WITH THE RETURN of Peter Casey, Cian Lynch and Aaron Gillane to the Limerick fold, wing-forward Tom Morrissey has described what he terms as a ‘healthy paranoia’ within the squad as players narrow the focus on nailing down their starting slot.

“For any successful team you need lads constantly coming in and pushing the lads who are there so you have that paranoia,” explained the Ahane man.

“It’s not good for any individual to get complacent or relaxed. When you’re dealing with top level sport complacency is the rot when it comes to improving. It’s the one thing that when you look at a team or an individual, when you get complacent or relaxed that’s when you’re going to be at your most vulnerable.”

As Limerick go in search of the league title this Sunday in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, a bauble they have not collected since successfully defending it in 2020, it all sounds reminiscent of the edgy, spiky feeling you got from the Kilkenny squad of the mid-00s.

As detailed in several player autobiographies, what Brian Cody was never afraid to say was that he never sought a ‘settled squad’, but a ‘settled spirit.’

“The training matches are definitely competitive,” Morrissey states.

“They definitely get fiery and maybe a small bit over the line at times but it’s all in good nature. I suppose it just shows how lads are pushing and trying to get the best out of themselves. That brings the best out of each other and your team-mates as a result. 

“While there’s a burning desire to obviously win competitive matches against other counties like at the weekend, there’s also a burning desire to win any training match that’s played behind closed doors between us as well.” 

Because of that aura, the former Tipperary manager Liam Sheedy used to say that his players wanted to play Kilkenny as often as possible, to see how they could figure out a way to beat them.

Prior to the All-Ireland final last year, Kilkenny had not met Limerick in championship hurling since 2019, but even for all that war-gaming going on, Limerick keep themselves briefed on the chasing pack too.

“Not that we look forward to playing any certain team more than another, we don’t really, but we always look forward to looking at the other teams and the challenges they’ve tried to bring to us in the past,” explained Morrissey.

“We look forward to that challenge that they’re going to bring to us on any given day and how we’re going to react and adapt to it and try to overcome it. 

“So, yeah, while they might get excitement out of playing us, we get excitement from the challenge that any team is going to bring and try to overcome that challenge.”

Most of the commentary around the hurling league this has season has centred around how flaccid some performances were and how nothing could be taken at face value.

As far as Morrissey is concerned though, all that experimentation is over and done with and he is hungry for a league title.  

“I would be an advocate for it. At the end of the day it is a national title and there are not that many competitions that we can play in with Limerick,” he points out.

“You have your pre-season competitions and then you have your league, the Munster championship and then the All-Ireland as well. So it’s an opportunity to get more medals in the year.

“My attitude would always be to get as much as you can. It doesn’t change, the competition we are in. You want to win it, we are competitors at nature to play sport at a high level and when you are picked to play, you are going to grab it.”

Despite warnings that if Kilkenny could beat Limerick, lightning might not strike twice in one spring/summer, the Cats’ sharpshooter Eoin Cody is not buying it.

“That’s something people say but, look, we’re the same, we’re Kilkenny and we’re looking forward to playing Limerick,” he states.

“You might win, you might lose, you might play again and hopefully we will in the future and it’ll be the same again. If we go out and win or lose this weekend, it’s not going to dictate what happens in the future.”

Asked how differently they might approach this game from the All-Ireland final, and he leans back into values of old.

“We go at every game with the right intention. The hard work, the hunger, the relentlessness is always there in this Kilkenny team. Maybe being a bit more ruthless in front of goal and take all our scores, if there’s a hook or a block extra we’ll do it, but I don’t think there’s anything there that we have to really focus on doing differently.”

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