Capital gains for the Treaty

HEROICS: Mickey Ned O’Sullivan while with Limerick

FOR just the third time ever tomorrow, the Dublin team bus will be pointed for Limerick.

The first was in Askeaton in March 1993, when Dublin scored a six-point win, and the next was on February 10, 2007, when they escaped from the Gaelic Grounds with a 0-14 to 1-10 victory.

The previous weekend, Dublin and Tyrone had played out a League opener in front of 81,678, a record attendance for a game in the competition.

But just 1,227 paid through the turnstiles at the Gaelic Grounds seven days later.

Former Limerick midfielder John Galvin reflects: “I suppose the only time we had a big support was, I wouldn’t even say it was massive like, but when we got to Munster finals you had somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000 people there.

“But besides that, we just wouldn’t have a massive football following.

Decent

“Look, we’re in a hurling county and I think alright, back in 2003, 2004, we had built up a decent following and then we got relegated and it all went away again and it never got back up.”

Limerick had come unbearably close to a first provincial title since 1896 under Liam Kearns on more than one occasion and after he left in 2005 a rebuilding job was passed over to Mickey Ned O’Sullivan.

Still, they were at a decent level, competing in a 16-team Division One (divided into two eights) in 2007 having won promotion.

“When Liam Kearns left, a couple of the older players left with him and Mickey Ned had to start blooding new younger players that time,” explains Galvin.

“I suppose we had done well to get to Division One but we just… we probably weren’t ready for it at the time.

“Even though we had a lot of close games that year, we weren’t ready for it I suppose.”

Year

And yet had they beaten Dublin they’d have earned a spot in the revamped Division Two the following year, while Caffrey’s Dubs would have been landed in Division Three instead.

“One thing I do remember is Pa Ranahan, who played for a long time afterwards,” adds Galvin.

“He got through on goal at one stage there and Cluxton saved it and the only thing I do remember about the game that if Pa Ranahan had stuck that goal we probably would have won it.”

As it was, Tomas Quinn kicked a 45 in injurytime to give Dublin a one-point win.

Limerick matured under O’Sullivan’s guidance and, again, came so close to that elusive Munster title in 2009 and ‘10, losing finals narrowly to Cork and Kerry respectively.

But a power shift in Gaelic football was kicking in at that stage and Galvin largely puts it down to the GAA scrapping the League structure that pertained up until 2007.

“The biggest blow to the League ever,” he says. “You basically made sure that the stronger teams were playing the stronger teams week in, week out and the weaker teams were playing weaker teams week in, week out.

“The levels did change pretty quickly in the space of a couple of years then.

“There definitely wasn’t as big a gap between the top teams and the lower tier teams back then.”

ICON: John Galvin in his playing days