Apologies Sid I remembered them playing Kerry in an important match and was confused. It was 2006, they were relegated to division 2 in 2005, they played Kerry in the division 2 final for promotion in 2006.
As an aside Down stayed up the year they were relegated which shows the contrasting fortunes of both since. Down just promoted back from 2B this year.
Limerick would want to be 5/1 before could back them for this game. It’s the most undercooked we’ve been going into a championship game in years. Keeping it more respectable than last year is all we can hope for.
Limerick v Tipp in 2007 is a good example. We did Tipp a big favour that year, they went to Sheedy, shed some deadwood and rebuilt for their assault on KK in 09 & 10 with the low expectations allowing him time to mould a system. Limerick failed to capitalise at all and you could argue that Richie had got the last sting out of them, we ended up with too many lads living on reputation and then when the necessary clean out came (although handled very poorly) we went on strike and set ourselves back 3 or 4 years.
Similarly McGrath used 2014 as an excuse to gut the Waterford team for 2015 and start again with low expectations, while Dunne has lived off that in spite of achieving fuck all since.