McCarthy the man for resilient Limerick

Damian Stack looks at some of the stories making backpage news over the past seven days

THERE’S a folk hero quality to Richie McCarthy.

He’s just one of those guys when you see him on the pitch you know you can trust implicitly. If the name wasn’t already taken we’d be tempted to dub him The Rock. He’s the beating heart of this Limerick team, the soul, the conscience, the whatever you’re having yourself, he’s it.

People raved – correctly – after the match about the performance of James Ryan around the middle of the pitch, they marvelled at his ability to cover the ground, to do what needed to be done (that too is Limerick hurling at its best).

People raved – again correctly – about Wayne McNamara’s influence on the half-back line, they raved about Donal O’Grady at centre-forward and they raved about the influence of the young guns – Dowling and Hannon and Downes – but for us McCarthy was the man, THE man.

His battle with Seamus Callinan set the tempo for Limerick. It was the cornerstone of their resistance. In it McCarthy – and Limerick – showed that they were up for the challenge. That they were the Munster champions, not some source of pity or even ridicule.

It was easy, too easy, to dismiss them on the back of behind the scenes shenanigans. The departure of Donal O’Grady as joint manager is the type of thing that could plunge a lesser team’s season into turmoil.

The type of thing that’s plunged Limerick into turmoil in the past. The message McCarthy and his team mates sent out on Sunday afternoon couldn’t be more clear: we’re not that team any more, we’re the Munster champions, there’s a reason why we’re the Munster champions and here it is.

Limerick deserved that victory. They deserved to win by more. Tipp will feel they should have seen the game out and given the position they were in with less than five minutes to go that’s not an unreasonable assumption.

It just fails to take into account the goal that wasn’t that should’ve been. It fails to take into account Limerick’s temperament and their seeming lack thereof. The Premier just don’t win close games, not since they last won the All Ireland anyway.

Last year they lost two tight games with Kilkenny, the league final and an All Ireland qualifier, both to be fair in Nowlan Park. This year – and here’s the crucial thing, both times in Semple Stadium – they’ve lost tight tussles, against Kilkenny in the league final, for the second year in-arow, and again on Sunday.

That’s got to set alarm bells off for Eamon O’Shea and his players. What are they doing wrong? Where are they going wrong? It won’t be for a lack of debate and criticism in the Premier that this team will fail. O ’Shea already has come in for criticism for his substitutions, particularly that of John O’Dwyer, who had scored four point from play up to that point.

Was that call the difference between success and failure here? Who knows, maybe, maybe not. That won’t stop people from using it as a stick to beat O’Shea over the head with. Win and nobody bats an eyelid about those type of calls. Lose and suddenly everything is questioned.

It’s hardly fair. It simply is what it is. Those two points, that Shane Dowling goal, the failure to get over the line when seemingly everything was set up for them to do so, that’s what will haunt Tipperary and rightly so.

John Mullane has said he doesn’t see a way back for them this year. That’s a man who knows a hell of a lot more about hurling than us, a man who knows a hell of a lot more about the psychology of a hurling team too.

Still it seems a little overly dramatic. They lost a game by two points against the Munster champions. They did so not playing particularly well. There’s more to come from them. Noel McGrath will have better days. The aforementioned Callinan too and with Bonner Maher in the kind of form he’s in they have to stand a chance in mo s t games they play.

It’s far too early in the year to be writing anybody off and it’s far too early in the year to be declaring Limerick a success. Success is silverware. Success is improving on last year and doing it in Croke Park.

They’d be the first to admit they’re a long way from doing that and about six weeks away from getting to the chance to do it against Clare or Cork or Waterford. They’ve made a start, a good start, a start that’s confounded expectations, no more than that. Cover blown, the hard work starts here.