Selection intrigue only adds to anticipation of another Munster classic
HOW do you follow the greatest Munster hurling winners.championship of all time? Start, I guess, with a sell-out first-round game between a Limerick team chasing a record five-in-a-row of All-Irelands and a Clare team freshly crowned as Allianz Hurling League
Every attempt has been made to max out capacity at Cusack Park this afternoon, to squeeze in as many extra supporters as possible. In a week when Leinster Rugby announced that they had sold out 82,300 tickets for their Champions Cup semi-final against Northampton at Croke Park – in 36 hours, no less – one wonders what would have been the attendance if Clare versus Limerick was relocated to GAA HQ.
This one is the perfect scene-setter for the championship to come as Munster starts with a fixture that will tell so much about the group.
As per the official Clare starting 15, the big news was that Tony Kelly was back. Missing for the league due to ankle surgery, arguably the county’s best ever player is listed at number 26.
Will it be harder for Limerick now that Clare have discovered they can live without Tony Kelly – or have they really?
For all the idea that Clare have grown as a team in Kelly’s absence as other forwards such as David Fitzgerald, Ryan Taylor and Aidan McCarthy have really stepped up, there is no denying how Kelly has been such an influential figure in a thrilling modern Clare-Limerick rivalry.
Is Brian Lohan really confident that they can take out the five-in-arow Munster champions without turning to the Ballyea wizard?
It’s hard to imagine it happening without him leaving an imprint on the field.
That Limerick trust in their system and tactical set-up rather than employing a traditional manmarker has seen Kelly produce some stunning individual displays.
When Limerick won the 2020 Munster quarter-final during Covid – a match that doubled as the National League final – John Kiely’s side raised 36 white flags, the second highest in Munster championship history.
That same day in an empty Semple Stadium when the crowds weren’t allowed attend, Kelly hit a staggering 17 points, eight from play. Enough, on his own, to win six of the All-Ireland finals played during the 1990s.
Shane O’Donnell is also listed in the substitutes but there’s a strong sense that Lohan will parachute one of them in – O’Donnell’s inclusion makes more sense given his impressive second-half cameo in the league final.
Who could forget Kelly’s sublime sideline to bring the 2022 Munster final to extra time or how he was involved in another dramatic last act in last year’s decider when Peter Casey flattened him with a frontal charge deep into injury time, only for referee Liam Gordon to wave play on.
Limerick captain Declan Hannon is also back named at centre-back having missed last year’s All-Ireland final with a knee injury and has been playing catch-up since. In the build-up, he spoke about what Clare-Limerick has been like from inside the wire.
‘They’ve been stressful enough to play in, I can tell you that! I suppose from any neutral’s point of view, to watch those games, all the games to be fair, they’ve been really, really good and really entertaining and have gone down to the wire in a lot of senses. But yeah, they’ve been brilliant to be part of.
‘I suppose when you’re small and growing up these are the games you’d watch on TV and say, “Jeez, I’d love to be there someday”. Then when you are involved you want to enjoy them, try to make the most of it. And at the end of the day it’s all about trying to give a performance and win the match.’
It’s hard to see how this one won’t be cut from a similar cloth. Clare have realised that the best way for them to disrupt Limerick’s rhythm is go man for man in a lot of key positions and disrupt the supply lines that the likes of Aaron Gillane thrive off. They have the mix of physicality, athleticism and skillset to be able to try that but it still takes a lot of tactical bravery to do that – in one-on-one situations up front, Limerick have the capacity to do so much damage. But that tends to lead to a highly charged battle around the middle third along with plenty of individual battles rather than players hiding behind extra numbers in defence.
‘The two teams seem to bring out a lot in each other,’ admits Hannon. ‘I don’t know if it’s the best in each other, but they seem to bring out a lot in each other for sure. Maybe it’s the rivalry of being neighbours. A lot of lads would have gone to college together, gone to school together. A lot of lads would know each other.
‘Obviously no-one wants to lose. I think it’s two good teams who are consistent. In terms of performances over the last few years, both teams have been consistent in those high standards they’ve set and the high performances they’ve given.
‘There’s been plenty of draws, plenty of one-point margin wins, extra time. They’re kind of games for the ages I suppose. I remember Séamus Flanagan describing the Munster final in 2022 like that, the one that went to extra-time in Thurles. So amazing to be part of, yeah.’
For Limerick, there’s a degree of guessing around how the named 15 will actually line up. Cian Lynch is a two-time Hurler of the Year as a player around the middle third but is named at 15, left corner-forward. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he dropped out to his usual centreforward role with David Reidy switching to midfield and Cathal O’Neill to the roving corner-forward role that Limerick tend to employ through Peter Casey or Graeme Mulcahy.
The sense of intrigue around the 15 and two stacked benches is only adding to the sense of anticipation.
Will Kelly be sprung to put his fingerprints on another classic from the Clare-Limerick genre?
We’ll know by four o’clock.