The Limerick hurling enigma: Keith Duggantalks to Richie Bennis, the latest manager to try tapping into the rich potential of a county for which success is long overdue
It is hard to believe over a decade has passed since the then reigning All-Ireland champions Clare met Limerick on a broiling day in the Gaelic Grounds for a spellbinding Munster championship match defined by Ciarán Carey's deathless and lunatic solo match-winning point.
Ger Loughnane saw his saffron heroes silenced by genius on that sweltering afternoon but they would return for more glorious seasons. Nobody could have predicted back then that 1996 would represent the last, uncomplicated high point for Limerick senior hurling.
During the revolution years, they were desperately unfortunate not to number among the challenging counties that claimed All-Ireland titles, that late goal rush by Offaly denying them in 1994 before they fell shy again in the final against Wexford in that tumultuous summer of 1996.
Three consecutive All-Ireland under-21 championships from 2000 to 2002 promised much, but the stark, stunning fact is that Limerick are now entering a fifth year without a senior Munster championship victory (the high point being a 4-13 apiece draw with Waterford in 2003).
The senior set-up has been something of a Bermuda triangle for accomplished managers, with a succession of high-profile names chewed up in the teeth of county-board machinations and startlingly poor results. As Eamon Cregan memorably put it a couple of seasons after his last attempt to revitalise Limerick hurling fell short, "Let the biro jockeys look after themselves. They don't know what's involved."
The inability of Dave Keane to translate his under-21 success at senior level, the vexed expression of Pad Joe Whelahan, who famously said, "I am getting older every week driving down to Limerick," shortly before his resignation in February 2005, and the obliteration of the solid league work carried out by Joe McKenna in two devastating defeats to Tipperary and Clare last June all suggested Limerick had become the sick man of hurling.
Perhaps that is why last week's league victory in Nenagh against Tipperary - their first victory over the Premier county in nine meetings - gives tomorrow's encounter against Galway a patina of novelty and freshness, an early-March league encounter featuring two hurling counties with everything to prove to the world.
"It is an attractive match all right but we are going to keep on trying out different players during this league," says Richie Bennis, the Limerick folk hero and the latest man to try and unravel the ball of wool.
"People will look at the team we have out on Sunday and they could argue that we are missing six regulars. We don't see it that way. We are going to keep on giving players a chance throughout this league and we are not going to put the pressure of targets on ourselves. The big thing about Limerick hurling is that we have been on the wrong side of a point or a goal in too many big matches over the last few years and, against Tipperary, we got the luck and the result."
Since taking over in the maelstrom of last summer, Bennis has done just about everything humanly possible. That crushing 2-21 to 0-10 defeat to Clare brought McKenna's term to an abrupt close. In the previous match, Limerick had blown a two-goal lead against Tipperary, steadily reeled in by one of the great individual championship performances from Eoin Kelly.
But nothing in that match presaged the utter dejection of the performance in the championship qualifier against Clare, a miserable afternoon in the rain that was a poor advertisement for the health of hurling.
When Bennis took charge for the next qualifying match, against Offaly in Tullamore, it was a gorgeous Saturday night and a notably large, anxious Limerick support made the journey.
Because that match was not televised live and so many had mentally written Limerick off, the 2-29 they posted - on an admittedly tight ground - went largely unnoticed. But it is an evening Bennis looks back on with satisfaction.
"It was forgotten afterwards how close we were against Tipperary. Because we had thrown away a good lead, lost the match and then went down to Clare, a bit of panic set in. And those were tough circumstances to come into the match. We went seven points down early on and we lost Brian Geary with an injury and were under fierce pressure. It was a big match for Limerick hurling."
Joe Bergin, lording it over the Limerick back line early on, had a goal chance - which would surely have broken the visitors' will - saved by Brian Murray. But saved it was and shortly afterwards, Limerick landed their second point, a free from Barry Foley.
At the time, Offaly looked so comfortable it hardly mattered. But the second half was all Limerick. What had been a disastrous Munster championship pivoted on that Saturday evening and ended with the narrowest of defeats against the all-conquering Cork side in what was the second-best game of the summer. It was something to build on.
Nenagh was another small step. Tipperary had become the albatross of Limerick ambitions.
Things began to go wrong for Whelahan after they fell to Tipperary in the qualifiers in June 2004. When the teams met again in the league the following February, Tipperary won 4-14 to 3-11 and the Birr maestro cut a frustrated figure and was running out of time.
Then came last summer.
So Limerick travelling to Nenagh and getting a result gave the opening day of the league a splash of the unexpected, albeit eclipsed by Dublin's draw against Kilkenny.
Afterwards, Bennis reacted to the questions about Ollie Moran's sensational winning goal by declaring the Ahane man would remain at centre half forward throughout the campaign. Perhaps that statement was reflective of the need for stability in Limerick.
"Well, the plain fact is that Limerick hasn't had a natural centre half since Gary Kirby (now a selector).
"Ollie is a top-class hurler, he is very versatile and we hope and believe he can make it work for us there. And we will be giving him the time to do that."
TJ Ryan, the long-serving poacher-gamekeeper whose lineage dates back to the pulsating summer of 1994, finally retired last year, and although his seniority and pedigree were missed, Peter Lawlor recommitted to the intercounty scene last November and looked ever-consummate at corner back two weeks ago.
Stephen Lucey, another player who has featured on Limerick teams through the bleak times, has been installed at full back. Andrew O'Shaughnessy, perhaps the most lauded member of the under-21 generation, hammered in 1-8.
The big question is whether Bennis can somehow harness the know-how and success and talent of those underage teams into something substantial at senior level.
It could be too much time has passed and the promise is redundant now. That several of that All-Ireland-winning generation carried their championship celebrations into their senior careers is no secret, and blending the cocksure youngsters with the older brigade of hurlers tried and tested on the harder realities of big-time hurling in Limerick was no easy thing.
All concerned have learned harsh lessons, which amounts to one abiding wish: to win a Munster championship match.
"Look, there have been a lot of negatives attached to Limerick hurling," says Bennis. "And most of those seem to have appeared in the press. Maybe there was a habit where, when there was any bit of hassle, someone would go cribbing and the thing would become public knowledge and was automatically harder to control. All we can say right now is that there is a great spirit in the Limerick hurling panel."
Even that much has had its complications: just last month, one of their number had the misfortune to be struck down by a mild strain of tuberculosis, an illness that has not been prevalent in Ireland since Bennis was a child. The panel went into precautionary quarantine for a period. Sometimes, you couldn't blame Limerick hurling folk for thinking themselves cursed.
But they should fill the Mackey Stand tomorrow, in their best mood for quite some time, for the visit of Loughnane and Galway.
