Limerick GAA - All-Ireland senior hurling champions 2018

School uniform would have been a giveaway

[quote=“AppleCrumbled, post:1063, topic:26194, full:true”]
I was in and about mungret between the bank, dentist and having a lunch in Russell’s and I saw at least five different young lads walking about with Hurley’s heading in the direction of the pitch. Wonderful to see.
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More chance they were off causing trouble!!!

Just watching the match back again.

  • Sean Finn, what a player. Like a young Damien Reale. He is just class. Street wise and not averse to the dark arts, as with all good corner backs.

  • Dan Morrissey is the most improved player in the county. He’s solid out. Never see him in the papers, puts the head down and ploughs away. A 7/10 every day. Kudos to the management for deciding on their half backline and persevering with it. If any of the three get injured or suspended it’s the one line we don’t have many standout replacements.

  • Hegarty’s two second half points were terrific. Just needs to touch up on his decision making when he makes those rampaging runs. In both halves he made terrific catches and marauding runs but no end product. Going forward we need to be making those incisions count in crunch games.

  • it’s a strange one. We won comfortably enough for a finish but still trailed an absolutely septic Tipp side with ten mins to go. We were nowhere near our best ourselves either, there is a lot more in us (I hope). We gifted Tipp about 2-04 from turnovers. Byrnes first goal and Tom Morrissey second goal caught in possession. Dec Hannon with a wayward clearance at the end of the first half and Richie English with the intercepted pass to O’Dwyer in the second both led to the concessions of points too.

  • we have an annoying habit of starting games well enough but hitting a rake of wides and missed chances generally. Galway, Clare, Tipp (league) and again at the weekend we missed a few bad ones early on. Some day they’ll all go over but not sure if it’s adrenaline, nerves or a tactical decision whereby they’ve been instructed to go for everything in the first ten or 15 mins.

  • the likes of Tom Morrissey and Kyle Hayes mightn’t have had their best games but the work rate of these lads, and others, is sensational.

  • we’ll need at least another win to get out of Munster, possibly even three points. Still an awful lot to do. Would be dreamland stuff to win the first two but it’ll be tough in Cork. Lose that and it’s all back up in the air again.

  • Marty Morrissey is fast becoming insufferable with his commentary.

  • it’s lovely to have genuine reasons to be optimistic again. Not going into matches hoping for a shock but rather being confident that we’ll be a tough nut to crack for most teams. I’m enjoying following this team and set up. Might be a year or two early but there’s something building with this group hopefully… then again we can only focus on the here and now. Get into a quarter final with some momentum behind us and we’ll be tricky opponents for anyone…

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Spot-on re Hayes. Didn’t hit a lot of ball but absolutely blew Paudie Maher out of it. Like Ollie Moran on Ken McGrath in the 2007 AI semi-final, he negated their attacking launchpad and forced a load of hit-and hope ball down the field.

Donovan likewise. Was involved in a ball of hooks, blocks and tackles.

Finn has gotten very physically strong and, while he’s always had the hurling, he’s subtly added the tinker-like qualities that an inter-county corner back needs.

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It might take us a year or two yet but I recall posting after the KK match last year that things were looking up that while things didn’t go right for us we were at least trying to play with heads up and that a defined game plan was emerging. Another year of coaching and lads that were blooded last year coming up to speed and we are definitely on an upward trajectory. From off the top of my head Casey * 2, Dempsey, Gillane, Hayes, Pat Ryan? all made their debuts last year. I still think we may have to mature a bit yet Galways main players (Burke * 3, mcinerney, 2 Cooneys etc) last year were in the 25 - 27 bracket last year and it takes those few years to physically and mentally mature.

The dark days of the hit and hope days of Teege are fading rapidly!

A very learned judge was waxing lyrical about o donovan yesterday. Your spot on. He’d an outstanding game. Hayes will have a similar role with Coleman and likewise o donovan on firzgibbon. Hammer the hammer.

I echoed similar sentiments thought he played very well. TBH I think Browne has lost a yard of pace and is liable to be turned over whereas before he could break tackles with ease. I think it will need to be a collective effort on Fitzgibbon though will need to crowd the middle and try and physically dominate there and not allow him to space to solo into 50 yards of space.

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Hayes clogged a lot of that space in the midfield/half backs and still had the legs to get back into the forwards and help out.

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I was on the 21 in the new stand at the U21 final last year. Finn was a joy to watch fouled his man every time as the ball was coming any where near him and never caught once. There is an art in that

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Will take a similar effort again I don’t think Fitzgibbon will like it up him as they say. Clare didn’t possess the physicality we will bring to the middle third.

Fitzgibbon is a hardy fucker .

He is.

He’s also a Limerickman playing for Cork. He can expect pain.

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You a ballyagran man?
One of that type was giving out yards about yhis yesterday

Lord, no.

Thought you knew that I’m one of the Liberties Clique?

News to me mate. What is your home place before you adopted liberties?

Native born and bred pal.

Other than actually having been born in Limerick Regional Maternity Hospital.

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Am I right in saying Richie English and Darragh Fitzgibbon are first cousins??

Yes.

Whey hey!!!

And Mike Fitzgibbon of Feohanagh who played U21 & Intermediate Hurling for Limerick in the past and Senior Football last weekend is another cousin so