’t touch a drop of liquor from January till nearly the end of the season. None. Now, after every Championship game, we all go and enjoy ourselves, management included. ‘The whole enjoyment side, which I believe was gone for the last number of years, because of how serious it went, that’s after going full circle again, and people are after buying back into the amateur, enjoyment side of it, which is very important. ‘Even small things, the odd occasion after training, the 99 van would pull into training at the Gaelic Grounds, and everyone is just chilling out on the field, having an ice cream.’ Turns out one of the secrets to All-Ireland success comes in a cone.