McGrath: Second title would earn Treaty greatness

SHANE McGRATH said that Limerick deserve to be labelled a ‘great’ team if they win back-to-back All-Irelands. Limerick’s All-Ireland odyssey last summer spanned a recordequalling eight games and McGrath said a title under the new roundrobin system deserves a higher value than in the past. McGrath, an All-Ireland winner with Tipperary in 2010 when Liam Sheedy’s team stopped Kilkenny’s five in a row, cited Kilkenny’s traditional shorter route to success. ‘When I was kind of playing Kilkenny, and they will go down as the greatest team ever, they were doing three in a row, four in a row, backto-back for fun. ‘What I am looking forward to the most is when are we ever going to see a team go back-to-back again, for the simple reason that you have to perform or get a result out of seven or eight games? Which is very, very hard to do. ‘If you went back through the years and you got a favourable draw, four matches and you are All-Ireland champions, whereas now, you have to play two years in the one nearly. ‘Are we ever going to see a team do back-toback again in the Success: Shane McGrath foreseeable future with all these games and if they do, I think they have to go down as one of the great teams as well because they will probably have won 15 out of 16 games in two years? You can be a great team and get yourself up for three or four games, but to get yourself up for eight games to be AllIreland champions, that is serious. Are Limerick going to be that great team that’s going to do the back-to-back because I think it’s going to be very hard done.’