Limerick GAA 2023-2024.... 5 in a row is not here

[glasagusban]

Great round up

@Aristotle

I’m still not 100% convinced by the new balance of the team, I feel like we look better if we had someone in the Mulcahy/Casey role but we seem to have gone away from that.

Been saying this a while. I know it’s not the easiest role to get a handle on but English seems made for it and is having no difficulty getting up to the standard.

[glasagusban]

I think it was @Percy had been calling for O’Brien to be brought in and he was on the ball.

[glasagusban]

Flanagan didn’t look too bad going off. Wonder would he be alright in two weeks?

What a debut from O’Brien. Won at two turnovers back behind midfield on top of the scores, really good debut all round. He’s more than able for it. English also proved he’s well able for it and using him at midfield shows the confidence in him, probably won’t happen with the impact he’s having but I’d love to see him start as the season goes. CON in all star form. Couple other young subs making great contributions too.

Reidy had his best game in a while.

[Kyle]

On 20s form you wouldn’t think he had jumped ahead of English/ AOC / DOD2 … But there you go. Different role i suppose.
He’s suited to a loose role but he will most likely have Hogan ? welded to him next day if he starts and that will be a tough assignment. He has struggled when tightly marked to date.

[Kyle]

@glasagusban

Reidy had his best game in a while

Thought he was quiet for long periods

[glasagusban]

Thought he had slipped in the pecking order when others were appearing ahead of him but apparently Kiely was letting him play out his time with the 20s. Kiely is some operator.

[manbehindthewire]

Hogan has had the upper hand on him in the Harty & 20’s.

[Kyle]

Very much so. Let SOB come out the field and we’ll leave Gillane and Cleary inside to bear wrestle each other all day.

[Julio_Geordio]

@glasagusban

Flanagan didn’t look too bad going off. Wonder would he be alright in two weeks?

Hamstring, unlikely.

I’d say anyone touch and go won’t see time, Munster is a target I’m sure but we have bigger fish to fry

[Aristotle]

Kiely said in the interview that they won’t be playing anyone who isn’t 100% right.

DOD is fit but just hadn’t enough sessions done. Different situation for Seamie but even the mildest of hamstring twinges would probably mean you miss out in 2 weeks.

[Julio_Geordio]

@Aristotle

Different situation for Seamie but even the mildest of hamstring twinges would probably mean you miss out in 2 weeks.

He knew it was gone straight away, so I’d say it was more than a twinge.

[glasagusban]

I don’t think Cleary will get away with all that wrestling in Croke park. If we meet there I think he’ll get an early yellow and Gillane will go to town on him.

[BruidheanChaorthainn]

Gillane is getting involved in that as much as Cleary.

It’s more advantageous for gillane to get himself and Cleary booked early doors than it is for Cleary.

It’s fairly obvious it’s something Limerick have targeted because the inside forwards have been trying it a couple of times again this season.

[Aristotle]

Obviously it’s great if Cleary does get a yellow but Gillane doesn’t need that to play well.

Waterford showed how you play against Cleary; they took him running from touchline to touchline and they had him in bother. Physical contests suit him down to the ground.

Clare will presumably press right up against Limerick again and leave loads of space in front of Gillane. He needs to be on his toes.

[BruidheanChaorthainn]

@Aristotle

I thought we played pretty well yesterday. The wides were definitely very frustrating in the first half. The vast majority of them were definitely on and very scoreable, just poor execution, particularly because a lot of them were the same wide, trailing on the Mackey side. Byrnes had a couple that weren’t on but Flanagan (3), Lynch, Cathal, Reidy, Hannon all had ones you’d expect them to get. And the vast majority of these were very early on so, despite having dominated and created lots of chances, we found ourselves a goal down after about 15 minutes. And then we lost Flanagan, who had scored 3-3 the last day, on top of having lost Casey. Definitely not ideal. If you were a club team or even Limerick back in the day, you would be thinking that we were throwing the game away considering how strong the wind was. We’ve learned not to panic, but it’s not something that we can afford to replicate, I don’t think. We did it against Clare and just about got back, and did it again yesterday. The one day we did lose, we were quite accurate tbf.

But the goal seemed to spark us into life a bit, took a little more care over our shots and opened up a bit of a lead. Kyle completely took over in this period, he was absolutely immense in the first half. Like Cork, they had pretty much avoided him with the puckouts early on (fair enough when Jamie Barron was the one competing with him) but Byrnes with Lynch in front were coping well on the other side; the wind also helped us to pin them back so they then decided to hit a few in a row on Kyle and he ate them up.

We were turning them over on the short puckouts too, they just have a couple of players who aren’t as comfortable on the ball, we were getting them turned back and pouncing on the turnovers. I think Hego was very unlucky not to get a free when he turned them over and was through on goal. Looked a blatant trip from a despairing defender from my vantage point. With the sweeper in place, the only way we were going to get goals was from turnovers, I think, and we had a couple of half-sniffs but generally took the point. SOB scored with his first touch which must have been a nice confident boost and always looked an outlet.

5 points wasn’t as much of a lead as you would have liked with the wind but the display was encouraging, wides aside. Kyle was obviously the best player on the pitch by a mile but Mike Casey and Hannon were superb aswell and tbf to Byrnes, I’d be a little bit critical of his shot selection, but he dealt with a lot of pressure on puckouts really well, with Lynch doing a very good job on the breaks. Still can go to higher levels but a move in the right direction.

I know Davy is conservative and they were maybe afraid of conceding goals after we have banged in a few this year but TDB was very deep at times and it allowed Nash to sit in front for us. But, in fairness, they did press up for puckouts in the second half and didn’t allow Nash to take a short puckout which meant we generally had to go long into the wind. I do wonder whether we could have worked short options even when they pressed but it was obviously a risk we didn’t want to take. I thought we were under a little bit of pressure on our own puckout for a while in the second half.

Things were going fairly well though, until we conceded the second goal. And I wouldn’t even mind that in isolation, was a little unfortunate. Mahony was bottled up fairly well, Nickie made the save but they were just quickest to the rebound. I’m not sure if Hutchinson was trying to shoot or pass but it ended up being flicked home anyway. It was just, after that, Waterford got a bit of momentum and it felt, in the ground, like they were getting their scores a lot easier and that we were having to work very hard to even secure possession.

It’s a weird one because Waterford obviously only scored 2-14 overall which is very low-scoring but, in that moment, it felt like they were getting chances easily. It all came down to breaking ball really. We had dominated in the first half but they just won a few in a row. Gap was cut to two and then they did have chances to close it further. But it seemed like we just upped the work rate another notch; I think the subs did make a big difference. English was first on and had a quiet first 10 or so minutes but then he got a few tackles, got on a few breaks. Fergal came in and made a big impact, just getting on ball, using it cleverly and Boylan worked really really hard, won a free and got a point of his own.

For me, there was one clear turning point where you just felt, we are kicking for home. English picked up the ball in his own half, looked up and pinged a pass to Lynch. Lynch missed it (was fairly fired at him from close range) and it looked as if we might lose possession but Cathal stuck up a paw and just snatched it. Unbelievable hands, and I don’t think the TV coverage will reflect how important a moment it was. He carried it on a bit, delivered it straight inside to Shano, who also caught it clean, did his little dummy and popped it over the bar. Our best U-21 to our best U-22 to our best U-20 for what was the most important score in the game to kill Waterford’s momentum and give us a boost again.

Cathal was absolutely immense in the second half. As I said, we were going long on puckouts and basically just asking him to win them on his own at times. He did an unbelievable job at just keeping the ball alive until support arrived. Hegarty was very good too but Cathal really stood out; won ball, won frees, set up scores.

Waterford did have goal chances also in that period of dominance but we had two brilliant defensive moments to turn them over. Bennett found himself in behind in a little bit of space but Kyle did unbelievably well to get back and just prevent the shot off his right and then the cavalry were able to arrive. And then, on the other side, Padraig Fitzgerald had Dan in his sights, running at pace, with a goal on but Will bust a gut to get across and give him support and they forced him away from goal. Again, little moments that maybe aren’t appreciated on screen, but they were huge contributions that prevented shots on goal. And that’s what wins matches, those turnovers at crucial times.

I thought Waterford did trouble us in that period but never went ahead in the second half. Personally, I didn’t understand taking Stephen Bennett off. I’m not sure I understood Jamie Barron against Kyle as a match-up. Barron was perhaps guilty of taking too much out of the ball, running into contact, rather than quickly moving it (maybe lacking the options inside) and that’s where Limerick got their turnovers. In reality though, if you’re going to beat Limerick, you either have to hope that the wides continue for 70 minutes or you have to push up and really test their backs. Probably need to pin Nash back and stop him from cutting out balls inside and bursting forward. Our backs were generally quite comfortable yesterday, conceding only 2-14 and 25 shots is very impressive.

Still improvements to be had, I’m still not 100% convinced by the new balance of the team, I feel like we look better if we had someone in the Mulcahy/Casey role but we seem to have gone away from that. Subs making big impacts which is good. Would be nice to get DOD back for a Munster final and maybe Seanie Finn too (although that didn’t sound as promising). Flanagan will be a loss for sure, hopefully it’s not too bad but SOB looks capable of competing at this level at least. Sounds like Kiely didn’t even have him in consideration until the 20s was over, let him play away with that. But he must be in decent form in training if he leapfrogged Ó’Dálaigh who looked lively in the first couple of matches. Presume SOB will start in Thurles now but I suppose DOD2 will gave it a good go in training to win that jersey.

In fairness, we’re going for a 6th Munster in a row and have plenty room for improvement. Not a bad position to be in.

With Dod coming back in could mean it’s cian lynch who takes up that role.

Something he should be suited to as well.

[BruidheanChaorthainn]

@Aristotle

Obviously it’s great if Cleary does get a yellow but Gillane doesn’t need that to play well.

Waterford showed how you play against Cleary; they took him running from touchline to touchline and they had him in bother. Physical contests suit him down to the ground.

Clare will presumably press right up against Limerick again and leave loads of space in front of Gillane. He needs to be on his toes.

I was just going to say i actually think gillane should get away from him and just focus on roasting him. Cleary looks very ropey to me. Gillane would skin him imo if he packed in the wrestling act.

[Aristotle]

Yeah, it’s definitely a possibility. I would guess that Lynch would play it more similarly to Reidy than Casey though; I feel like they would still want him drifting back around midfield. I’d love to see Lynch do a bit closer to goal if we have enough outside.

[BruidheanChaorthainn]

Ya I wouldn’t mind see lynch inside closer to the goal. It would be very interesting.

Gillane has lost a half yard off pace as well. He isn’t getting away from his man like he used to when those long raking balls are played into space and he’d run onto them and invariably turn and throw it over the bar.

I expect Limerick will play a lot deeper now. That’s they done v Clare for a finish.

[Julio_Geordio]

I think Gillane is just lazy half the time. He can do it when he needs to

[BruidheanChaorthainn]

@Julio_Geordio

I think Gillane is just lazy half the time. He can do it when he needs to

Maybe he’s playing his way into full fitness but he’s getting beaten in those runs a lot more now. He didn’t really turn on the magic until the Munster final last year so who knows.

A lot can change in a short space of time.