The 2010 final was probably lost due to Brian Hogan’s absence rather than Shefflin’s
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Did you here Liam Sheedy on the Anthony Daly Podcast admitting Limerick should already be on 4 in a row?
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Tennyson was Kilkenny’s best player on the day iirc
Hogan was a msssive loss still though . The Dam broke with 10 minutes to go
Tipp had kk where they wanted them in 09. Benny Dunnes sending off reversed the tide. People forget this.
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I did, and they know Limerick could be going for 5 in a row in 2022.
However, it’s possible that if Limerick did prevail in the 2019 semi final and won the AI in 2019, they might not be as driven as they are today. We’ll never know.
2019 semi was a great learning experience for those young players.
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He’ll have to come up with something a bit more advanced to make it in football. Those bastardised football drills he has the lads at are 10+ years old, and Meath were doing the corner forward on the D under Boylan ffs.
Tipp were a point up when he was sent off (I think people forget that Tipp played nearly 20 minutes with 14 men). Kilkenny I think equalised from the free they got there. However, Tipp had pushed back to two up again approx 10 minutes later before Kilkenny got the penalty
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Referee fucked tipperary
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It’s an awful pity that Kilkenny are at such a low ebb. Kilkenny are the perennial benchmark in the sport really. Would be great if there was a strong Kilkenny team there and a rivalry for the ages between Limerick and Kilkenny a bit like what we’ve had with Dublin and Mayo over the last decade in Gaelic football.
Limerick have no real standout rival or team to go head to head with during their current golden era. Mind you, even with Kilkenny at their lowest ebb in probably over 60 years, since the 1950’s, in their 2 championship meetings. they still managed to beat Limerick in the 2019 semi final and were just edged out by 2 points by a few Limerick injury time scores in the 2018 quarter final.
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Seán Moran: Limerick riding the crest of a wave that shows no signs of breaking
Champions show what can be done when good development work is combined with talent
about 2 hours ago Updated: about an hour ago
Limerick celebrate at Croke Park. Three All-Ireland wins in four years have happened so quickly that it must bewilder the formerly long-suffering hurling community in the county. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Ka-boom! That happened quickly. Limerick’s relentless transition took them quickly from what we might call the Breakthrough Period to the Dominant Period.
It was almost as inexorable as the movement of ball from their defence through the lines to the point where open ground is spotted in front of their marauding forward.
So comprehensive was the defeat of Cork that immediately the team had been catapulted into conversations about where they stood in the all-time pecking order.
It has been a groundbreaking achievement by a whole variety of metrics. Take this one: Sunday was Limerick’s 10th All-Ireland. They become the fourth county to break double digits in hurling and the sixth overall – and the first not to be part of the ruling caste in either game.
As is almost a mantra, Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary have two-thirds of all hurling All-Irelands and Dublin and Kerry half of the football. These five counties have all been on double digits for the past 88 years since Kilkenny beat, coincidentally, Limerick in 1933.
Now, Limerick have joined them. Predictably they are also the first county outside the Brahmin caste to win three in four years.
It has happened so quickly that it must bewilder the long-suffering hurling community in the county. Until three years ago, Limerick were essentially – with a few more All-Irelands and a few fewer lost finals – Mayo in hurling.
Next month Mayo embark on an 11th final since they last lifted Sam Maguire. In 2018 it was Limerick’s sixth final and nothing to show for their efforts all the way back to 1973.
I first met Eamonn Cregan when he was managing Offaly in the early 1990s and working in an office in Nenagh to which I called on a couple of occasions back then. It always struck me as almost Shakespearean that he led the county to victory over his own.
Unlike Coriolanus, he had no argument with his own land but would be honour-bound to do his best by Offaly, which he did but his passion was for Limerick, bred into him as his father Ned had been on the famous Mackey team of the 1930s.
It was from Cregan that I first heard the lament, “one All-Ireland in X years . . .”
In this case X was the length of time since 1940 with the one break in the misery coming in 1973 when he had been a key player, switched from the forwards to centre back for the final where he excelled.
Historical irony
Among the many concepts to which he introduced me was the difficulty for players hoping to retain an All-Ireland. He and his team-mates had been convinced that they were working just as hard as they had the year before but in retrospect – his brother Mick was the physical trainer – he knew that that hadn’t been the case.
Kilkenny would argue that injuries had inhibited them in 1973 whereas they were fully loaded a year later when taking revenge. This establishes a great historical irony. It was the only blip in what might have been a four-in-a-row for Kilkenny, who won the All-Ireland in 1972, ’74 and ’75.
Forty-five years later, Limerick lost the All-Ireland semi-final to Kilkenny after match officials failed to spot a late deflection that should have resulted in a 65. Alternative histories aren’t gospel but that was a critical impediment to last Sunday being a four-in-a-row.
In these pages earlier this week, Cregan outlined the pioneering work of former Limerick hurler Shane Fitzgibbon and his ‘Lifting the Treaty’ project, which in time became the current well-resourced development system, driven by another former 1973 Limerick hero, Joe McKenna.
Time flies and the daunting road ahead at the very first development meeting with the tentative approaches to people like Cregan to get involved can now be seen as a pathway to the summit.
Current manager John Kiely challenged his players not to settle but to “push their boundaries”.
What’s the message here? It shows that with structures and work a county can make the best of its raw material. On the less enabling front, Limerick does have a population of nearly 200,000 and the benevolence of JP McManus but they have worked to transform the county.
There has been justifiable focus on the backroom team. For the past two championships Limerick have given their best performance in the All-Ireland final. The work of the physical trainer Mikey Kiely in bringing them to peak fitness for the cutting edge of the season has been remarkable.
For a team that looked out of shape in the Munster semi-final against Cork, they quickly improved – defying one sceptic, who cautioned that it was like trying to fatten a pig before market – and turned up in formidable shape for the final.
Performance coach
Then there has been the role of performance coach Caroline Currid, who has an amazing CV of bullseyes with sports people and teams, especially in Gaelic games, helping to bring All-Irelands to Tyrone (2008), Tipperary (2010), Dublin (2011) and all of Limerick’s recent three. Almost inevitably, she was on a year out in 2019.
John Kiely has publicly acknowledged her influence.
In the modern age – in both football and hurling – we are seeing extended periods of dominance maybe because a good team of players with good direction can avail of the advances in sports science and preparation detail to get more out of themselves.
Limerick have become such a well-oiled and talented machine that, even allowing for the recency bias that always surfaces after All-Irelands, it’s hard to see where a realistic challenge will emerge.
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If your deference to Kilkenny is anything to go by, no wonder Carlow are shite
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Theyre all the same down that way. Kilkenny have such a spell on them they celebrate corrupt calls like the non 65 … Stockholm i think its called.
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Also known as Duignan syndrome.
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The Limerick lads going to war now on little old Carlow and their 5 senior hurling clubs. They really should be trying to get a bit of joy out of their great win on Sunday and celebrate.
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We’re delighted pal.
Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women!
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Every Muhammad Ali needs a Joe Frazier, Limerick need a good rival for the next 5 years
The tide changed with the sending off. It was running tipps way until then, it stopped and then reversed slowly but surely. On a couple of occasions the Tipp half back had the ball, looked for his man with a crossfield ball, and there was no one there because benny was gone.