Handy Sunday off for the Clare lads anyway
It is of course, we might even let the mammies watch Limerick for a real treat.
Maybe try that joke a 3rd time mush
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Got a text there for anyone driving up that the guards are bagging around the Dock Road.
Passed there five minutes ago and no sign of them.
It was a tough 20 mins work and they are gone into the 24 hour for a well deserved breakfast roll.
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…having clocked up 50,000 breath tests
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With social media, anymore than 30 mins anywhere and the whole country knows.
Just on the Green Bus home now after seeing us win another national title at Croke Park (the train was too pricey & I was too stingy to fork out to them).
In the last seven months I’ve seen us win (in the flesh) a national league, an All-Ireland and, crucially, a world title. That fucking sticks in the craw of the haters and isn’t it wonderful.
These are halcyon days for Limerick hurling.
I’d a brilliant day anyway, met up with family and friends, bit of craic, a few pints, saw us pick up more silverware and another drought ended. It was long enough that cunts were walking down on us.
Thought Dan Morrissey was the best on show. Didn’t feel like Gillane was MOTM but you can’t argue with 1-05 from play either. A top player.
Was right behind The Dow’s score from play, a beautiful fade from under the Cusack. Outstanding.
Flaganan, ‘kin ‘ell. Favourite score today was when O’Keeffe took the short one and Sham Flan nailed the full back with the tackle, won the turnover, popped it to Casey who stuck it over the bar. Class. That’s what I loved, not the Hail Mary scores from a mile out. Worked like ravenous dogs.
It’s harsh but I think M Casey has to come back in for the summer. Condon is a warrior but could struggle against speedsters like Cadogan.
Kerry lad behind me now on to his mate on the phone, worrying about when Kerry will win their next A-I while waxing lyrical about the Limerick hurlers. Oh my Lord.
Mightn’t get out of Munster this year and if we don’t so be it. You just know you’re guaranteed a proper effort off these lads, though - win, lose or draw. Cork at home on May 19th will define our year. Get beat and won’t get out of the province.
We won that today for the late Mary Cregan & John Hunt. Rest In Peace.
Kiely is at the wheel,
Tell me how good does it feel…
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That was a great day out. It may only be the League, we may have made lots of mistakes and it wasn’t always the prettiest but that was a serious performance in my view. To win a national title in that manner, I can’t help but be impressed by this group of players.
We do some small things just very very well and it makes things look easy at times. I thought there was an absolute savage work rate. The half-forward line really stepped up again today after a tough outing against Dublin- Hego, Kyle & Morrissey put in a huge shift. The amount of scores we got from turnovers was massive again; the inside line & the subs were similar, worked like dogs.
Darragh O’Donovan… the hurling brain on this fella, unreal. Always in the right place. Always. If he was partnered with anyone else, I feel he’d be appreciated even more but Lynch is just magical.
Our backs were well on top, I thought. Condon picked up a silly yellow card and Waterford did get a few nice scores but in general, over the course of the 70 minutes, I felt we coped admirably. Hannon was masterful in the second half, just oozes class. Morrissey some man to come out with a ball too. And Quaid is also class, I reckon he’s the best goalkeeper in the country but hopefully he doesn’t have to produce too many heroic saves this year.
It’s not often a player scores 1-5 from play and you feel they could play even better, Gillane is absolutely deadly, his goal was unreal but hit some bad wides that you’d expect him to nail. Hego, Hannon, DOD & Lynch were all well in contention for MotM but if you score 1-5 from play in a final, including a goal like that, I think you’re a fair shout!
There were some great moments:
Tom Morrissey’s pass to Gillane meant that all he needed was the flick, it was beautifully-flighted with lovely pace on it. Tom was very good today.
Lynch kicking the ball straight into Dowling’s point. Just made it that bit easier to get the score away in time. Dow wouldn’t use his right side so had to produce a spectacular curled effort into the wind. Class.
Flanagan’s turnover on the short puckout before getting it out to Casey.
DOD’s ball into Murphy at the end… had the ball on the stick but just waited and waited for the right moment to deliver the pass, Murphy was against 2 defenders inside but got out in front, DOD then fizzed the pass in. Hego ended up one-handing it over the bar, I think.
The one where Kyle & Morrissey turned over a player around halfway and recycled it inside for Hannon to score from distance was another that just showed the work rate.
The last score where Casey took it straight into the paw from DOD and popped it out to Lynch was class aswell, the support play is top notch at times and we can cut teams open. We walked through the middle of Waterford a few times today, Mulcahy in particular picked up a few frees.
Those moments probably underrate some big moments from the backs who did a great job too but the work rate would make you seriously proud. That’s something to build a team around and luckily, they happen to be very skilful hurlers too.
Lots and lots of wides again, but look, it’s something to work on. All-Ireland & League champions. Not bad at all!
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It was evident very early last year the importance of dod to the team. Only a complete simpleton couldn’t see it.
Aaron Gillane: There comes a time when you put your shoulder to wheel and get determined
denis walsh
There was a fuzzy period in Aaron Gillane’s career, not that long ago, when nobody really knew how good he could be. Did he know? That was part of the problem. Maybe he had suspicions. Confirming them was tricky. Take his second-last year in school: Ard Scoil Ris won the Dr Harty Cup with a powerful team that included Gillane on some days and not on others. They won the final by 15 points, without him, essentially; he was the third sub introduced with five minutes to go. What did that say?
“For us there was never a question about his ability,” says Niall Moran, the former Limerick player and a teacher in the school, “but what you might have found with Aaron was that little bit of inconsistency. That self-confidence, that real self-confidence wasn’t there.”
From fringe to favourite: Aaron Gillane was in the running for player of the year during Limerick’s glorious 2018RAY MCMANUS
When you don’t have it where can you find it? Gillane made the Limerick minors. That was nourishing in itself even though his selection had an inconclusive quality. Strictly speaking it represented a promotion. In his teens he was a regular in Limerick development squads but for the end-of-season tournaments Gillane was cast as a B team player, year-in, year-out.
“With the Limerick minors I was struggling to make the 24 [man panel] for matches,” says Gillane. “I wasn’t even thinking about playing. I was just hoping and praying to make the 24. Now, when I think back, I might have had a good touch and a good strike but winning my own ball wouldn’t have been a big part of my game back then. You just cop on to these sort of things.”
How did things change? It was a two-speed process. Fast. Then slow. In the autumn of 2016 Patrickswell won the Limerick championship for the first time in 13 years but in the Munster semi-final against Glen Rovers they were anaemic in defeat. Except for him. “The ‘Well were terrible that day but Aaron single-handedly carried his team, you know, in a high octane match,” says Moran. “That was the day my opinion of him as a player really changed.”
Jamie Wall, the manager of the Mary Immaculate Fitzgibbon Cup team, was in the Gaelic Grounds that day too. It was his business to know every hurler that walked through the gates of Mary I but not every hurler makes an entrance. “I knew he’d been knocking around Limerick underage squads,” says Wall, “but there was no major hullabaloo about him coming into the college by comparison to when Cian [Lynch] was in first year.”
Wall had gone to the Patrickswell match essentially to watch Lynch; after the game his selectors called to enquire about their Limerick star. “I remember saying to them, ‘Forget about Cian, we know what he’s going to give us. We’ve another fella that we need to put smack bang on the radar here.’ Jesus, he was brilliant that day.”
The new Limerick manager noticed too and having risen without trace Gillane was invited onto the panel that John Kiely was assembling. At first it didn’t last. “Some people might have said, ‘Sure he’s not even starting with the [Limerick] under-21s, how can he be called into the senior panel?,’” says Gillane. “I would have been happy enough that time just to be on the panel and be introduced to it.
“Look, John obviously didn’t see enough from me and I don’t blame him. He let me go [after a couple of months] and that was my own fault. He would have told me that I had to go away and get a bit stronger. I was a skinny old yoke. In that situation you have two options: you can go away and sulk or you can dust yourself down and put in a few big performances in the Fitzgibbon.”
Old pals act: Limerick’s Aaron Gillane and Cian LynchPIARAS Ó MÍDHEACH
Mary I were the defending champions, a team glittering with inter-county players. Gillane took his place in a forward line that included Lynch, his childhood friend. Wall remembers the first game. Gillane was being blackguarded by his marker and a scrap broke out. Of the emergency services Lynch was the first to reach the scene. Then it happened again; Lynch went in again.
“One of the selectors said to me, ‘We’re going to have to take Cian off.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘He’s going to get sent off for drawing the head off some fella for the treatment Aaron is getting inside.’ Cian had gone into yer man twice. I was there, ‘Sweet Jesus.’
“They’re incredibly close. They’re like brothers. They’ve been in each other’s pockets always. They went to school together, they went to college together, even though Cian started a year before him. It was Aaron’s first Fitzgibbon match and there was just that protective element that day. For a long time Cian would have been leading the way for Aaron in a sense. They’re very much on a par now. You’re looking at the two of them and saying, ‘Wow.’”
Only two boys born in Patrickswell in 1996 grew up to be hurlers: Aaron Gillane and Cian Lynch. For a place immersed in the game it was an extraordinary kink in the local demographics. All at once it was a famine and a feast. When they played for the Patrickswell under-12s they were the only pair of 12-year-olds on the team. Every two years through the age grades that pattern was repeated: when they were the oldest boys in the dressing room the team revolved around them.
“Cian, he’s just a wizard, that fella,” says Gillane. “I don’t know how he does half the things. I’d say he doesn’t know either. Even the way he moves on the field and finding space. You mightn’t think that people would be paying attention but I’ve learned so much off him.
“So you’d be looking at him and there just comes a time when it has to click with you. ‘You’re doing as much training as him, why aren’t you playing [for Limerick]’ — and all this. There just comes a time when you put your shoulder to wheel and get determined.”
Mary I won the Fitzgibbon Cup: Lynch was named player of the tournament, Gillane was top scorer in the final. John Kiely carried on with the players he had; Gillane took his chances with the under-21s. They won the 2017 All-Ireland at a canter. Eight of that team were already established with the Limerick seniors, familiar names and rising stars. By the end of the summer Gillane had eclipsed most of them. Every year the sponsors of that competition engage a panel of inter-county players to pick a Player of the Year: Kyle Hayes and Sean Finn were among the nominees; Gillane was the winner.
“You mentioned about the 2014 minor team when I wasn’t getting a look in,” says Gillane. “This was the same group of players three years later. So, obviously, I got a bit of confidence from playing. Then Pat Donnelly [the manager] trusted me with taking the frees. I was thinking, ‘This fella must see something in me.’ You get confidence from all that kind of stuff. Once you get confidence you think you can do anything.”
Last year he returned to Ard Scoil Ris on placement, stepping into a staff room full of teachers who knew him when he was younger and more reserved and not so sure of his talent. Moran was struck by the change in him. “College can transform fellas,” he says, “and I saw that transformation in Aaron. In terms of his personality. Being more secure in himself. You can see the substance in him.”
Heading into the All-Ireland final last August Gillane was in the hunt for Hurler of the Year. The League was only a pup when his odds for this year’s award were slashed. Everybody can see the player in him now.
Maybe he needed to see it first.
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I think by 2016, in Patrickswell’s county title victory, he was a dominant ballwinner. He was cleaning fellas out of it the air as a half-forward.
He was always a nice striker, a good shooter but he definitely became more physical & a bit more aggressive around then.
But I suppose confidence is a huge thing, and he’s been playing with a real swagger since the 2017 U-21 Championship. Even when he misses handy chances the odd time, he seems to bounce back immediately.
You should have been at the All Ireland Semi Final. That was the best of the lot.
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It’s odd but as league champions I’m a little underwhelmed. Paddy o loughlin and Peter Casey were the two bright spots. Even though POL won’t start. We gave lads plenty of game time and they got more experience but I’m still sure we’ll almost certainly start with 14 of the all ireland 15. If your standing still your probably going back wards. At the moment our back up for each line is condon/POL/Henley/Boylan/flanagan. I’d suspect Dowling will be left as a sub to try and change games. Thought the half forward line was poor enough as a unit all league but definitely improved yesterday. Also for the love of god can we start going low with goal chances. The cork game is going to nip and tuck. Can’t wait going to be some day in Limerick.
He’s a physical specimen now too, I would have thought he was a bit hit & miss but watching him in the Fitzgibbon semi this year he was really impressive when he moved out around centre-forward to get into the game. A proper asset now.
No way did anyone see him getting near this level even at club level, he is becoming close to unmarkabke and he’s going to crucify some poor cunt one day if he takes the goal chances.
I still maintain that his best skill is how he doesn’t take superfluous touches on the hurley. If possible, everything is straight into the paw, high or low.
It’s an underrated quality but it gives him that extra split second.
He gets in some amount of goalscoring positions, his movement is top notch… If he’d just go low with the shots, he’d definitely improve his strike rate.
He’s becoming our ‘marquee’ forward
He needs to start learning and then he’ll become the marquee forward we hope. He doesn’t seem to be dropping the Hurley as much. Now for him to start going low with his goal chances.