A bumpy ride that mirrors Limerick's

Brian Murray has ridden the same roller-coaster as the Limerick team over the past 15 months. His low point was the team's low point. His recovery has hurtled along the same tracks as the county's.

The apocalyptic beating from Clare in Ennis last July 12 months was as indisputably low a starting point as any revival might claim and in the middle of the devastation was the subplot of the goalkeeper being taken off at half-time.

Admittedly most observers were as baffled as Murray by the substitution but it marked a demoralising setback at the time for the then 21-year-old.

"It was heart-breaking at the time but once Tuesday came I was back at training and pulled the socks up and tore into it and got my chance again. I'm only 22 at the moment but I was talking to some of the older guys and they gave me great advice to just keep going and it paid off.

"If I was a little bit older it might have affected me more but I was just after coming on to the panel that year. I just lifted my head although it had been bugging me for a couple of days."

As Limerick sifted through the wreckage under the then emergency management of Richie Bennis there was little attention paid to Murray's return to the team in the qualifiers. And from there the world has turned to the point where the Patrickswell goalkeeper will in a few days take the field at Croke Park for his first All-Ireland final.

He doesn't sound like he could write a thesis on the subject but Murray feels that the points of improvement are easily identified. Firstly the emphasis on last year's National League that seemed to leave Limerick well positioned for the championship after a battling defeat by this weekend's opponents Kilkenny, he believes, turned out to be misjudged.

"We played well against Kilkenny but they got three goals which really turned the game but we were with them for most of the match. Going into the Tipp match maybe we were a bit too cocky. The way things had gone we thought we'd have a great crack at the Munster championship last year."

This year the league offered less pleasant preliminaries with a much-derided defeat by Dublin and a relegation play-off against Offaly that for all it was a relief and emphatic, didn't seem to establish Limerick as championship contenders. Comparing the two spring campaigns Murray says, however, that this year has turned out to be of more lasting benefit.

"We'd our full team out every time (in 2006). In fairness to the management this year they gave every player on the panel a game in the league and that means an awful lot to the panel."

Like Sunday's match referee Diarmuid Kirwan, Murray has a link to the big game through his father. Both Gerry Kirwan and Terence Murray refereed All-Ireland finals in the 1980s, one after the other during the years of Galway's back-to-back titles in 1988 and '87 respectively. Home has been and remains his support system.

"My dad is a brilliant influence," he says. "He got me into the hurling. As he was refereeing matches I was going up to Croke Park and Thurles and even to club pitches with him just standing around watching.

"People talk about my father but the mother does trojan work, washing the gear and having the boots ready. They're fantastic, they're brilliant support. If you have a bad game you come home and they talk to you about it and the next game that counts they drive you on. It's fantastic to have a family like that."

He dabbled in other sports and plays a very useful round of golf but hurling was the centripetal force.

Captain of the Patrickswell NS, he went on to play for Limerick in the early age grades but largely in the forwards. The conversion to goalkeeper was tried in his teens but not settled upon until the club moved him.

Moving in concert with Murray have been the other Patrickswell influences of coach Gary Kirby and manager Bennis, who he has known since the earliest days in the club where at the age of three he once filled a vacancy on his father's under-10 team.

Bennis and Bernie Hartigan are also links with the team that won Limerick's last All-Ireland, all of 34 years ago.

"The game has changed a lot since 1973," says Murray, "but the belief and everything is still in Bernie and Richie, and this would mean more to them than their win in '73."

Brian Murray

Age:22.

Height:5ft 8in.

Weight:12 st.

Position:Goalkeeper.

Club:Patrickswell.