Fearlessness has been the hallmark of Treaty’s remarkable displays
Fearlessness has been hallmark of some gutsy displays for a team who want more
LIMERICK are the Prince Charming of this year’s fairytale hurling championship. You can’t help falling in love with them. They perfectly embody the freewheeling, adventurous, rollercoaster spirit of the most exciting championship ever played.
Sometimes teams seem to have the force of destiny behind them. Like Clare in 1995 and Wexford a year later. Limerick are the same type of outfit, often underdogs, sometimes beleaguered but always convinced they’ll find a way. They take a licking and keep on ticking.
That was evident back in March when they trailed Galway 1-13 to 0-4 after 28 minutes in their Division 1B promotion decider and social media was awash with variations on, “So much for this famous promising Limerick team.” By the final whistle Limerick had won by two points and returned to the top flight.
You can almost hear a collective gritting of Shannonside gnashers when push comes to shove. In their first Munster Championship match they trailed Tipperary with ten minutes left but surged to win by six. Away to Cork they were a man short for 45 minutes and snatched a draw with a last-gasp Kyle Hayes point.
Their Cusack Park collapse against Clare propelled them into a quarterfinal meeting with Kilkenny where they found themselves two points down with five minutes left against hurling’s great closers. Yet Limerick finished strongest and two injurytime points carried them through.
All previous perils looked minor by comparison when John Kiely’s team were six points down with six minutes left yesterday. They wiped the gap out without even scoring a goal.
Aaron Gillane’s injury-time free put them a point up. Then Pat Horgan’s levelling free with seconds remaining meant 20 additional, punishing minutes.
Yet extra-time wasn’t the tense affair it had been on Saturday. Limerick looked like winners even before Shane Dowling and Pat Ryan’s goals put the game to bed. It was injury-time against Kilkenny all over again, the opposition simply swamped by an unstoppable Green Wave.
The rallies in the last two games would have been remarkable from any team. But it’s extraordinary to see Limerick doing this kind of thing. This is, after all, a county whose hurlers have for decades specialised in tantalising and disappointing their fans. One All-Ireland in the last 77 years is slim pickings for a county with so much talent and tradition.
Sang-froid under pressure has never really been a Limerick characteristic. But this is not your father’s Limerick – 2018 edition Limerick have the traditional coolness of Kilkenny, confidence of Cork and steel of Tipperary.
The magnificent Gillane may be
their emblematic figure. He could have had three goals yesterday but imprecise finishing, and a tendency to lose his hurl, meant the cornerforward came away with just two points from those opportunities. Something similar happened against Kilkenny when Limerick’s lack of ruthlessness in front of goal enabled Eoin Murphy to keep the game alive.
Yet, more importantly, Gillane was the semi-final’s outstanding forward, finishing with five points from play, slotting over half a dozen frees, not all of them easy, and constantly winning the ball in dangerous positions. His three goal opportunities were largely self-created. In his first year out of under 21, the Patrickswell star has already become one of hurling’s finest attackers.
Limerick are like Gillane. They are not perfect, the raw, coltish quality you’d expect from one of the youngest teams ever to reach an All-Ireland final is sometimes evident. But the drawbacks of youth are more than compensated for by its advantages. When the likes of Gillane or Gearóid Hegarty or Cian Lynch miss an opportunity, they don’t dwell on it. They simply come back and have another go.
That’s how it’s been with Limerick all year long. Failure doesn’t faze them, it simply spurs them on to try and do better next time. There is a freedom about their play, a refreshing willingness to take risks which renders them irresistible when in full flight. Fearlessness is the key.
Such is Limerick’s youth that at just 25 Shane Dowling almost seems a figure from another generation. Four years ago he was one of hurling’s most promising youngsters yet this term he’s been overshadowed by the tyros coming through from the victorious All-Ireland under 21-winning sides of 2015 and 2017.
Yesterday he stepped off the bench and masterminded that miraculous late rally, bagging three points before putting away the crucial extra-time penalty with the confidence of a man who believes his and Limerick’s time has come.
COMPREHENSIVE
Cork must wait a while longer. Three times in five years they’ve won Munster titles and been found out in All-Ireland semis. This defeat was not as comprehensive as those inflicted by Tipperary and Waterford but it’s more disappointing.
Last year’s Munster title was a welcome surprise and anything further would have been a bonus. This time the Rebels felt it was their year yet as limbs tired late on Limerick seemed more driven. Perhaps that’s understandable.
There was talk beforehand of Cork being fired up by the disappointment of recent years. But the difference between Cork and Limerick disappointment is the difference between hunger and starvation.
Cork could still have won it when Seamus Harnedy bore down on goal three minutes into injury-time. As a member of the county’s great goalkeeping clan, Nickie Quaid knows what Limerick have had to endure.
He pounced to flick the ball off Harnedy’s hurl with the speed of Zorro carving his initials on a rival’s jaw. Quaid has had enough of it. They allhave.
This was not a Rebel song. This was a bloody wonderful Sunday for Limerick.