TAKING THEIR SHOT AT THE TOP
Rivals Clare and Limerick collide with both counties hoping to take their place among hurling’s elite
AS put-downs go, Davy Fitzgerald’s was sharp as barbed wire. What should have been a casual Sunday’s hurling in January was anything but when Clare and Limerick pitted two firebrand characters against each other on the sideline back in early 2014.
Maybe the Sixmilebridge venue had something to do with it, Fitzgerald wanting to send a message out for the season ahead from his home town and home club. Or maybe the frustration of arriving late due to a crash and forcing a 10-minute delay, had the Limerick players’ nerves on edge, along with those of manager TJ Ryan.
Either way, ahead of today’s Division 1B promotion decider between the counties in Ennis, neither man will have forgotten how the feisty exchanges in a Waterford Crystal Cup encounter — six players booked — spilled over into the post-match arena. Ryan, then joint-manager with Donal O’Grady until the latter decided to walk away later that spring, decided to lob the first grenade, questioning the legality of Clare’s tackling technique.
‘I was dubious enough about some of this new Clare tackling system. I don’t know how it’s seen from a refereeing point of view.
‘When a guy loses the ball he gets wrapped up, then the third man in picks up the ball. I don’t know if that’s a Waterford Crystal rule or a League rule. Another guy comes in and he’s wrapped up, then a third man comes in and takes away the ball — is that legal? We’ll have to look at it.
‘There’s a lot of it happening so, if you can’t beat them, join them, isn’t that what they say.’
When Ryan’s comments was put to Fitzgerald, who watched his second-string team defeat a much more heavyweight line-up, he famously replied. ‘I think TJ is off the charts. That’s ridiculous stuff. Welcome to the big league, TJ.’
Don’t think there won’t be an edge on the line at Cusack Park today as Limerick seek to escape from the confines of Division 1B where they have been trapped for too long.
Fast forward to last summer. Munster Championship quarter-final between Clare and Limerick, this time in Thurles. A tactical armwrestle of a game. Car-crash hurling. Clare’s system of playing with a seventh defender and Shane O’Donnell at the top of a Christmas tree formation in attack had clearly been well mapped by TJ Ryan who decided to fight fire with fire. And so Limerick dropped their wing-forwards deep and the middle third became a rolling maul of bodies colliding.
Little wonder, tempers flared as both sets of players entered the tunnel, Clare joint captain Pat Donnellan losing the rag and catching Limerick captain Donal O’Grady with his hurl in a melee near the tunnel, earning a red for his troubles.
If you can’t beat them, join them? TJ Ryan clearly saw the wisdom in his own words.
Fitzgerald and Ryan have history dating back to their own playing careers when they would have soldiered in opposite trenches. But they have more in common than they might publicly admit. Nobody does wound-up better than Fitzgerald who will constantly be in the ear of referee Fergal Horgan this afternoon, and his assistants. While it has made him an easy mark for satirists, that passion and pride for the cause makes him what he is.
Ryan wears his heart-on-sleeve in just as open fashion. One of the images of the 2015 Championship was the shot of him celebrating a Limerick goal against Clare, fists pumped, roaring openly in mid-spring, three-foot off the ground.
Or the beating heart image that became the story of Limerick’s Munster final defeat by Cork in 2014, the pain etched in the crevasses of Ryan’s face as he watched the game slip away.
This spring, both have been able to keep their powder dry as Clare and Limerick cut a predictable swathe through Division 1B.
A final round meeting had an air of predictability as a winner-take-all promotion match, even if Fitzgerald has sought to downplay the significance of a swift return to hurling’s top tier after dropping through the relegation hatch in 2015.
‘You’d like it, but is promotion that important? It’s not, and people can talk all the nonsense they want but you don’t have to be flat out as early in the year playing 1B.
‘We haven’t been at our peak and we haven’t wanted to be, whereas if you are in 1A, every single day is like a Championship game.’
Fitzgerald has long been an advocate of an expanded top flight and he made a point of reminding the powers that be of his position: ‘I would like a restructure [of the League] but at the end of the day we will be doing everything we can to be at our best — we know the challenge ahead of us. I rate Limerick very highly.’
His thoughts on Limerick might be a bit more choice as today’s encounter unfolds, the presence of former Cork goalkeeper Dónal Óg Cusack as part of Clare’s set-up only adding to the sideline intrigue.
A day to decide just who deserves a place in hurling’s ‘big league’.