Limerick manager disappointed but ready to raise morale for qualifiers

TJ Ryan ended up having to answer the questions he hadn’t anticipated before this sobering defeat, ones no manager wants to hear after a match.

Chief among these is one of the many variants of how easy will it be to lift the lads for the qualifiers. Limerick had been to the previous two Munster finals and two years ago won the title. Now came defeat and the challenge of raising morale after a thumping defeat together with the uncertainty of what tomorrow’s qualifier draw will bring.

“Well, we have to,” he said, finding for the first time on a tough afternoon succour in his opponents. “At this stage last year we beat Tipp in the semi-final and they regrouped well. Our job now is to regroup and get organised.

“We’re disappointed with today and we have to suck it up and try and get a win the next day and build momentum from there. We’re out of the Munster championship, but we’re still in the All-Ireland championship so it’s a new championship tomorrow morning.”

Another question managers must dread is the negative version of “Did you see that coming?”

“No,” was Ryan’s uncontrived response. “I have to say I thought things were good. Training was going well – okay we had a few injuries after the club championships but every county has them, so look, we don’t have any excuses today. As I say we got overrun. Their forwards got good goals at good times and killed us.”

Controversy

As 16-point beatings go, however, there was a genuine point of controversy in this one. Ryan was too realistic to raise it as alibi evidence but he felt it might possibly be mitigation.

The question centred on a shot by Graeme Mulcahy, which would have equalised had it not been signalled wide by the umpires but which prompted an intervention by linesman Alan Kelly, who spoke to referee Brian Gavin. The point wasn't given.

So what was the story?

“The story is it was a point,” said Ryan indignantly. “There’s no other story to it. Why would you call the referee like? In the overall scheme of things it would have brought the game level. We had momentum at the time but in fairness Tipp went down the field, they’re a good side and they got scores. You can’t cough up goals like that to a team like this because it kills you like.”

But did linesman say it was a point? “No. He didn’t say anything to me. He called the referee. I thought he was calling the referee to tell him it was a point but he didn’t say anything to me.”

First victory

Winning captain

Brendan Maher

was able to reflect on the county’s first victory in the province since the 2012 Munster final against Waterford.

He was playing as a forward for the first time in the championship but in a withdrawn role that enabled him to direct play effectively into his in-form forwards whose early incisiveness he praised.

“Playing against the breeze, the play always kinds of drifts back and opens it up front. You could see the same happened for Limerick as well in the second half. We were happy with our movement but our efficiency in the first half was the difference. I don’t know how many wides we had. We are just delighted to get the win and just delighted to be back in a Munster final.”

The outcome teetered briefly on a precipice at the end of the third quarter when Limerick pulled the margin back to the minimum.

“That is Limerick, they will always throw everything they have at you. In fairness to them, they did that in the second half. We said that was going to happen, it was just about weathering that storm, trying to fight through it and trying to work through it. Thankfully we managed to withhold them to a point and we shoved it on from there which is good.”