The fact of the matter is that we are about two or three years away from competing with the other top teams. We’re the worst team in Munster and along with Dublin the worst of the leading counties who have notions of being at the business end of the championship.
We’ve a lack of hardened, seasoned experienced intercounty players who can physically break even or dominate against other leading teams. A couple who can - like Richie and Jim Bob - are getting on and can be burnt for pace. Great servants mind you and I expect both to dig in on Saturday.
Outside of those two, Quaid, Hickey and Browne the gap back to the u21 lads or those just out of u21 is too much. The Munster u21 winning side of 2011 never really led to the leaders or top senior intercounty players we hoped for at the time. Probably blinded by the exciting nature of the win over Cork. The likes of Downes, Dowling, Graeme Mul and even Dec Hannon never really kicked on as top class intercounty players. All decent, fine players but no real domineering game changers that you need to win big championship matches like a Conor McGrath, Callanan, Hogan, Reid and Canning. The Munster senior title four years ago - seems like a lifetime ago now - was built on teamwork rather than individual brilliance or flair. Sadly we could be looking at the same with the recent crop who regularly won at minor and u21 but it just mightn’t happen at senior level.
I’ve no expectation of a win on Saturday. Kilkenny ain’t the force they were but Murphy, Buckley, Hogan, Reid and Fennelly are still better than anything we have.
I just hope we play without fear and have a proper go at it. Be bold with selection. Throw in a couple of the youngsters like Colin Ryan and the not so young like O’Mahony who won’t give a fuck about reputations. The defeats against Clare this year and last year in the qualifiers were so disappointing because we didn’t lay a glove on them either day. Meekly accepted our fate without too much argument. If you get beat throwing everything at it so be it.
Now driving to Kilkenny on Saturday morning I’ll be convinced we can spring a surprise. By throw in after five pints it’ll be a matter of how much we win by. It’s just the non performances since 2013 that really sicken you. It’s a good management set up there at the moment and a squad of committed, honest lads. I’d absolutely love if they could produce a big performance.
I would say some people are saying that in jest buddy, I certainly was. The team is young enough and light enough as it is. We culled a few players a few months back who had a few years of inter-county experience and conditioning when we would have been better holding on to them.
Limerick underage teams usually come (kind of) good once in a blue moon and we lose the run of ourselves saying they should replace the entire current team. It’s a proud tradition. We’ve finally had a run of competitive teams at minor of the last few years and long may it continue. Maybe we’ll get a few players every year instead of referring to a certain tranche of players with contempt as “the U21s” (Is that the current U21s or the 2015 U21s, or both, btw?)
See, I don’t buy that bit. There is no reason why that should be true; to be simply competitive, the players are there.
Look at Cork and Wexford. Two absolutely shambolic teams over the past couple of years; teams even we would have expected to beat. One of them beat us by a goal in the League, we beat the other one. Now maybe they’ve stepped it up since then, but why couldn’t we?
One of them has beaten the All-Ireland champions and Waterford, the other has beaten Kilkenny. Maybe both of those teams will now crash and burn, and do fuck all, but they are competitive at the very least. Seeing that we shouldn’t expect that for two or three years shouldn’t be acceptable.
AC said above about some of the players not kicking on since they were minor, you referenced the U-21s in 2011 and that is probably true. It’s something that needs to be looked at.
But again, Lehane has done fuck all really since 2011 bar the odd flash (which the likes of Lynch, Nash, Hannon, Dowling, Downes have all shown) and now he’s flying it. Horgan the same, even the likes of Kearney. Wexford getting more out of a bunch of U-21s that we humiliated.
I am not happy with a Cork club player in goal . Nothing against the lad or his family but this sets a precedent I am uneasy with . That said hope we beat them .
Miles too early to be casting doubts over the 2013 Minor crop onwards.
By right they should be trying to break into a squad with a strong group of players in the 24-27 age group, but the reality is that only Browne, Hannon, Dowling, Mulcahy, Alan Dempsey and Dan Morrissey fit that profile. As I said in the post above, we culled Tobin, Downes, Fitzgibbon, Seanie O’Brien and a few others earlier in the year - there may have been good reasons behind each case, but I didn’t particularly think it was a good idea getting rid of those extra years of experience at the time and I still don’t.
If you go back through Minor & U21 championships, there’s a pretty good rule of thumb around the counties competitive at a certain age being competitive at senior 9-10 or 6-7 years later, respectively. It’s not watertight (Clare in 2013 are the definition of an asterisk*, and the Waterford team of the latter half of the 00s didn’t have a whole pile behind them), but as I say, it’s a good rule of thumb.
*Even still, they won an an U21 AI in 2009 that everyone seems to forget about. That’s still four years. It wasn’t a bunch of kids.
They sure do mate. All they need is a good start and they’re off. It’ll be a very tight game so it’s a hard one to call. I think Cork may snake it at the end but you’de never know. 47/53 just to Cork.