Are you going for the earlier train? 
Limerickâs 45 years of hurt
Countyâs ex-players have kept the faith through decades of frustration
Denis Walsh
August 19 2018, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
Promise unfulfilled: OâGrady and Brian Begley celebrate U21 success in 2000RAY MCMANUS
In a land of giants, far away, David Punch played for Limerick. By 1976, when he started, the whiff of an All-Ireland lingered still. All around the dressing room were faces from a Carrollâs All-Stars poster. The Hartigans, Pat and Bernie, were cousins on his motherâs side, three times removed. In 1973 that was something to say.
Punch stayed for 13 years. Every October, on the Thursday before the opening league match, notice of your continuing usefulness or your severance would appear in the Limerick Leader when the team was published. What kept him? Love is a complex thing.
For most of that time Limerick hurling existed in various states of promise. The chance that, one summer, they might be as good as they could be had an addictive quality. In 1980 it nearly came true. They beat Cork in a Munster final for the first time in 40 years. Punch was detailed to mark John Fenton, Corkâs elegant centre-fielder.
âI was told, âDonât worry if you donât hit two balls if you can stop him hitting ten.â I had a good pair of legs. I was able to run.â Fenton scored two points from play; Punch did too.
Everything was different. From time to time the team would take their post-training meal in the Shannon Arms but mostly they were fed in a room in the Gaelic Grounds with the stench of lime and grass-burning chemicals in their nostrils. âGoing up to the final we didnât even have as much as a V-necked jumper to say we were from Limerick.â
Were they relaxed? On the night before the game the Limerick manager Noel Drumgoole, took Jimmy Carroll and Leonard Enright for a pint. Just one. The manager paid. The day, though, erupted. They couldnât find solid ground. âI found the whole thing overpowering, I did. I found it scary, to be honest. When Bernie Forde kicked his goal for Galway Iâll never forget the noise between the two stands. Iâd never experienced it before. A noise boom. I found it a bit over-powering. The regret is that we never got back to a final again, our group.â
The baton passed, the struggle continued. Punch was still playing when Shane Fitzgibbon joined in the early 1980s. No sooner had he landed when Limerick won the National League two years in a row. It was inflammatory. What was he supposed to think? âI know this sounds terribly naĂŻve,â says Fitzgibbon, âbut we thought we were going to win the All-Ireland every year. In the 11 years I played we were always in Division One. You were always within striking distance. You might get to the last five or seven minutes [in a championship match] and get pipped. Then you think, âWe were close this year, weâll get over the line next year.ââ
Fitzgibbon quit at the end of 1993, just before Limerick won their first Munster title in 14 years, just before the emergence of a team that would contest two All-Ireland finals in three years. They approached him again in April 1994. Are you sure? Certain. âWith the benefit of hindsight I would have stayed on for anything. I live with it every day, to remember that I retired in the summer of 1993 in a fit of pique saying, âIâm sick of this â weâre going to win nothing.ââ
Fitzgibbon folded back into his club and kept going. More than ten years ago he brought a few lads to a Limerick U-14 trial. There was only one sliotar and when that was lost the trial was abandoned. âI remember coming home to my wife and saying, âThis is a joke,â giving out like mad. âWell do something about it so,â she said.â Fitzgibbon composed a charter of what needed to be done and sat down with the chairman of Bord Na nOg, the juvenile division of the Limerick county board. It was a prototype document for the academies that would follow later. They ran with it. A sub-committee was set up, driven by Fitzgibbon, Eibhear OâDea and Eamon Cregan in the beginning.
âWe were producing good hurlers, but we werenât producing enough of them.â It was haphazard. There was no coherent process for talent identification and player development. At the time Limerick didnât even have a school in the Dr Harty Cup.
Plans had been tried before, with success. The Limerick U21 teams that won three All-Irelands in a row between 2000 and 2002 â with Punch as a selector â was partly the fruit of a five year plan conceived in the mid-90s. But there was no follow-up plan and after 2002 Limerick didnât reach a Munster U21 final for another eight years.
Ten years ago they started strength and conditioning programmes for the countyâs underage squads. Unlike other counties they decided it was better to do the sessions collectively. The Limerick county board, though, didnât have the facilities so they approached Young Munster rugby club for the use of their gym.
âAfter the first few nights [of gym work] there was a county board meeting and a number of people protested furiously that this was a complete waste of time. The young lads were stiff and sore the following day and anyway this has nothing to do with hurling. I was only talking to Ger Hegarty about it today and we were laughing about it.
âWe knew that to kick it on to the next stage we needed money. It was around 2011 when Gerry and JP McManus came in and funded us. Joe McKenna took over the academy at that stage and I went on to manage the minor team for two years.â
A dozen of the players that will start in Croke Park today came through the Limerick academy. This was the outcome they dreamed of ten years ago: generation upon generation of rounded hurlers and athletes; elite players.
âI donât mind saying this because Iâve said it to loads of people,â says Fitzgibbon. âI know theyâve won nothing but the displays Iâve seen this year are the best hurling Iâve ever seen Limerick play.â
When Limerick won the 1973 All-Ireland Punch and his brother Dominic were in the Hogan Stand and in the post-match mayhem they somehow descended to a spot within touching distance of the players. Today Punch will be in the press box, supplying in-game stats to RTEâs commentary team. When Marty Morrissey approached him 15 years ago Punch had just finished five years as a Limerick selector, U-21 and senior. He was ready for a change. Trying to manage numbers in the whirlwind of a modern championship match requires a slow pulse. This summer, in Limerickâs games, that has been testing.
âItâs been hard to keep my heart rate down. It was very easy in other yearsâŚ.Iâm there to do what I have to do. But I have no doubt if everything is looking good with 30 seconds to goâŚ.I canât say that the folder wonât go up in the air and I wonât care where it lands.â
After the semi-final he turned to Darragh Moloney and Michael Duignan, RTEâs commentary team. ââDid ye see the attendance lads?â âYeahâ But they werenât seeing what I was seeing. âLook at the last two digits â 71,073. When was the last year we won it?â Are the omens turning?â
In all this time faith hasnât failed them.
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Amended pal. Thought you were from kK 
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Nope.
Good morning boys. Hope you all have a fantastic day. 'Hon Limerick.
There were ticket stole in some club during the week I hear.Hope none of the TFK fraternity have any as they have been cancelled.
Right lads, no turning back now.
I donât want to hear about aches & pains.
If you feel sick then you feel right.
Today is to be enjoyed, soaked in deep.
Enjoy the day my epals.
And one of ye cunts donât forget to get me a Spare Program. 
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Playing a final on Sunday August 19th is new ground for both teams.
However Galway have a dreadful final record when the dates fall as they do in 2018.
Theyâve lost finals on:
Sunday September 9th, 1928
Sunday September 2nd, 1979
Sunday September 2nd, 1990
Sunday September 9th, 2001
Sunday September 30th, 2012
But, you may say, in 1923 Galway beat Limerick to win their first title and the dates fell the same way as 2018. That is a fraud, as that game was played on September 14th, 1924. So Galway have a 100% losing final record on the 2018 dates.
It was in fact Limerick who won the All-Ireland in 1923, not Galway. Limerickâs â1921â title was won on Sunday March 4th, 1923.
Limerickâs last title came on Sunday September 2nd, 1973. They also won the 1934 title on Sunday September 30th.
Weâll disregard 2007, as that doesnât fit with the narrative and is thus irrelevant.
A growing feeling has taken hold of me that Limerick are going to do it today.
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As is the rest of your post.
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Sitting here in the hotel in Lanzarote and itâs certainly not like AI final day. The Germans are non plussed and the one lad I spoke to last night thinks Joe is a fat cunt, but he said Galway are too clever for Limerick.
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A Limerick KK double today is what the forum both wants and demands!!
cop on you eejit
its a few lads going up on the drink hoping their team will the thing,
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??
Are you sorting my program?
if i decide to head in to it i will send you a PM 100%
im not sure yet if ill just stay at home tho- but yes if i go in il deffo get you one
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You gimp
Iâve a ball of nerves in the pit of my stomach. Iâve listened to every podcast, radio show and read every article all week and they did nothing but add to the nerves. Iâm confident but shitting it, weâre gonna win and be bate handy. Itâs everything weâve wanted and now itâs within reach⌠The heartbreak, the false dawns, the moral victories⌠Coming out of Thurles every other year swearing youâre done and then being convinced you are gonna win come October when the draw is made for next year. We lose today and it we will have all the same shite thrown at us but I wouldnât have it any other way. But if we winâŚ94, 96, Fitzhenry 01, Ennis 06, Tipp 09, strike 10, The suits of 13, Seamus Hickeyâs hawk 14⌠And a thousand other cuts will be exercised in a moment of pure delirium.
Enright, The Quaidâs, Carey, Kirby, Clarke, Houlihan, Moran, ShaughnesseyâŚ
Some people call me superstitious, but they are way off the mark, but Iâve worn the same outfit, down to socks and jocks, to every game this year and we havenât lost. (Didnât make Clare game)
All week the Cranberriesâ Dreams has been going through my head⌠I know Iâve felt like this before, but now Iâm feeling it even moreâŚ
One of the best days I put down watching Limerick was the loss to Waterford in 2012⌠Bizarre youâll say. In typical Limerick fashion we lost to a sucker punch at the deathâŚbut there was something about the youth on display that day that felt different. No where near the current crop but there was a changing of the guard feel to it. Those lads are the senior players now at the grand old age of 25 and 26⌠And tho we joked about it in 14 it has worked out that they have combined with the minors of then to take us to the brink. Is it their time? Is it too soon? - All I know is it could be 11 years again before we get back here. Just leave it all out there for the 70 odd minutes. Start well and we have a shot, but as ever with Limerick, we are up against it . Letâs roaring the team on lads but mind the first roar ffs, weâve seen what that can do beforeâŚ
Limerick by 2.
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There was 1700 fans at limericks first league game of the season. This twee vomit inducing shit today is completely at odds with that fact
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