Donal O’Grady on Limerick’s changing relationship with success

Donal O’Grady was on the circuit a few weeks back, accompanying the Liam MacCarthy and Mick Mackey Cups at some or other function, when he noticed something unusual.

Glancing over to the top table after all the speeches and formalities had concluded, he noticed the Mackey Cup, picked up in June for beating Clare in the Munster final, all alone.

It stayed that way for about 20 minutes as the world and her mother queued up for pictures with the MacCarthy Cup.

[ Limerick fathers and sons: ‘I said it to you Ger, years ago. The boys will win it for us’ ]

It made Limerick selector O’Grady smile because when he captained the county to the 2013 Munster title, their first since 1996, the celebration was epic. They couldn’t get enough of the cup back then.

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“Rewind the clock back 10 years – a totally mad situation,” said O’Grady of the county’s changing relationship with success. “Could we have foreseen what has happened since? Realistically, no. You’d always believe you could win one but with the group of boys we have, we have kicked on and taken our chances. The challenge is to kick on again.”

O’Grady finished up playing for Limerick after the 2015 season, returning five years later as a selector.

He walked back into a thriving set-up, in the midst of a golden era that has yielded four All-Ireland wins and left supporters, even if only subconsciously, taking Munster titles for granted.

“We never speak about it but you can sense it, you can sense everything with a group,” said O’Grady of the silent recognition that these are special times. “Maybe after the first All-Ireland win in 2018, you said, ‘Yeah, here we go again, back next year ...’ and then that didn’t happen, brought back down to earth with the All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Kilkenny. If the boys did have any thoughts of winning a handy All-Ireland, that was gone out the window. It’s been a great learning curve for them and they’ve kicked on since.”

After almost five years now of dominance, there is talk of the gap narrowing. Three National League defeats last season, two draws over 70 minutes in the Munster championship and the narrow All-Ireland final win over Kilkenny suggested as much. But O’Grady is happy that there is more in the tank.

“I just think they’re a great age profile at the moment,” he said. “They’re at an age where I don’t think a lot of them are contemplating retirement and yet they’re not young enough to say, ‘Well, I’ll go travelling this year’. They’re just right in the middle and that’s probably an advantage to us in terms of themselves asking themselves questions like, ‘Is it a year for me to go travelling?’ or ‘Is it a year for me to maybe think about retiring?’ I think the age profile is just right.”

Limerick are currently on their team holiday having jetted out to Florida on Tuesday. It is a 10-day trip and there will be a whirlwind of activity upon their return. They are scheduled to play Cork and Kerry in the Munster Hurling League on January 15th and 17th. The final is on January 22nd and they will travel to Cork again on the evening of February 4th for the opening round of the National League.

A later start than normal cost Limerick last season in terms of all those league defeats and they have learned lessons.

“I wouldn’t say we took a chance with it last year, there was a lot of thought that went into it, but this year we just felt that we’d maybe get them back a bit earlier and see how that goes,” said O’Grady. “Time will tell.”

Limerick ultimately paced themselves perfectly in 2022, going from a standing start last winter to a sprint finish which secured the three-in-a-row.

Not that there weren’t plenty of challenges along the way. O’Grady grimaces thinking about them, and about the few days in particular running up to the All-Ireland final defeat of Kilkenny.

“The Friday night before we played Kilkenny, it was mad stuff,” he said. “Kyle Hayes pulled his hamstring, David Reidy stood on a sliotar and went over on his ankle. Key lads for us. We were just about to name the team for Sunday and we were left scratching our heads.

“Cian Lynch had been flying the week before, back in contention to start. We were playing a game and he went over on his ankle. He has had an operation on it since. Just mad. All in the space of a couple of days before we played our biggest match of the year.

“To come out the end of that by beating Kilkenny, it was definitely a relief and we all looked at each other afterwards to say, ‘By God, that was hard earned.’”