Limerick go forward on waves of passion

Limerick ... 0-22 Tipperary ... 2-13 AET, 1-12 to 0-15 after normal time:Well, nothing is forever. Limerick and Tipperary tangoed for four hours and 10 minutes and at times yesterday it looked as if they would be taking to the floor again next Saturday night. Extra- time did what it is supposed to do though, wedging the width of a goal between the sides to put an end to the summer's most interesting dalliance. Limerick move on to a Munster final. Tipp drift away to the murky world of the qualifiers.

It is six years since Limerick last won a match in Munster. They beat Waterford that time, the side they will play in a provincial final, the first between the sides since 1934.

Whatever happens on that afternoon the summer will have been enriched by Limerick's guts and tenacity and by the sight of their supporters celebrating on the field yesterday as if a long siege had been lifted.

Tipperary have some thinking to do. The normally voluble Babs Keating opted for silence in the wake of yesterday's defeat and rumours of unrest plus the feud with his goalkeeper and clubmate Brendan Cummins sparked suggestions that Babs might not be inclined to stick around for the business of the qualifying group.

Tipp will reflect that this was a tie they could have won but on the balance of things yesterday and over the three afternoons of hurling Limerick were deserving winners.

When the game, played on a heavy, sodden turf spilled into extra-time courtesy of a Séamus Butler point for Tipp, the momentum seemed to be swinging away from Limerick.

Ollie Moran gave them a lead with a point early in extra-time but when Willie Ryan pulled to the Limerick net close to the extra-time interval and Eoin Kelly added a point from a free it seemed the sort of combination that would finally stretch Limerick on the canvas. Instead it was Tipp who failed to score again.

Limerick had started with such sprightly confidence that in retrospect it is hard to believe they got themselves into such trouble at all. After 20 minutes they led by seven points to one and Tipperary had failed to score from play.

The margin was a testimony not just to their most inventive attacking play of the series but to the work their backs were doing, swamping Tipperary and sucking the oxygen out of the air around the Limerick goal.

Limerick lost Damien Reale, badly injured in an accidental collision after 11 minutes, but nevertheless were giving an exhibition of good, defensive hurling. Mark Foley was excellent, Séamus Hickey sustained the level he has been at this summer, and Brian Geary cleared a slew of good ball. Stephen Lucey looked more convincing at full back than he had in the previous two games.

Limerick had sprung a late surprise by picking Kevin Tobin as a nominal corner forward but playing him as an extra man in the middle third of the field. He prospered for a while and had a huge point from almost 70 yards after just four minutes. Thereafter he hit a series of long balls into the Tipp square but none of them stuck to the hand of Brian Begley, his full forward.

It was odd given the furious excellence of Limerick's defending that they should have got caught napping late in the half. Kelly had punished a couple more transgressions and had registered Tipp's first from play after 33 minutes to leave just a point between the sides.

Limerick may or may not have been reflecting on how much hurling they had done to be just a point ahead at that stage. Whatever they were thinking, nobody picked up Darragh Egan as Hugh Maloney drove a long, angled ball from the left-wing-back spot. Egan collected and finished low and cool.

Suddenly Limerick were trailing by two and hadn't scored in 18 minutes. The setback hit them like a dose of smelling salts. The exemplary Niall Moran, whose emergency services work all day, replied with a point and Andrew O'Shaughnessy drove over a free. Level at half-time.

Was it ever going to be different at that checkpoint?

That Tipp had problems was, however, undeniable. Egan's goal was the only score their starting half-forward line managed for the whole day.

Limerick's half forwards, driven by the Moran brothers, took Tipperary for 10 points from play in all. The inquest need look no further than the respective 40s for Tipperary's cause of death.

Tipp had the scent of it now and opened the second half with a pair of points, one from Butler, the other from Shane McGrath, and for the remainder of the half the game swung this way and that. Limerick's pure conviction was complicated by a couple of let-offs and some hard-luck stories.

Having pulled back three points, the middle of which - from Niall Moran - was the pick of the bunch, they conceded a 30-yard free, which Kelly appeared to mishit. Kelly's drive was blocked down.

A minute later the Limerick sub James O'Brien was through only to be hooked by James Woodlock when a goal looked on.

Minutes later an O'Shaughnessy ball hit the post high and goalie Gerry Kennedy, not for the last time, did very well in smothering the danger.

With three minutes of normal time left, Limerick had managed to chisel out a three-point lead, only to find themselves reeled in by a string of late scores.

Extra-time was a big tax on weary legs but yet again Limerick's nerve held and they finished out the game with a string of five unanswered points, their passion and desire finally the difference between the sides.

The last time Limerick and Waterford met in a Munster final Limerick were on the way to four in a row in the province. Nobody in the delirious hordes who swarmed the pitch yesterday felt they were on the cusp of a similar dawn, but times have been hard in Limerick for so long this was a bread-and-gravy day.

LIMERICK: 1 B Murray; 2 D Reale (capt), 3 S Lucey, 4 S Hickey; 5 M O'Riordan, 6 B Geary (0-3, one free, one '65). 7 M Foley; 12 M O'Brien, 9 D O'Grady (0-1); 19 M Fitzgerald (0-2), 11 O Moran (0-3), 10 N Moran (0-5); 14 A O'Shaughnessy (0-6, three frees, one '65), 17 B Begley, 30 K Tobin (0-2). Subs: P Lawlor for Reale (11 mins), J O'Brien for Begley (48 mins), P Tobin for K Tobin (70 mins), B Foley for Fitzgerald (half-time in extra time), H Flavin for P Tobin (14 mins in extra time). Yellow cards: O'Riordan, Lucey. O Grady.

TIPPERARY: 1 G Kennedy; 2 E Buckley, 3 D Fanning, 4 D Fitzgerald; 5 E Corcoran, 6 C O'Mahony, 7 H Maloney; 8 S McGrath (0-1), 9 J Woodlock; 10 J Carroll, 11 D Egan (1-0), 12 B Dunne; 13 S Butler (0-2), 14 E Kelly (0-9, six frees), 15 L Corbett. Subs: T Stapleton for McGrath (54 mins), P Bourke (0-1) for Carroll (64 mins), W Ryan (1-0) for Dunne (67 mins). Yellow cards: Carroll, Corbett.

Referee: S McMahon (Clare).