Not being backward in coming forward

The positioning of Ciarβn Carey at centrefield for Limerick represents the completion of a significant u-turn in his inter-county career. When the Patrickswell virtuoso informed Eamon Cregan that he did not wish to be considered for the panel on December 29th last, it might have been construed as a quiet fade-out to a fiery career.

For Limerick supporters, his departure might also have implied a shelving of the residue of ambition and spirit that carried through from the 1994 and 1996 Limerick sides that would, barring cursed luck, have won an All-Ireland.

Carey was undergoing doubts about his immediate future in the game at any level and hinted that the hiatus might extend to club duties also. Whether prevailed upon or by choice, however, play he did and Patrickswell won another county championship, but, from afar, Carey's experiences seemed less than sweet. A dismissal in the early minutes of the second half of the match against Doon and the concession of five points to John Reddan of Sixmilebridge were read as the classic signs of the travails of a lion in fallow winter.

"It was never that simple though," reasons Gary Kirby, still Carey's club-mate and, of course, one of the key figures of the Limerick game over the last decade.

"Yes, he got the sending off but against Sixmilebridge, he actually played quite well for us, he still got in a number of very valuable clearances. I think he was kind of unfortunate in that the ball seemed to run well for Reddan and he took his points. That will happen in games."

That match, an hour of sport frozen in the depths of last November, ended the 'Well's season and was to have been Carey's swansong for the indefinite future. Limerick was perceived as a team both young and fragile, fodder really for the guns of Cork and Tipperary come championship time.

Eamonn Cregan never bristled at such depictions, re-stating quietly his belief in his team. But their league form was troubling, most notably the 14-point drubbing at the hands of Clare on an evening of McCourtian misery in Limerick city.

For the next, inconsequential round, Carey was astonishingly there in the county colours, slugging it out against Meath at Kilmallock, scoring 0-1 and struggling with his team. It looked like a poignant but hopeless return.

"I was surprised to see it, yes," admits Kirby. "Especially since it was so late in the season. But given Ciarβn's athleticism and influence, it could only have had a positive effect. I think that the younger players have really responded to having him around again and they see him as someone who has done it before."

And how many times. Back in 1994, when Offaly inimitably and illogically destroyed Limerick in the last five minutes of the All-Ireland final, most commentators observed that Carey was the pick of the field. He was inconsolable that day, sitting in the dazed dressing-room with his hands to his head while his team-mates tired to make sense of the events.

Two years later - it took that long for the team to recover emotionally - he provided the most singular moment of what would become a spellbinding year for hurling.

That solo point to beat Clare in the first round of the Munster championship was pure Carey. The burst of speed and the direct route down the centre of the field. The unadorned, slightly school-boyish way he ran. The mental scope to trigger at the precise time, with the Clare defenders rallying - a right-sided stroke after recovering a half-fumble.

"Fair play to Carey," lilted the beaten Ger Loughnane afterwards, "He was under fierce pressure for the last three weeks. But to come out like that at the end and score a point is the sign of a real leader. Give him full credit, that was a great point." The player's own assessment of the sequence was typically forthright. "I had nothing really in my mind when I got the ball except that I was going to go until I scored a point or got a foul."

It was perhaps Carey's misfortune - along with rest of Limerick circa 1996 - to have emerged during an era when the power base in Munster hurling was at its most evenly spread. If Cork had retreated, then Clare looked immortal. If Tipp were beatable, then Waterford was threatening a slow coming.

Chances were hard-earned and Limerick never quite grasped theirs. They slipped into near irrelevancy overnight, convincingly dismissed from the championship by Cork in 1998. It was that summer that Carey took the brave decision to speak publicly about his troubles with alcohol, which were sever enough to merit a stay in a detox centre in Cork. "If I stayed on the same road, I would have lost my wife and two kids, my job and hurling," he said.

It was a sign of his character, the willingness to face down the tough choices, to be honest. Perhaps those virtues motivated his decision to return to the county at a time when watching from the stands looked the easier option. Limerick's championship route promised little tangible gain and Carey had nothing to gain from laying his reputation on another hard, fast summer.

Now, named at centrefield, a step up from his traditional anchoring role at centre back, Carey is literally in the thick of it. "I think it is the ideal position for him at this stage in his career," says Kirby. "The middle of the field will give him a bit more room to manoeuvre and get involved. But I'd say he'll be all over the place anyway."

Not many expect Limerick to win, or contest, this year's All-Ireland final. But then when Carey made his stoic and unspectacular return, not many fancied them to be in Croke Park tomorrow. As Kirby says, they will happily take this situation. This is a big afternoon for Limerick and for Ciarβn Carey.

He is a step away from an All-Ireland semi-final but light years away from where he could have been this summer. He is still a hurler; nothing has been shelved.