Limerick GAA - knocked down, but will get up again

All 4 teams will be going flat out to win it. Having hurler of the year, Cian Lynch, back gives Limerick a great chance of making the final.

They were hoping old Supermacs Joe would have got it for a few minutes hurling in a final where they were obliterated physically. The gym bunnies were fucking clattered around Dublin and they showed they did not have the gumption for it against a bunch of kids.

You’re a brave man.
This will become all about where you’re from, and the fella that Cian ‘walked all over’ back in August. How very dare you

Limerick are going to win the A I again this year.

To be fair, Cian walked all over everyone last year so it doesn’t matter which particular county any of ye are from.

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Of course he did.
But you need to tailor your response to the brave and daring posters.

That’s not how I roll at all. But I would like if you referred to him as Hurler of the Year Cian Lynch any time you bring him up.

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Any man who has a cut at Cian Lynch is my enemy

HOTY Cian Lynch will even suffice. It’s just basic respect and manners.

Why are you getting so excited by it so?

Lord above lads, ye are getting shocking worked up very early this year. Ye’ll never hack it until august at this rate.

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We’ll beat ye this year as well, this year we’ll kick ye’re teeth in and tap dance on ye’re tonsils while we do it.

GAA

Caroline Currid leaves winning legacy

Performance coach helped give Limerick’s players tools to succeed

Denis Walsh

March 24 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

Different status: since working with Tyrone Currid has helped four counties to win All-Irelands

Different status: since working with Tyrone Currid has helped four counties to win All-IrelandsDAVID FITZGERALD

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On the inter-county scene performance coaches come and go all the time. In most cases their presence wouldn’t have been declared in the first place; you wouldn’t have seen their names in match programmes or wearing the kit on the side line. Galway have used at least three performance coaches under Micheal Donoghue’s management. Can you name them?

Caroline Currid has a different status. Since she worked with Tyrone in 2008 she has helped four counties to win All-Irelands, an unparalleled record in gaelic games. In Tyrone she was working with many players who had already won two All-Irelands but with the Tipperary hurlers in 2010 and the Dublin footballers in 2011 there were significant barriers between their ambition and their goal.

And then Limerick. The biggest problem was that Currid wasn’t working with a blank page: all kinds of stuff had been scribbled on it for decades. Together, they wrote and erased at the same time.

The blithe assumption that her work with the Limerick hurlers would simply continue after such a spectacular triumph was disarmed in The Limerick Leader during the week when John Kiely confirmed that she hadn’t returned for this season. It seems odd that it should only emerge at the end of March but maybe Kiely had been trying to change her mind and, in the end, maybe they wanted to be get it out in the open before Currid was keynote speaker at a Shannon Chamber event on Friday.

How much did she contribute to Limerick’s All-Ireland? That’s unquantifiable. But if it was only a couple of percent was that the critical deficit they had failed so often to reconcile? In her presentation on Friday she described Limerick’s triumph as a “jigsaw.” In that analogy it only takes one missing piece to make it incomplete.

What is clear is that the players and the management were absolutely convinced of the impact she had made. In various interviews in the months after the All-Ireland a succession of Limerick players lauded her contribution, some of them in very personal terms. It hadn’t been an instant impact; 2018 was Currid’s second year with the team; when Limerick’s campaign crashed after two matches in 2017 her presence had gone unremarked.

Interventions by a performance coach or a sports psychologist can only work with permission and trust. For some of the Limerick players that was a bridge they had to cross in their own minds first.
“I would consider myself as having an open mind,” said Graeme Mulcahy a few months ago, “but in the first year I wouldn’t have bought into it as much as I should have or could have. This year [2018] I got a good bit of help from Caroline.”

None of it was abstract, all of it was practical. Mulcahy said that he tended to get stressed about work and other stuff in his day to day life. She helped him to deal better with all that.

Declan Hannon spoke about his meltdown in the 2013 All-Ireland semi-final against Clare. He was tormented about that failure at the time and it was something that he hadn’t really resolved until he thrashed it out with Currid. By his own account she was a key influence in re-building his confidence.

More than that, he said, he was looking out for others in the dressing room who might be suffering in the way that he did. Did they want to talk? He was prepared to ask. Without mentioning Hannon she referenced that kind of outreach in her talk in Dromoland Castle on Friday.

“We spent a lot of time on vulnerabilities,” she said, “helping these young men to talk about what was really going on for them and helping them to understand what challenges they had together as a group. By the end of the season what was happening was these lads were picking up the phone to each other to support each other.”

In that sense the most powerful legacy that Currid will have left in the group are the tools to manage themselves. Mulcahy noticed how “consistent” Kiely had become in his “messaging” last year, both in public and to the group. He was certain that Currid had influenced that change in the manager.

On Friday she spoke about that too, in broad terms: “That’s what’s so important about sport; consistency and removing emotion so it’s not up and down. I think teams are still trying to get this edge and chip about this team or that team, [trying to] find psychological edges from a negative. But that’s all gone from psychology now and it’s about keeping to the process and being consistent.”

Richie McCarthy and Tom Condon have both spoken about that in recent months, about not letting emotion control their performances. How many Limerick teams over the years traded on anger and hot grievances? In the losing years they looked for fuel in those feelings; ultimately it was futile.

Currid gave them a different vision of what they could be. Their challenge now is not to lose sight of it.

They’ll be back to hippin & whippin by round 3 of the Munster Championship when the panic sets in.

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Tbere is a lot of waffle in that article by Dennis Walsh .

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Just back from Nowlan Park.

O’Loughlin Gaels pitch is the finest for parking. So convenient. Must be a goldmine for them every year.

Up to Billy Byrnes for just after midday, had the all day breakfast. It was nice but for €10 the portion was on the small side. Called a pint at 12.10 and they wouldn’t pull it until 12.30 :roll_eyes:

First half was really scrappy. Stop start and no flow to it whatsoever. Subs, blood subs, temporary subs, the linesman butting in, physio on every two minutes - couldn’t get into a rhythm.

Dublin well and truly stifled us. Clogged the middle and Moran is brilliant as the spare man at reading the game. Looked sharp when we did get it inside. Graeme Mul the pick of our forwards.

Gradually wore them down on the resumption. I’ve invented a nickname for Hurler of the Year Cian Lynch - “magnet”. It’s self explanatory and I hope it catches on. His eye hand coordination must only be matched by Clark Kent. A ridiculous ability to win it from rucks. People talk about dirty ball but what Lynch wins is just on another planet to your ordinary dirty ball. The polar opposite of a sunshine hurler like Tony Kelly.

Half backline totally took over as the Dubs faded. Byrnes and Gillane brilliant on the frees all day, they both nailed difficult ones when the game was still in the melting pot. Another good outing from POL.

Finn and English are proper dogs of war. Just superb at what they do, they’ll spoil, harry, hook, block and generally torment the life out of their markers. The free role suited Condon, did a lot of good things.

Pleasing to win when the forward line as a unit failed to fire. It’s just not happening for Tom Morrissey at the moment. It’s the 2017 u-21 version rather than the all conquering 2018 one who was robbed of an All Star. Barrett frustrated the life out of Hegarty. Hego drew a boot on him at one stage in the first half when he trying to shake him off, if it was Owens as linesman it would have been a red card. Hayes, Casey and Gillane all worked hard without much reward. Sham Flan is an automatic starter for me.

Dublin are building nicely. O’Donnell is an outstanding full back. He quietened Mul when he went on him. Sutcliffe is class too. Still a couple of players short of competing for an AI but with Rushe & Schutte - among others - to return they’ll have a right rattle in Leinster. They’re better than Wexford. It really is incredible how much damage Cunningham caused when he was in charge there. It’s only now they are fully recovering, improving further after the good work Gilroy oversaw last year.

Overall it’s great to be in another national final. I make no bones in wanting to win it. A lot of players have got minutes on the pitch but I think our fluency and crispness is behind where it was this time last year. Are we showing signs of tiredness or just tailoring our summer preparations…? Hopefully that zip and spark and freshness will be there in May. Waterford are building momentum. They have the players and it should be a decent game next week now that Derek McGrath won’t be able to do a Jose on proceedings.

Nowlan Park is the home of hurling. Friendly gate staff, programme sellers and a working PA system that even wished two young Galway fans a happy birthday. Twee central etc but nice all the same.

Anyway off for a few pints now & to update my all time greatest Limerick XV to include Hurler of the Year Cian Lynch. (Apologies Houla)

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Tom Morrissey position most be under serious treat at the moment. Badly need to start finishing our goal chances.

Just in the door; Cian Lynch is immense; I know they gave man of the match to Byrnes but Lynch was different class today. His ability to win dirty ball and his striking in tight spaces is on a different level to most other players in the country (Jamie Barron is also top top class at this).

Dublin definitely made life difficult for us with the sweeper and the congestion in the middle third. It meant that it wasn’t the nicest hurling in the world but at the same time, I don’t think we ever really looked like losing. At times, we did play the ball through the lines nicely at times, the goal was a particularly nice example- Byrnes’ pass to Lynch was unreal and a great run by Flanagan in behind then, and well picked out. Flanagan looked very lively from the bench.

Mulcahy was excellent, stepped up to the mark. Gillane was dangerous. Casey was below his standards of recent weeks but he’s been class up until now. Hegarty has had a great league but he was poor tonight and was very well-marshalled. I thought Morrissey did well enough in the first half, but was quiet in the second half. Kyle also worked hard and set up a goal chance for Gillane, but all of the half-forward line struggled with the congested space.

Great to be in a league final and I hope we win it. Waterford showed great guts to get the win with just 14, helped by some headless Galway play. You’d imagine they’ll be going all out to win it and it should be another good test. Really hope we win it.

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Was dowling injured today ?

You planning another line to celebrate

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