Knox’s used always do alright food. Loads of tellies.
Anyone with a sub able to do the deed?
I have got food, best pub to watch the game?
Are you in the town? Dan O’Connell’s/Knoxes if you can get in. 500m from the park
Surely it’s the two games in Ennis against Tipp and Cork that Lohan will be targeting. The Limerick game is a free hit. Waterford in Thurles is a far more winnable “away” game from their perspective. Very few benefits to beating Limerick in the Round Robin as Cork learned in 2019.
I’m suggesting he’s targeting post Munster championship. They peaked too early last year.
If they lose today there as good as done for the year and they looked well off it in the league.
Just take one game at a time
Lovely, thanks
Off-field reflection
In their personal relationships the bitterness didn’t linger. On All-Stars tours and in Railway Cup dressingrooms going back the years, there was never any hangover from those battles. Much later, when Daly was the Dublin manager, Dunne went in as his coach.
He tells a funny story from a shinty trip to Scotland in 1997, when he ended up at a bar counter, shoulder to shoulder with Lohan, as if the enmity and rage of the previous six months had never happened.
[ GAA working group to look at use of handpass in hurling ]
“I don’t know how much talking we did, but we did some drinking. The match was on the day after and one of the Limerick lads was supposed to be hitting the frees for Ireland. I think he might have missed one early in the game, and next thing another free was given. I was in the horrors, really and truly, but I remember this roaring coming from behind. It was Lohan, coming out from the full back line: ‘Tommy Dunne, you take that free!’ And I was thinking, ‘I never thought I’d see this day.’
Tommy Dunne (Tipperary) and Jamesie O’Connor (Clare) recount stories from their great rivalry. Photograph: Liam Burke/Press 22
“I would have enormous regard – like, we hated them so bad it was unbelievable – but I would have enormous regard for James and Lohan and Daly and all of them. I always remember, we beat Clare in 2002, and I ended up near Seánie at the final whistle. He was broken after that match and he was walking away – he walked a few strides – and then he stopped and he turned back and came over and shook hands. The measure of someone to do that.
“Even though it stings [the games we lost], I feel privileged to have been in it. They were powerful days. Nerve-racking, but absolutely powerful. It really took you to your limits. To your real limits of what you could withstand. That’s what I felt. Very few things in life offer you that.”
What a thing to have lived.
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Tiny Waterford crowd here.
‘Davy Fitz was a very good manager in 2012 and ’13 but it was after that that he became very egotistical’
‘It was after 2013 that Davy became very egotistical and wanted a hand in every single thing’ – Clare’s loss has been Limerick’s gain as Kinnerk has free hand to implement style with Treaty
Davy Fitzgerald with Limerick coach Paul Kinnerk. Waterford and Limerick face off this weekend. Photo: Sportsfile
Davy Fitzgerald with Limerick coach Paul Kinnerk. Waterford and Limerick face off this weekend. Photo: Sportsfile
Michael Verney
April 22 2023 02:30 AM
They may be polar opposites in terms of their style and demeanour, but Davy Fitzgerald and Paul Kinnerk were the dream team when combining to help Clare reach the pinnacle 10 years ago.
With Fitzgerald as manager and Kinnerk influencing their style of play as coach, the Banner went on a roller-coaster ride through the back door before securing just the fourth All-Ireland SHC title in their history.
It seemed like the hurling world was at Clare’s feet with Davy and Kinnerk pulling the strings, but the county haven’t made it to the game’s biggest day since.
Now, the pair uniquely find themselves in opposite corners tomorrow when they clash in Semple Stadium.
Fitzgerald is back at the helm in Waterford for a second time and he takes the Déise up the road to meet a Limerick side which Kinnerk, under John Kiely’s watch as manager, has helped to propel onto a new level.
There was no public falling-out between the duo when they parted ways at the end of the 2016 season – Kinnerk had stepped away in 2015 before returning a year later as they combined again for league success – with both heading in different directions.
Fitzgerald ventured to Wexford, who he led to a famous Leinster SHC title in 2019, while Kinnerk went back to his native Limerick and has played a pivotal part in their all-conquering success since ending a 45-year All-Ireland SHC famine in 2018.
Gerry O’Connor and Donal Moloney, who succeeded Fitzgerald in the Clare hot-seat, are understood to have been close to luring Kinnerk into their management ticket and the loss of the Monaleen native is still a sore issue among the Banner.
“He definitely should have been held onto in Clare,” a 2013 All-Ireland winner with the Banner, who prefers to remain nameless, tells Independent.ie.
“The biggest change there is that he’s getting full freedom to implement what he wants in Limerick under Kiely. It was probably more of a restrictive regime in Clare and that might have played a part in him leaving.
“Davy was a very good manager in 2012 and ‘13 but it was after that that he became very egotistical and wanted a hand in every single thing.
“Look at Limerick now, who are the standard-bearers, you can see that Kiely puts a good team around him.
“And then he allows them to do what they are good at whereas Davy had a good team around him but still wanted full control.
“If you’re appointing someone to do a job, you have to let them do it, especially when they’re the best in the game and Paul is the best in the game. Kiely clearly has no ego about it at all, Paul does his thing and Kiely’s role is to manage.”
What Clare have missed out on has only be underlined by the sustained success of their Munster rivals.
“Limerick have reached a level that Clare should have reached after their All-Ireland win,” the former Clare man continues.
“They never did because it was stunted in terms of the development but Paul was able to achieve all of these things with Limerick after they made their breakthrough that he could have with Clare if he had been let and given the full control.”
Kinnerk’s game-based approach has taken the Treaty to a new level with many dubbing them as certainties for a fourth All-Ireland in succession and the clash of tactical styles will be fascinating when he faces Fitzgerald for the first time in championship.
Will one know the other’s playbook or vice versa? Galway legend Joe Canning, who played under Fitzgerald with Limerick IT and was crucial in their 2007 Fitzgibbon Cup triumph, is expecting his former boss to throw something unusual at the Treaty.
“They’ll definitely try something and it could work out and he’ll be the best manager going again,” Canning says. “And if it doesn’t work out, then people will go, ‘Jesus, he shouldn’t have tried that’. Would I give Waterford a chance coming in with Fitzy? One-hundred per cent.
“I’d say he’ll have them believing that they’ll beat Limerick at the weekend, no doubt about it. Whether they believe it or not is another thing. Like, you’ve seen it many another time before where teams with Fitzy involved are given no chance and next thing they just come with a performance.
“He’s going into it in a perfect situation. Nobody is giving Waterford a chance and everybody can’t talk enough about Limerick so it’s a dangerous enough game for Limerick.
“They’ll definitely try something because he probably has a load of game-plans. Now do I believe that that’s a good thing? Probably not. I believe that you have to play on instinct a lot of the time. So whether that’ll confuse guys or not could be a different thing.”
As for Kinnerk, Limerick superstar Gearóid Hegarty insists that the Treaty squad soak up whatever the “top-class coach” outlines to them before carrying it out to the letter of the law with no questions asked.
“Whatever strategy he outlines, we’ll go out and do it without any question or doubt,” Hegarty says.
“He has us prepared for every team we play against to the nth degree and it’s obviously been very successful over the last number of years so hopefully we can continue doing that in that way.”
Throw the popcorn on and kick the feet up in front of the telly, the reunion of Davy and Kinnerk promises to produce plenty of fireworks on and off the pitch.
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Why would kinnerk have stayed with Clare when the opportunity with limerick came around? Kiely is one lucky bastard, along for the ride essentially but thought of as a guru
Lynch going full maverick today leaving the earrings in.
Took about two minutes for Des and Brendan to catch on we were going to Hawkeye there
Hawkeye has it nearly over the black spot 
This could be any score
You’d have sone job trying to convince a foreigner that these matches are a big deal when they’re shooting into a completely empty terrace
Like 0-29 to 1-21?
Bar Limerick v Cork you’re not gonna get huge crowds opening day… Been like that a long time
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Tom Morrissey has made substantial gains on his head and his body. He’s in skme shape.
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