Iâd always back the team on the way up to stay up. Momentum is huge.
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Just ask Norwich
6 points are nearly safe across the divisions. Kildare and Laois both got relegated with 5.
Itâs a bit of an ask but they have a nice spell to look at things, play the county championship etc.,
They deserve a bit of recognition from the CB as well, wonât do any harm.
Obviously depends on how many we lose to the seniors.
Something like:
Chanley
Thomas Keane Lyons/FOC
Hurley Quilty Coughlan
Stokes Reale
Hego CON English
AOC POD SOB
Whelan will be there or thereabouts too; Kirby, OâDĂĄlaigh, Scully, Davy.
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That is six serious forwards at this level.
Do you think CON, AE and CC wonât see championship game with the seniors which will knock them out of contention for the 20s?
Canât see CON not featuring for the seniors anyway
CON will play. So heâll play vs Clare and be missing for the rest. And heâll be a massive loss.
The other two might, but definitely not guaranteed.
Heâd be getting gametime in my book also.
I think the 20s comp is supposed to be run off by mid May.
In that case Limerick seniors might keep him in reserve until they finish the 20s campaign.
CON AE and CC wont feature for the seniors. Kiely knows the year is gone. It was good while it lasted. Major rebuild over the next 18 months.
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Even without OâNeill, thatâs a serious looking forward line and team. Probably favourites for the AI.
I hope heâs not playing against Cork because I have a sneaky suspicion weâll be under pressure in Ennis.
Sixmilebridge
Even worse
Ha?
Favourites with CON, donât think we are without him.
Ballwinning, scoretaking, work rate; you lose an awful lot. Liam Lynch is out as well who would be the most likely replacement.
Thereâs also a disruption issue, which I guess every team has, when you are training & playing challenges without your best players regularly. Tipp donât have many (any) 20s on their senior panel and are apparently going well.
Surely Cork are the favourites having won both U20 and minor by double figures last year?
Huge difference between u17 and u20 IMO, and Limerick have a slightly better crop on the age.
Weâre losing Joyce and OâLeary (Kingston wonât let them play a minute) with Flynn likely to be out for a fair bit of championship. Our 3 best players out for the round robin.
I see Limerick only losing OâNeill. Either way itâs shaping up to be a cracking championship.
Cummins is supposed to be a good coach but i canât see them contending. Waterford and Clare will be interesting - Clare in particular have a few lovely hurlers on the age.
If I had to call it, I see a Cork v Limerick munster final again but home advantage to swing it to the Shannonsiders on this occasion.
Cork 20s looked good the other night against a fine big KK team. Albeit a lot of changes were made second half.
Did you think? I thought they looked poor enough and they should have put Kilkenny away earlier. Felt they looked very rusty.
Theyâll walk Munster.
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From Christy OâConnor in the Cork Examiner.
Limerick are certainly nowhere near the zenith just yet, but the satisfaction of edging their way up the gradient is all the sweeter again considering how close they were to the nadir just four years ago.
At the end of the 2018 league, Limerick were ranked 31st in the league. Before they played Clare in the championship six weeks later, Billy Lee was on the verge of forfeiting the match.
Three hours earlier, Lee got a phone call to say that Jim Liston couldnât play because of an administrative error. Before the squad left Newcastle West, Lee told the county board that if Liston wasnât on the panel that he wouldnât be at the Gaelic Grounds as manager.
The matter was cleared up just minutes before the game through a call to Croke Park, but Limerick were already in a disheveled state. Walloped by 13 points, they looked like a squad going nowhere. Fast.
Where was there to go? Eighteen players from the 2017 panel had left. Trying to rebuild the squad throughout the winter of 2017-18 was a torturous ordeal for Lee because so many others had abandoned the cause; 53 players Lee had contacted turned down the offer to join the squad.
Replacements were thin on the ground, but Lee still stuck to his core principles. The pool may have been small, but Lee just went about making things better by ensuring that he had full buy-in from everyone who played for Limerick.
Ten of the players which featured against Clare in 2018 played last Sunday against Fermanagh.
âWho wouldnât want to play for Billy Lee?â asks former Limerick player Stephen Lavin. âHeâs the most genuine guy you could ever meet. Billy absolutely loves football and he just wants to have guys with the same passion and commitment involved with Limerick.â
Lee was part of Liam Kearnsâ backroom when Lavin and that talented generation of footballers radically altered the culture of football within the county two decades ago, losing Munster finals to Kerry in 2003 and 2004, with Kerry getting out of jail in the drawn 2004 final.
Lee had seen first-hand what proper buy-in and full commitment could achieve. Seeking the same baseline requirement when he took over was more of a struggle when the talent pool wasnât as deep or strong, but Lee never altered his philosophy.
âThe first thing with Billy is that he rewards loyalty,â says Lavin. âIf you put in the commitment, you get your rewards. The second thing is that he wants mature players, guys who have consistently put the work in over the years. Billy wants fellas who have served their time.â In recent years, any player who has been on the panel but who has left because of travel or other pursuits or interests is only asked back if their form at club or colleges level grabs the managementâs attention. Previous investment in the squad is irrelevant unless players show they are ready to heavily reinvest in the project.
That philosophy has certainly increased the maturity within the squad. Cian Sheehan, Limerickâs best player on Sunday, left the panel for a few years, before returning. Brian Donovan didnât play football for four years and was on a soccer scholarship in Miami before being picked up by Lee after returning home. âA lot of these guys have matured now and playing for Limerick is all they want to do,â says Lavin. âTheyâre mad for road.â That worldliness is also reflected in their physical make-up. Kevin McStay said on âLeague Sundayâ that Limerick âlook physically strongerâ, but they have been one of the biggest teams in the country for years.
Their S&C coach Adrian OâBrien is highly rated amongst the players, but Lee has assembled an impressive back-room team. The coach Maurice Horan was manager when Lavin played on the Limerick side which reached the 2011 All-Ireland quarter-final. âMaurice is a brilliant coach,â says Lavin. âPlus, heâs a really deep thinker about the game.â Iain Corbett, Donal OâSullivan and Darragh Treacy are the only players left from the side which last played in Croke Park, in the 2013 Division 4 final win against Offaly, but this is still a seasoned team now with an average age of 26.
When Lavin retired at the end of that 2013 season, he was heavily involved in the roll-out of the Limerick Football Academy, which was initiated by the county board and the football board. Paul Kinnerk was appointed Head of the Academy, a role he still retains.
Lavin started with an U14 Limerick team before working with various development squad through the decade. Two of that U14 team â Barry Coleman and Liam Kennedy â are part of the current senior panel.
âYouâve seen a lot of players come through the Academy in recent years to play senior,â says Lavin. âBut itâs only in the coming years that youâll see the real fruits.â
Good days are finally here for Limerick again. And they hope that better days are coming.
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