Itâs obvious the reason Limerick have âslidâ this year a bit is because of Lynchâs absence. Yes their touch is slightly off but it was still pretty immaculate yesterday when working out of defence. Itâs no coincidence that the one game Limerick breezed by was the one Lynch played. He makes everything tick, works to win the ball back in the right places, wins balls effortlessly out of rucks, sets up vital scores, scores vital scores. The players around him increase massively when heâs there at 11. The pack have caught up a bit but he has been a massive loss all year and we have done unbelievably well to go unbeaten and come through these games without him fit, adding Casey to that too.
I suppose, who knew if you took out the best player in Ireland the team fade a little bit.
yep, thats a fair enough point. That they needed to be so mad and wild to keep the intensity going as the fitness may have been waning. They had enough ball and chances at the end to either level or win it, but they wasted every one of them. They had 2 sidelines where they hit one wide and they other straight down the throat of Limerick defenders. It is those sort of things that they needed to be better with at a critical juncture of the game. And thats as @fenwaypark alluded to earlier, is where the coaching comes in. When you are at that point in the game to be able to know what is the right thing to do. And as @bandage said too, it was shown by Limerick when Nash carefully played the ball out of the defence when the manic thing would have been to just horse it back down the field.
Horses for courses Iâd say. Galway needed the fire which they brought, or they may not have got into the position to win. Limerick played some beautiful hurling in fairness. Iâm gutted we couldnât get over the line having played so hard, and so well, but Limerick were excellent and deserved the win. We brought the fire to match them, but they had ice as well.
It was a great game, a great occasion, and in truth as clean a game as youâll see these days between two sides concentrating on the ball and on winning.
Youâd have to fancy Limerick to win but its entirely based on prior yearâs evidence. A lot depends on if Casey and Lynch are 1. Picked to start and 2. Can improve a lot in 2 weeks
Two points, one, Shefflin was correct, it was a galway ball. If he wasnât lepping and jumping a point behind with time nearly up, Iâd have been deeply concerned, and the second, we were right to go for the point from the sideline. It was actually a really great effort, had easily the legs, just drifted wide.
There is zero chance Lynch and Casey start. You just cant miss so much time and expect to be able to play at the pitch required for an all ireland final.
I was watching the match with my old fella and he was going nuts that Galway were going for the point rather than trying to work it. The player in question is excellent at those cuts. I felt it was the right call but one of those where you are damned if you do and damned if you dont.
Settling down with kids is the big thing. The hunger is never the same. Your priorities just change, which is grand at club level, but unfortunately, at IC level these days, thereâs no room for the lad who canât attend an odd training session because of work or social life or whatever. Youâre either all in or all out.
You could say it was the perfect result for Limerick yesterday. A proper championship game against a team who turned up to play, gave their all and exposed plenty weaknesses.
The composure of experience saw us over the line. They kept their heads and stuck to the process, even after Galway had almost completely shut down our forwards in the second half.
The final will be 50/50. Can Kilkenny bring the same performance again? They werenât really tested on Saturday and the last time they blazed through a semi-final they fell very flat the next dayâŚ
I had high hops that Tom Morrissey would light up Croke Park but he was poor and could have been yanked much earlier than he was. We were well beaten out around the middle and Murphy pinged arrows on our half-backs. In the tight, the successes were Hannon, Hayes and the full back line, although there were little elements of unease about Mike Casey.
Thereâs bags to work on, but a win is a win. Has the makings of a hell of a scrap on the 17th.
Youâd have to say that based on form lines alone Kilkenny should be going into the final as slight favourites and if they are in touch coming down the stretch they wonât hit the shit wides that Galway did. As my late father always said, âKilkenny are divilsâ.
Galway left that one behind them. They failed to go for the jugular when they had their foot on Limerickâs throat. All the David Reidys in the world wouldnât have been much use to Limerick if Conor Whelan had gone for the goal instead of taking the easy option there near the end of normal time. I suppose the fact that he had had such a poor game probably put him in that frame of mind but you would expect Kilkenny in the same situation to go for the goal.
Yeah there is an element of that, but as mentioned earlier by someone else, you need a rational mind if you want to be able to make the correct decisions, whether thats a player or manager. He got the call reversed, which as you say was the correct call, but that should have been that. Instead Shefflin went tearing up along and telling his players to get forward and go inside. Thats when cool heads are needed. But then the resultant ball was driven wide. Sport is emotional and it is very hard not to be going mad on the line, its something you learn and is a coachable thing in itself to be able to withdraw yourself from the intensity on the field.
Listen, hindsight is great in circumstances like this, you can over analyse everything to death in it all. But you generally find that its the team who have the skills and the composure in those final couple of minutes are the ones who will win more often than not when it is so tight and the margins are at their finest.
As for going for the point? Again as noted, damned if you do or dont. Was Tony Kelly right to go for it against Limerick? He scored, so it was great. Had he missed, as he did with a quite similar position against Wexford, it looks terrible and people will say to work the ball. Again, hindsight is great. However, at that point with it going into injury time and not desperate for the point off the cut, Iâd rather play the percentages and hit a long crossfield ball to the far corner into space rather than going for it. His second line ball was again a cut to no where, just aimlessly long rather than finding a man. Again, this comes with experience and coaching. Find possession and work the ball for a score. If you look at the last couple of Limerick points, they usually came about after a couple of handpasses or short hits working the ball into a scorable position.
The game as a whole was frantic and that suited Galway. It upset Limericks rhythm and it worked for them. But just focusing on the final minutes in injury time was the difference of when a team who knows how to close it out shone through.
A few of the Limerick players, Gillane in particular, are also well capable of cutting the ball over the bar. But Limerick donât see this as a viable option. They tend to try keep possession and get the ball in hand as soon as possible from a line ball. Then take their chances of getting a shot off later. Iâm sure they have stats to prove this is the best option.
Iâll tell you another good one. When a attacker puts a sideline ball out of play inside the opposing 21, the attacking team invariably get a score from the resulting passage of play. Itâs a difficult area to defend from and they are a man down, the man taking the sideline. Iâve studied this myself to such an extent that Iâd have no problem with a forward purposely putting the ball out of play in the corner. Itâd be like kicking for touch in rugby.
Limerick however have this well sussed. There are no aimless sideline balls from them. Watch themâŚ
