Anthony Nash

THE FIRST THING I need to say is this wasn’t my idea. Life is tough enough without poring over your most painful defeats. 

I always wanted to learn from mistakes and embraced stats and video analysis as a result, but I don’t go in for watching full games back. I made an exception for Cork’s All-Ireland semi-final loss to Tipperary in 2014 because they picked us apart that day. 

But the 2013 drawn All-Ireland final? The replay? Someday maybe – when my kids are raised, there’s nothing on my 900 channels, the broadband is down and I’ve lost my golf clubs. 

And as for the 2018 semi-final against Limerick, and most specifically from Darragh Fitzgibbon’s point which put us six ahead on? You’re joking me. Like everyone else, I have my unfortunate tendencies, but masochism isn’t one of them. 

One of my colleagues at The 42 suggested these few minutes of play are instructive to the story of this Limerick team; the time they truly arrived as the force we now know. And to be fair I was a participant in the game so I could see up close what was happening. 

Trying to make sense of it from this distance, and relate it to juggernaut that Limerick have become ahead of yet another national final for them, is a worthwhile exercise – but not one I was looking forward to. But here we go. I’ll leave a Patreon link at the end so you can help fund my therapy sessions as a result of this endeavour!  

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61.28: Cork 1-25 Limerick 1-20. We’ll start at the lead up to the Fitzgibbon’s score. A spell of Limerick pressure is repelled and the ball is turned over by Bill Copper, who puts in a super block on Graeme Mulcahy. Cooper works the ball up the line to Darragh who gathers and uses his pace to advance on goal before pointing off his left side, Cork 1-26 – Limerick 1-20. The roar tells you the crowd see this as a pivotal score. By the time the ball is pucked out there will be eight minutes left and without a goal it will be tough to recover a gap of six points. Yet this thinking is almost out of date by 2018. Games are high-scoring and teams can be reeled in if they are met by the right mix of extraordinary ability, calm, want, and a little good fortune on the day. 

63.25: Cork 1-26 Limerick 1-21. Aaron Gillane free. The fightback starts immediately. Limerick win the puckout through Kyle Hayes and Cian Lynch, who handpasses through to Shane Dowling, a serious sub to have just brought on. Dowling goes down, and will have felt he deserved a free. Eoin Cadogan gathers the ball and is pinged for carrying. You can count the steps yourself in the video if you like, we’re not here to lament decisions. Gillane lines up the free while Pat Ryan comes on, his pace at this stage of the game is a boon for Limerick. 

63 58: Cork 1-26 Limerick 1-22 Kyle Hayes point. I puck the ball out long after Gillane’s free. I’d just seen John Kiely signaling to his players to push up, making it harder for me to go short. To that stage we’d worked the ball out of defence well, been composed in our decision making and the passes between the lines were sticking. Being forced to go longer now was not ideal, especially with Seamus Harnedy, our best ball winner, carrying a dead leg. Dan Morrissey wins the puckout comfortably and the ball is worked up the left flank towards Hayes. He breaks Eoin Cadogan’s tackle, shows a furious turn of pace and just before shooting pivots to his left to avoid the hook. It’s a phenomenal point from him on the run at that stage of the game.  

Kyle Hayes. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

65.39: Cork 1-26 Limeirick 1-23. Gillane free. I puck the ball out short from the previous score to Colm Spillane. He launches it to their left corner back position. The ball comes straight back out but Cadogan manages to intercept. He plays a stick pass square to Christopher Joyce. Limerick have raised their intensity level significantly now, and Joyce is set upon by three players. He manages to get a handpass away and Cooper seems set to gather but he uncharacteristically misses the pickup under pressure from Lynch. Peter Casey gets the ball in his hand and is fouled by Joyce. Gillane points from just outside the 45. Our six point cushion is down to three within four minutes. 

67.45: Cork 1-26 Limerick 1-24. Gillane free. Cooper goes down to receive medical help before the puck out that leads to this score. It’s not the worst time for the game to be stopped, as you could observe that we’re now officially in a tight spot. Still, we’re three points ahead with four minutes to go, plus stoppages. A score for us now and the momentum can shift again. Declan Hannon wins my puckout, a clean catch. The ball is worked up the field, Hayes gives a sweet diagonal ball into Ryan who uses his speed to get in around the back. A wayward handpass denies Peter Casey a goal-scoring chance but he wins a free out by the sideline. Gillane does so well to slot this from a narrow angle.     

68.48: Cork 1-26 Limerick 1-25. We eventually win a puckout, Tim O’Mahony breaking the ball to Cooper who hits Patrick Horgan running back from the full forward position. Hoggie gathers and jinks and shoots on the turn. It’s the kind of shot he executes time and again. His contact is good, but the ball comes back off the post. Two Cork players are well placed for the rebound, Mark Ellis particularly so, but the break favours Richie English. The ball is worked up the left wing, Casey feeds who Dowling slings another over. 

69.16. The puckout goes long again, right on top of Harnedy. He goes down under contact from behind. In the mixture of a lot of brilliance and a little luck, this is Limerick’s greatest slice. A point here from a close-in free and we’re two up again – by no means out of danger given the stoppage time to come, but certainly in a better position. 

70.35: Following a fine catch by Damien Cahalane and composed play from Mark Coleman and Colm Spillane, Tim O’Mahony hits a wide from distance. You could argue the ball towards Harnedy was the one to play, but Tim took responsibility and it’s the kind of shot I’ve seen him score many times. 

71.30: Cork 1-26 Limerick 1-26. Gillane point from play. The resulting puckout leads to contested possession, eventually won by Casey. He turns and passes to Gillane who still has a lot to do to get the ball in his hand and evade the tackles to get his shot away. He does this with some style and Limerick are level. 

 71.52: That Nickie Quaid block. My puckout is won by Robbie O’Flynn who turns and takes off towards goal. He’s being chased hard by Sean Finn and Mike Casey has to drift across from the full-back spot to stop him having a clear shot. Harnedy is left open as a result. Robbie flicks a handpass across that doesn’t go to hand. Sham has an incredible touch off his hurley overhead to get it into his hand, he checks back inside, goes to pull the trigger but Quaid gets the flick in. It’s an outrageous piece of defending by Nickie. From our point of view, there could be laments. Why didn’t Robbie just tap it over and restore our lead? To that I’d say pause the game at 71.50. Robbie has company in Finn, and would likely be hooked, plus his angle for the shot is not ideal. Most players who see the chance for the kill will go for it. At full speed, he sees Sham and passes inside. We always strive to get handpasses to go to hand, had it done so then a goal was more probable but at that pace and under that pressure from the opposition it’s unlikely to be so straightforward. The credit belongs with Nickie for his reaction. 

Tommy Dickson / INPHO Tommy Dickson / INPHO / INPHO

73.10: Cork 1-26 Limerick 1-27. Gillane free. The ball is hit long after Limerick gain possession after Quaid’s save. Ryan wins the ball and Cahalane is judged to have fouled him. Gillane converts again and we’re behind with seconds remaining. 

74.00: Cork 1-27 Limerick 1-27. I’m in a fair hurry to take the puckout. Conor Lehane does really well to win it close to the left sideline. He is fouled. Hoggie steps up. He told me before that someone from the Glen once said to him that moments like this are what make you want to be a freetaker. He’s got the nerve and technique to nail it, and we’re headed for extra time. 

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That’s a review for a different day. Cork were very much the underdogs from that point. Limerick’s bench had given them a winning edge. We lacked dirty-ball winners to the extent that Daniel Kearney had to come on in extra time, despite having emptied himself before being taken off near the hour mark. 

Our chance, most realistically, was in closing it out from a position of strength. 

Our manager John Meyler said in later years that we never really recovered from that game. I’d respectfully disagree with John. It was a tough winter that followed but soon enough you’re thinking about 2019, in your bubble of training, eating well, resting; far too occupied to have serious regrets. We did manage to beat Limerick in the 2019 championship too, which looks a better achievement in hindsight than it did at the time. 

In 2018 we had the chance to delay Limerick, but they were coming either way. We’d seen their ‘sticking to the process’ doctrine before, against Kilkenny in the quarter final and us in the Munster round robin that year. Yet those eight minutes plus time added on was when they announced themselves to the hurling world as a supreme mix of talent and big-game temperament. It wasn’t the genesis of their team by any means, though. That didn’t even happen in their fabled academy. 

This Limerick team’s beginning is their lineage, the fathers and uncles of players who went before in green. Cian Lynch, Gearoid Hegarty, Sean Finn, Barry Nash, Seamus Flanagan, Barry Hennessy and Nickie Quaid all grew up in homes steeped in hurling and with a sense of mission to put their county to the top. I’m beyond proud to have been a Cork hurler, but I also know what it’s like to be born into one of those Limerick families. It would have taken an act of extreme rebellion or madness for me to be anything other than a hurler.  

Had Cork closed it out in 2018 and had Limerick then failed to get over the line in 2019 there’s a sense that the breakthrough would have been tougher. Yet I cannot see any picture in which they are not dominant now considering the depth of talent, the systems in place and the people such as Kiely and Paul Kinnerk in charge – as well as input from the likes of Joe O’Connor who helped chisel them into the athletes they are now. 

I still wouldn’t underestimate the benefit of that semi-final win against us. They can never forget what happened that day, how they were staring at elimination against a more seasoned team but managed to remain in the moment and make good decision after good decision, trusting their ability to make every block, puckout won, pass executed and shot converted accumulate into a winning outcome. People talk about their ability to solve problems in the heat of the contest, this is where that trait first came starkly to the attention of the masses. 

Kilkenny on Sunday is the latest test. It’s far from the defining one of the year for them, but they know that if they go looking for answers they have a rich memory bank of where to find them. 

The memory is not so pleasant for us, but that’s the game. Limerick as a county had to go through bitter days to get to where they are. I was there as a kid with my cousins and uncles for all of those heartbreaking games.  

Most of their players now weren’t born or weren’t old enough to remember their loss to Offaly in 1994, but it’s unmistakably a part of the collective psyche. These things can act as a spur to subsequent generations. 

In the same way, there will be young kids in Cork who will have seen our game from 2018. You never know, it just might be in their heads to wrest back the ground that’s been lost to Limerick since.    

Few serious hurling observers are predicting anything but another All-Ireland title for Limerick this year, and probably in 2024 too. They look more dominant than ever, but sport is funny like that. Empires can decline quickly and from positions where they look uncontestedly strong.   

That moment of maximum supremacy still comes with vulnerability. It doesn’t take much to knock you off your rhythm. A couple of key absences, a barely perceptible drop in application levels, a decision or two going against you in a big game, a rival hitting a seam of form that seemed so-far unlikely.

Anything, as we learned in 2018, can happen to change the picture. Momentum is everything in hurling. There were days in Thurles, when Cork had a run on a team and the Town End was booming as score after score went over. It felt like an elemental force had been unleashed and you were just along for the ride.  

It goes the other way too. When you step on the quicksand every counter movement just sinks you further into the mire. 

Limerick’s mission is to stay on that wave for as long as they can. To do that means keeping your standards high and approaching every game, training session and gym rep with the proper intent. Do anything less and a team like Kilkenny, or one from the chasing pack, will find you out fast enough. Sunday at Páirc Uí Chaoimh is the kind of game where they will want to show yet again what they are about. Enjoy it. 

No need for the patreon link – I’ve got a few things out of my system here. Just don’t expect me to watch those Clare games back any time soon!     

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