Gwan ya dog!
Enjoy the few days mate, these are glorious times and cant possibly last.
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I agree but without Lynch, the perception is that Limerick have come back to the pack. The level of performance was no where near that of last year imho. It had nothing to do with Limerick regressing but the fact that Lynch was missing ( and resulted in Hayes been deployed in forwards).
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By god but Hegarty is some mullocker all the same
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Lynch gives that additional worry for an oppositition back line, and most counties just don’t have enough players of a standard to deal with himself, Gillane, Hegarty and either Flanagan or Morrissey will deliver a blitz of scores on any given day.
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Exactly
I haven’t checked but I assume Kilkenny’s total yesterday is the highest ever by a losing team in a final?
Was it the most scores in any first half of hurling. I may have imagined I heard that.
You can talk about systems and tactics but Limerick, like Dublin footballers six in a row team, have a group of once in a generation players playing for a manger who knows how to harness their talents. Add in excellent coaching aimed at improving players incrementally so they can solve problems on the pitch and they have the technical tools to do what they need to.
Dublin had to refresh that team to keep going. Limerick will probably need to add 3 or 4 new players next year.
The hunger to keep at it is not a given and that’s a large part of the successful set up.
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The format of last year’s championship was much different and involved much less pressurised hurling. Limerick played only four games and only two had real jeopardy. They didn’t have many spectators. They could afford to really focus on two or three key games from a long way out in a way they could not do this year.
Even last year they weren’t massively impressive against Cork in Munster and got the runaround against Tipp for 35 minutes.
Yeah Limerick have still shown they are the team to beat and they will be favourites next year. Kilkenny ran them close, but their main man may not even be there next year and I still dont think they were a good side. Galway may have learned a lot from this year, but they still have another level or 2 to come up. Clare caught Limerick in the Munster final, but I dont know are they consistent enough to say they deserve to be considered the team to topple them. Their next 2 outings after that Munster final were terrible.
Limerick are the team to beat, and in my mind, there is a still a gap from them on their perch to the next best, of which a load of teams are in around the mix of similar levels, none up to the level where Limerick are right now.
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Yeah, I genuinely thought that this year could be the end of it for a while. But I would think that the likes of lynch and peter casey will be chomping at the bit
I think the point being made by @fenwaypark is Limerick have won without a generational talent available to them. Lynch makes Limerick tick, he takes up space which frees up other people, he is the most unselfish marquee player I have ever seen play the game. It is all about the assist or the work for him. He is the best I have seen. I am not so sure Limerick have come back to the pack either. Peter Casey is an absolutely clutch corner forward @Big_Dan_Campbell does not really rate him, we have seen the script for this before, he will add three or four points a game to us next year. Hayes will go to wing back, Lynch may go to midfield and Cathal O’Neill to centre forward, a real scary prospect for the pack.
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In Dublin football parlance Limerick are in 2017.
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Nicky staying on for as long as he can will be crucial.
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With Limerick it’s death by a million cuts. Just like the Dublin football team that won six in a row.
Murphy really let Kilkenny down yesterday. His lofted puck outs were woeful and just bread and butter for limericks half back line. I’m amazed they’d no better plan.
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It’s happened before with him.
It is whacktics.
For years Cork v Wexford 1970 (an 80 minute final) held the record for total points scored (64).
Limerick v Cork last year beat that at 66.
This year again had 66 total points but set a new record for total number of scores at 60, an average of a score every 69 seconds, or in practical terms every 76 seconds if you say the match lasted 77 minutes including injury time.
That was unreal lads. I said beforehand that we hadn’t hurled anywhere near 2021 levels this year, and that we were all hoping for that performance to come, and I think it did. Maybe we didn’t blow Kilkenny away but that was by far our must fluid performance of the season. Things that didn’t go right in Munster & against Galway came off yesterday. Credit to Kilkenny though, even though I thought we were doing a lot of the hurling, we just couldn’t kill them off.
You can point at various things that teams did right or wrong, bad misses, soft frees, etc. But what I have always said is the best thing about this Limerick team is how they react to adversity. Kilkenny get goals, Kilkenny draw level, Limerick push on again. Someone stands up and wins the next ball, works a score. That happened every single time. The Reidy hawkeye point being ruled out, followed by Richie Hogan of all people levelling the game would have been a massive momentum shifter normally. Kilkenny fans were on their feet, they let out some roar.
A few minutes earlier Tom had won a puckout on the wing and had taken a shot on with men free outside him. Kyle was very very unhappy about that and let Tom know. Richie’s point goes over and Nickie pucks the ball down that wing, and Tom wins it again. This time he pops it back to Kyle, who steps through and puts it over the bar. Learn from the mistakes, make the right decision, respond to adversity and we’re back in front. Tom was then immediately taken off and Cathal scores with his first touch (an absolutely beautiful step off his left leg to leave the defender for dead before splitting the posts).
Wally caused us problems when introduced, TJ did throughout, they set up the goals but we responded every time. And more than anything else that’s why they won the game.
Hegarty was phenomenal, one of the great All-Ireland displays, probably even better than his 2020 display. But the two boys alongside him were unbelievable aswell- Tom & Kyle are both men for the big occasion. Kyle’s work rate is so so good- he tracks runners back the field, he gets tackles, he runs support off the shoulders, he wins aerial ball, he wins dirty ball. Tom similarly, works his socks off, and pops up with big scores when needed.
The full-forward line never really got going, Gillane was heavily strapped and didn’t look quite right but Huw Lawlor was unbelievable (the little cameo in the corner when he had no hurley was a little embarrassing from a Limerick perspective but class from Lawlor).
And generally, our backs were absolutely superb. Byrnes has been a rock all year, his striking is impeccable and you’re just so confident in him under a high ball. Nash classy again in the way he reads the game and picks passes out of defence. Seanie Finn was brilliant again, might have pushed himself back ahead of Butler for an All Star. He just glides along, makes it look so easy, hurley in, little flick, get the ball away. Dan Morrissey had his best performance of the season, gobbled up ball in the final ten minutes.
And what can you say about Dec Hannon? 4 All-Irelands as captain, and again delivering in the big moments in the big games. How many breaks did he get onto, sweeping along and the class to get the ball into his hand first time under pressure and then just get us moving back up the pitch. A brilliant player, the best centre-back in the country at this moment in time for sure.
We’ve had a few blips on puckouts this year, we’ve struggled to get numbers to the breaks but yesterday was a masterclass. Nickie puts the ball exactly where it’s supposed to go. The half-forwards were just so clever in the way they used their bodies just as the ball arrived to give themselves the advantage- all three of Hego, Kyle & Tom were totally dominant I felt. Kilkenny probably would have been better switching to a zonal defence on puckouts, defending outside our men, rather than leaving one-on-one battles with space outside. In the heat, they struggled to get men back to support on the breaks so Limerick forwards were even able to break it to themselves. But Nickie showed his worth once again, still the single most important cog in this team. Lynch might be our best player but we showed this year, it was possible to win without him - Nickie is the one irreplaceable player at this moment in time.
The celebrations were great last night, and I’m looking forward to tonight also. The last two victories were disrupted so we have three years worth to look forward to tonight. And then back to the clubs at the weekend, unreal.
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