Evolution of Limerick hurling has been defined by clashes against Kilkenny

John Kiely’s first season as Limerick manager ended on a warm summer’s evening in Nowlan Park, his team outhustled and outlasted. Kilkenny controlled the last 10 minutes like a set piece from a Three Stooges film, their outstretched hand planted on Limerick’s forehead while the young Turks flailed away, punching thin air. Afterwards Kiely fumbled with the air-con in his brain, trying to find the right temperature for his response.

“Moral victories are no use whatsoever,” he said, “when you lose, you lose ... but listen, we’re building something strong and sustainable. It’s there for the future.”

Every rookie manager has a manifesto, and whatever notes of hope and defiance Kiely struck on that night six years ago might not have reached a congregation beyond the faithful. After just two games Limerick’s summer was over. For the third year in a row they had failed to win a match in the Munster championship. Were they convinced they could beat Kilkenny? They thought they might. Does that answer your question?

“We knew it was within our reach,” says Tom Condon now. “We were bitterly disappointed after. We thought it was a missed chance. But how many times had we come close to maybe doing something? You’re kind of hoping you’d do it.”

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As a group, that was the critical leap they had to make. Winning or losing was still liable to be an accident; something that happened to them, outside their agency.

“I remember Brian Cody coming in and speaking to us afterwards,” says Shane Dowling, “and I remember looking at him thinking, ‘This is iconic, Brian Cody coming into our dressingroom.’ That was probably where the mindset was at. I remember coming off the field after the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final [against Kilkenny], and while I was disappointed [to lose] I was half-chuffed as well. I was basically saying, ‘I can’t believe we’re after pushing Kilkenny that far.’”

In each of Kiely’s first three years as Limerick manager they met Kilkenny in the championship; each time they were shaped by the outcome, in some fundamental way. In the Brian Cody-era Kilkenny had forced many teams into painful reflection, but it didn’t always make a difference. Learning and being schooled aren’t necessarily the same.

Immediately after the 2017 loss Limerick chased the stuff that had left them short. They have been the most physically dominant team in hurling for the last four or five years, but that superpower wasn’t available in Year One. After that night in Nowlan Park it was abundantly clear that they weren’t strong enough. In conversation a few months ago, Sean Finn’s Dad Brian spoke about a shoulder his son took from Walter Walsh, “that nearly killed him.”

“We got a bit blown away,” says Condon. “It was a case of ‘Right, we have to match this physicality.’” A plan was put in place within weeks.

“As teams got knocked out of the club championship,” says Paul Browne, “we were called straight back into the gym. That game against Kilkenny was on the first of July. I was back in the gym that year in August. Some lads came in even though their clubs were still in the championship. When we got back to the training field in 2018 some fellas had gone huge.

“Losing to Kilkenny in 2017 was probably needed. Back then you wouldn’t be saying it was needed – but when you look back now it was a blessing in disguise.”

By the time they met again in the championship, 54 weeks later, Limerick were a different beast. A third of the starting 15 had changed: Diarmuid Byrnes, Tom Morrissey, Aaron Gillane, Seamus Flanagan and Graeme Mulcahy came in, four of them in their breakthrough seasons. Between them they have amassed 10 All-Stars since then, but in the middle of 2018 nobody understood the difference they might make.

More than that, though, Limerick’s minds had changed. “Going into the game we thought we were going to beat Kilkenny,” says Browne. “I had no doubt we were going to win the game.”

In a rare interview for Dreams, the DVD of Limerick’s 2018 season, Kiely’s first lieutenant Paul Kinnerk framed their thinking: “We were relishing that game,” he said. “That was the game we all wanted. This group quite openly said that they wanted to write their own history. What better starting point than to do it against a team we hadn’t beaten in 45 years in the championship.”

The volatile nature of the match tested all of their new beliefs. With five minutes left Richie Hogan scored a goal to put Kilkenny two points up. For most of the previous 20 years Kilkenny had been masters of closing their fist on a game as soon as they could feel it in their palm.

“We said it in the dressingroom at half time,” said Kinnerk, “we were going to face a moment in the game where a serious question would be asked of the group, and the group would have to stand up and confront that.”

Morrissey won the next puck out and rifled it over the bar. Less than 90 seconds after falling behind Limerick were in front again. Their response had been cold and systematic and without doubt. “The next puck-out was exactly the kind of puck-out we had been running in training,” says Browne. “We didn’t win the game by going away from what we had been doing – we won it by sticking exactly to what we were supposed to be doing.”

In conversation this week the other thing Kiely recalled was their reformed shooting. In Nowlan Park in 2017 they had scored 17 points and committed 17 wides; in Thurles a year later they scored 27 points from 35 shots, including a staggering 25 points from play.

“We had lots of chances [in 2017] and our efficiency on the night was very low,” says Kiely. “We went and addressed that the year after. Paul [Kinnerk] did a huge amount of work with the lads on that. We knew if we were going to have a chance of winning we were going to have to be exceptionally efficient.”

Even though it was only an All-Ireland quarter-final it was a gateway match in the young life of the group. If they needed verification for everything they had been doing, here it was. They had done something that changed an old story. “We’re not a group with any burden from the past,” said Morrissey in his post-match interview. “We don’t carry any of that baggage.”

“I was asked only the other night, at what point in 2018 did I think winning [the All-Ireland] was possible,” says Dowling. “And I said, ‘After the Kilkenny game.’ It was a massive moment for the group. That was a monumental moment.”

A year later, when they met again in the All-Ireland semi-final, all of the dynamics had changed. Limerick were the defending champions; Kilkenny were the underdogs. After just 14 minutes Kilkenny were eight points clear, and the cyclone of pressure battered Limerick until nearly half-time.

Limerick were vulnerable in a way they didn’t expect. For 18 months they had consistently beaten all-comers in the tackle count, and then Kilkenny reminded them of who invented the wheel.

“Kilkenny were awesome that day,” says Condon, “and we were a small bit off it. We gave them too much rein and they were gone. I always remember when they came back with the stats – the intensity index they call it I think. Seanie O’Donnell [Limerick’s lead analyst] would have a fair record of games going back the years and he said there was just no comparison anywhere to what Kilkenny brought that day. No team would have lived with it.”

Match analysts have different ways of coding tackles, with a spectrum of plausible definitions, but by one reliable count Kilkenny made 127 “hits” on their opponents in that match; Limerick made 108. On any other day that would have been overwhelming.

“After 2018 we did a good job of staying focused,” says Browne, “but we probably weren’t as focused in 2019 as we have been since. That’s why that Kilkenny game is a great reference point, and that’s why you keep hearing the boys say it. We learned a lot of lessons throughout that year. I wouldn’t say fellas got ahead of themselves, or anything like that, but there were just small things that we haven’t done since. Fellas [needed to] look after themselves a bit better, time-wise and away from the pitch. Minding their own time, not getting involved in as many gigs, and stuff like that.

“The other side of it was that Kilkenny went to a level that day that we hadn’t got to by then. They pushed our stats to a level that we hadn’t seen. That’s why the boys use it as a focus point – we have to be near that level all the time, or we’ll be caught.”

That was the last championship game that Limerick have lost, nearly four years ago now. How could they forget?

“I believe in their in-house [meetings] John Kiely brings them back to that defeat,” said Ger Hegarty, Gearoid’s father, in conversation before Christmas. “He brings them back to 2019 and the pain of that defeat. When they get ahead of themselves, he hooks them back in. They struggled for a long time after that. That pain has driven them since.”

Yet another thing.