‘Realistically Limerick probably are beyond worrying about league games’

Sunday's Allianz Hurling League sees a re-run of last summer's All-Ireland hurling final between Limerick and Cork. It's a league fixture with a significant history in recent years.

Last year, Limerick snapped out of a poor start to their campaign by comfortably winning the league meeting of the counties, which came a matter of weeks before their Munster semi-final in which they repeated that success if not convincingly.

The scale however of the All-Ireland final defeat inflicted on Cork in August has created an assumption that Kieran Kingston’s team need to find some form of redemption.

This year the counties commence their Munster round-robin campaign against each other on Easter Sunday.

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Although incapacitated by the injury that would end his career in 2019, Paul Browne was vice-captain for the 2018 breakthrough. He says that confidence has certainly been a major factor in approaching these matches.

Major factor

“When it comes to playing Cork, confidence is a big thing on their side and our side. In Limerick we always felt that we never wanted to play Cork in a challenge game because they could do anything to you so you’d be wary of a league match. From our point of view we’d never want to give them that leg up.”

Hard experience bears this out. After Limerick's first All-Ireland win under John Kiely in 2018, they were beaten at home in the league by Cork the following spring. It was regarded as an aberration until the following May's round robin when again in the Gaelic Grounds, the result was repeated, hinting at the malaise that would lead to Limerick's only summer in the last four to end without the Liam MacCarthy.

Browne believes however that the old influences mightn't be as strong any more. Teams have different requirements of matches and he sees Cork's acquiring of renowned performance consultant Gary Keegan as of likely significance.

“There’s a view that it’s very important for Cork to get something out of this match whether it’s taking points or laying down a marker and that they should be targeting this game because of our bad start and hoping to repair some of the damage.

“Gary Keegan though may want Cork to treat this game like any other, a team of grey faces or whatever. In one sense from a team aspect you may be looking at making amends and getting the confidence back when you have to play that team in green again.

“From a different perspective you’d probably want to eliminate that association because if you go about it from the other point of view and you lose, it’s doubly as bad. Better to approach it like any other game and concentrate on what they’ve been working on and get step by step better - as opposed to trying to win to make up for last year.”

Another factor has to be the rise of Limerick into an utterly dominant force in the game. No team has been able to come to terms with the power and precision of their movement.

Surely they are now beyond games of cat-and-mouse in league encounters.

“They probably are, to be honest,” says Browne. “It’s maybe important not to give Cork too much hope but realistically Limerick probably are beyond worrying about league games. But they do need a win. Losing three in a row would be a hard one to swallow for the group.

“Every year the time to peak has been different. They’ve won All-Irelands in August, December and this year if it happens it will be in July. It’s a tricky balancing act.”