Seán Moran: To prove their new place in the world Limerick must face the abyss and not blink

It didn’t bring a pile of attention at the time but a year ago, Limerick moved their senior All-Ireland hurling tally into double figures. They are now the only county with that distinction beyond the hurling aristocracy of Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary, who between them have 94.

I was first aware of Limerick hurling on emerging from a birthday party in the Ambassador cinema in September 1973. It was an unpleasant day, rain streaming down and O’Connell Street well splashed but also teeming with people and their green-and-white flags.

What Kilkenny supporters were around my memory has suppressed but I remember the buoyant good humour of the winning crowd, boisterous and oblivious to the weather.

Even had my hurling sensibilities been more fully engaged, it would have been hard to grasp that I’d nearing 60 before the green-clad hordes would next get to make the same journey from a by then unrecognisable Croke Park.

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What happened in the meantime? How did a county with such fervour for the game become so peripheral that in the gap between then and their next All-Ireland, Kilkenny would win 18 titles, Cork nine and Tipp six, Offaly would compile their entire roll of honour tally of four and the same for Galway?

Sharpening these examples of triumph elsewhere for Limerick was the fact that their players were regularly those left disconsolate on the pitch when Liam MacCarthy was being handed over after a few of the above finals.

Eamonn Cregan became my spirit guide for the county at the time he was managing Offaly. He knew all about the previous wins, as he had – in a brilliantly effective, tactical switch – starred at centre back in the 1973 final after lining out more recognisably at corner forward in the Munster final and scoring two goals.

The purpose was to curb the influence of Pat Delaney, Kilkenny’s centre forward and it worked. Although he took a while to settle and Delaney did score a goal, Paddy Downey on these pages concluded: “Cregan played a major role in a great victory.”

His father had played for the county with the legendary Mick Mackey in the 1930s and passed on the torch to his sons, Eamonn and Mick, who would train the county.

It was a sadness for his sons that Ned Cregan had died the year before the county added their first MacCarthy Cup since that era – and set the clock running on the concept of ‘one All-Ireland since 1940,’ which was the annually deteriorating metric by which Limerick hurling was measured.

There were two more bites at the cherry for him but Kilkenny thoroughly avenged 1973 a year later and in 1980, Limerick were fall guys in Galway’s first win since the 1920s.

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It was a truly unfortunate coincidence that he ended up managing Offaly to beat his own county in 1994′s All-Ireland final. That summed up something about the Limerick experience. For most of the match they were ablaze. Damien Quigley scored 2-3 and they led going into the final five minutes by five.

A barrage of 2-5 in four minutes, 14 seconds, turned the match on its head.

Two years later, Wexford survived having a man sent off before half-time to edge out Limerick and once again, they found themselves runners-up but curiously beyond public sympathy, as just like the 1980 and ‘94 defeats their opponents were natural underdogs.

It’s why 2018 was such a liberation – when finally, it happened. Forty five years waiting. It was the outcome of patient development work, an outstanding generation of hurlers and smart management.

It was nurtured in the exceptional third-level colleges in the city and the finishing school they provided. Now, the question is can Limerick sustain this and underline the end of the under-achieving years by becoming regular contenders and not harping on about how little they’ve won since 1973?

Limerick have played nearly half of their All-Ireland finals against Kilkenny but Sunday will be the first time the current team has faced the challenge. Kilkenny’s extraordinary record as outsiders in the Cody era – never mind their near infallibility during the heyday of the last two decades – partly derives from reputation.

That reputation was embellished in the semi-final when they crushed the previously impressive Clare and taken with Limerick’s greater than expected struggles with Galway, opens up a possibility that the champions, in pursuit of the county’s first three-in-a-row, are not the irresistible force of the past two years.

They also slipped up when the counties last met in the 2019 semi-final. That setback has acted like a vaccination in the meantime.

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So, they will be ready but more than that, they will be challenged by the very identity of the opposition – particularly a Kilkenny that has made everyone sit up and take notice.

That element of concern and the apprehensive idea that if they don’t play at their best, Limerick may lose is a bracing corrective to any complacency. To a greater level than any of the team’s three previous finals, it also tests their resolution.

That is why this weekend is such an opportunity for the champions: taking on the brand leaders of hurling as favourites and knowing that failure to perform will raise uncomfortable questions about their mental fortitude.

Their heritage is seamed with the ability to beat Kilkenny in different eras. They know that this final could so easily spill away from them because their opponents have both the rapacity to seize on any doubts they harbour and the sporting alchemy to spin them into silverware.

Limerick’s new place in the world demands that they face the abyss and not blink.

sean.moran@irishtimes.com