All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship final: Kilkenny 2-26 Limerick 1-31
THE Cranberries blasted out, fireworks exploded once the Liam MacCarthy was raised aloft from the steps of Hogan by captain Declan Hannon and golden ticker tape whizzed all around the famous stadium to celebrate Limerick’s magical three-in-a-row.
But there were enough fireworks during this unforgettable All-Ireland final that made it impossible to increase the pulse of the capacity crowd in the capital yesterday.
At the end of a game that will compare favourably with any final that went before it, Limerick were in dreamland.
This was the hardest earned title of the lot by by some distance.
In the 2020 decider, John Kiely’s men blitzed Waterford by 11 points and tagged on another five to that winning margin last year against Cork.
Yesterday, they just about squeezed past a fantastically gallant Kilkenny team with two points to spare. In many ways, the nerve-shredding climax to this brilliant victory definitely added more prestige and definition to their three-in-a-row achievement.
Limerick join a pretty exclusive club that includes Tipperary, Cork and Kilkenny who have all managed to win three consecutive All-Irelands in their illustrious history.
Brian Cody, Kilkenny’s remarkable manager for the past 24 seasons, was aiming for his 12th All-Ireland crown. Any other opponent and the Leinster champions would have made it a cool dozen titles.
Any other team – bar Limerick.
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. This Limerick team are doing exactly what Kilkenny did in the ‘Noughties’ when they claimed three-in-a-row [2006-08].
Tactically speaking, Limerick are an open book.
Barring injury, their starting XV rarely changes. They harass most of their opponents into submission with ferocious work-rate, they hit hard and they hit often and are frighteningly ruthless at picking teams off.
Their back six are glued together, several of whom have a fantastic long-distance radar, none more so than Diarmuid Byrnes and Declan Hannon. They have fine stick men in the middle of the field who are also like worker-bees and they have a scoring threat in every position up front.
If one of their marquee six has an off-day, someone else will step up. For instance, Gearoid Hegarty had a subdued semi-final against Galway but produced one of the best halves of hurling ever seen yesterday.
You’ll not see a better goal than his fourth minute effort that found the top corner of the net at the Canal End. Had Brian Cody been able to clone Eoin Murphy in that moment and had two of him between the sticks, they still wouldn’t have stopped this work of art of a finish.
After raising the green flag, Hegarty was well and truly in the zone. By half-time, he’d 1-3 from open play against his name.
A lovely side-step and flawless swing beside the Hogan stand on 16 minutes, followed by another sumptuous effort three minutes later before Hawkeye confirmed his third point of the afternoon on 26 minutes.
Teak-tough wing-back Paddy Deegan bagged a pair of first-half points himself, but stopping Hegarty - the priority - was impossible.
Cody knew it. John Kiely knew it. The 82,000 fans knew it too.
Hegarty was a sight to behold. Even in the second half his vision was off the scale. His instinctive 53rd minute pass to find Tom Morrissey who pointed was another scrapbook moment.
But for all of the devastating art from Limerick’s towering number 10, TJ Reid was causing as much damage at the other end, not only from placed ball conversions but his peerless intelligence in open play was behind other scores for his team.
Everywhere you looked on the field there were heroic displays where players bared their souls on one of the biggest sporting days of their lives.
From his ridiculous pick-up and resultant free conversion after two minutes, wing-back Diarmuid Byrnes had an outstanding game for the Shannonsiders.
Hannon broke out from a crowded ruck to hit an awesome score on the half-hour mark.
Tom Morrissey posted a reminder of his calmness under pressure while Kyle Hayes stitched together another two brilliant halves of hurling that probably eclipsed his impressive semi-final showing against Galway.
For Kilkenny, you could only admire Paddy Deegan’s resilience in the face of a genius like Hegarty.
After a bright start from Aaron Gillane, Huw Lawlor’s reputation as one of the best man-markers on the inter-county circuit was strengthened in the second half, with rookie corner-back Mikey Butler and Tommy Walsh not far behind him.
After losing two Championship games this season and five starters who’d never played in an All-Ireland final before, the general consensus was that Kilkenny had no right to be knocking around a decider.
But Brian Cody is no ordinary manager. This is Kilkenny - his Kilkenny. If they get to an All-Ireland final, they usually turn up.
They’d served notice to Limerick by the way in which they handled Galway and Clare in the Leinster final and All-Ireland semi-final, respectively.
And the form that TJ Reid has been in this season Kilkenny were always going to make a better fist of trying to haul the Liam MacCarthy Cup from Limerick’s stubborn grasp than Cork or Waterford in previous years.
Limerick’s scoring economy in the first half would have unnerved most opponents, but there was just too much of the warrior in this Kilkenny team to go away.
To be trailing 1-17 to 0-16 was an astonishing achievement by the underdogs. And when the towering Walter Walsh was thrust in at right wing half-forward for the start of the second half, Kilkenny had established a tactic that would bring them even closer to their rivals.
It was Walsh’s bustling run that created Kilkenny’s first goal four minutes after the restart. Martin Keoghan flicked the ball to Billy Ryan who drilled the ball beneath Nickie Quaid.
Their first major still left them trailing by three points but Keoghan’s well taken goal, courtesy of a brilliant reverse pass from Eoin Cody eight minutes later, brought them to within a point of the champions [1-22 to 2-18].
They twice drew level through substitutes John Donnelly and Richie Hogan in the 49th and 64th minutes, but Limerick never flinched.
Despite the concession of those two goals, Limerick defended heroically in the final 10 minutes and showed just how great a team they are when answering Hogan’s leveller with five unanswered points of their own between the 64th and 72nd minute.
But it just wasn’t the brilliant points from substitutes Cathal O’Neill and Conor Boylan that roused Kiely on the sideline; it was the insatiable desire of his defenders to win dirty ball when they really needed to.
In those dying minutes, Kiely celebrated every Limerick hand that got to a breaking ball like his team had scored a goal.
Kilkenny tagged on the last three scores in stoppage-time, but time and Limerick’s never-say-die spirit had finally beaten them.
Three-in-a-row was delivered in a game for the ages – and not without the biggest stress test Limerick have faced in the last few seasons.
The Kilkenny players left everything out on the field. They didn’t win but each player’s reputation was enhanced by what they gave of themselves in Croke Park yesterday afternoon.
But history-makers Limerick simply weren’t going to be denied their moment of glory.
Kilkenny: E Murphy; M Butler, H Lawlor, T Walsh (0-1); M Carey (0-1), R Reid (0-1), P Deegan (0-2); C Kenny, C Browne; TJ Reid (0-9 frees), P Walsh (0-2), B Ryan (1-0); A Mullen (0-3), M Keoghan (1-1), E Cody (0-1) Subs: W Walsh (0-1) for C Kenny (h/t), J Donnelly (0-1) for P Walsh (47), D Blanchfield (0-1) for C Browne (53), R Hogan (0-1) for E Cody (59), A Murphy (0-1) for P Deegan (71)
Blood substitute: C Fogarty for C Browne (17-24)
Yellow card: P Deegan (44)
Limerick: N Quaid; S Finn, M Casey, B Nash; D Byrnes (0-5, 0-3 frees, 0-1 ‘65), D Hannon (0-1), D Morrissey (0-1); W O’Donoghue, D O’Donovan; G Hegarty (1-5), K Hayes (0-4), T Morrissey (0-4); A Gillane (0-7, 0-4 free), S Flanagan (0-2), G Mulcahy Subs: P Casey for G Mulcahy (49), D Reidy for D O’Donovan (52), C Boylan (0-1) for S Flanagan (60), C O’Neill (0-1) for T Morrissey (64)
Referee: Colm Lyons (Cork)
Attendance: 82,300
Tactical take…
Kilkenny
IT wasn’t a huge surprise Brian Cody opted not to play with a sweeper, trusting the stickiness of Huw Lawlor, Mikey Butler and Tommy Walsh. At times it looked a precarious tactic for the Kilkenny full-back line but they held up really well and can claim victories in their respective duels, especially in the second half.
As for Gearoid Hegarty, he was simply unmarkable – so Paddy Deegan was left to it, really.
The high-scoring Adrian Mullen was pushed to the wing but didn’t get much change out of Diarmuid Byrnes before he moved back to midfield. Substitute Walter Walsh’s deployment to right wing-forward at the start of the second half worked as well as it could have been expected to, as it gave their attack more direction and purpose, while all the subs got on the scoresheet. Cody couldn't have done much more from the sideline.
Tactical take…
Limerick
THE newly-crowned three-in-a-row All-Ireland champions pride themselves on sprint starts - and they hit Kilkenny for 1-2 after six minutes. The great thing about this Limerick team is that there are no great tactical surprises in them. Their half-back line sat in and denied Kilkenny goal chances in the first half and put their faith in their long distance shooting.
When their full-forward line began to be tamed by Kilkenny’s full-back line, it was their half-forward line that really stood up, hitting a combined 1-12 from play. Although their backs conceded two second-half goals, the sturdiness of their defence held up in the final 10 minutes, crowding out the Kilkenny player in possession and winning some crucial turnovers that were worth scores to them. Kiely also used his bench well with two of his subs hitting late scores.
Ref watch…
Colm Lyons (Cork)
THE first Cork man to take charge of the final since 2009, the 44-year-old contributed to this thrilling encounter by simply not being over-fussy. At one stage, you could have been forgiven for thinking he’d left his whistle in the changing room at half-time, but nobody on either side was complaining.
