Was Saturday a one off?

KILLINAN END

The concern for the Tipperary senior hurlers after the weekend was hardly the result.

There's a very strong argument that a National League Final against Cork just two weeks before playing the same opposition in the first round of the championship is not exaactly what this team needs. The real area of discussion must be the lack of intensity in the first half. The ghosts of the latter end of the 2024 championship still hover in the background of supporters’ minds. We do trust that last year's style was evident in the second half which saw them put together many of the intricate movements which hallmarked some of the major plays during the championship run.

However, the major lesson is that if you play with challenge match like intensity, or even Fitzgibbon Cup final intensity, where no one tackles anyone, a team of Limerick’s quality will not have to wait for high summer to make hay. There is a tendency of course for people to overreact both ways based on League matches of dubious reliability. Suddenly in the minds of some Limerick are back in full fettle. Tom Morrissey’s future as a starting Limerick player was being questioned in some quarters, yet he showed up in Thurles hurling like, well, Tom Morrissey. Shane O’Brien had a decent go at winning a Fitzgibbon Cup Final on his own recently and still looked the part at the weekend. So, are Limerick back or not? Well, we never really believed there were gone away but judgment might be reserved for days when the blades are lower and the gaps are smaller.

Remember the 18th of May last year when Tipp were getting the better of Waterford in Thurles? All the post-match thunder was stolen by the Shannonsiders because of the savagery with which they dealt with the Cork challenge at the Gaelic Grounds. Anthony Daly wrote the following day of his full expectation that those teams would meet again in Croke Park later in the year, with the interesting caveats that this depended on how Cork recovered from their May massacre. What happened next to Limerick? They played three championship games during the rest of the year and won none of them.

What Anthony Daly doesn't know about hurling at this stage is unlikely to be worth knowing and his judgement on that day was not unreasonable. But it does warn us that if a man of his standing in the game is susceptible to drawing such short-term conclusions, then perhaps, we all need just sit back, relax, and remember the history of our ancient game which is littered with such springtime red herrings.

The reaction in the Irish Independent to Limerick’s steamrolling of Cork back in early summer was interesting in hindsight. Inevitable parallels with the 2021 All-Ireland Final were drawn, but notably the report did highlight the concession of a penalty by Eoin Downey and noted how Séamus Harnedy was Cork’s only scorer from play in the second half. Only a Shane Barrett point in the second half of the All-Ireland Final prevented a precise repeat, yet this was the last place we were looking for such signs. It works both ways!

Limerick themselves subsequently learned a costly lesson against Dublin as to what can happen when is team is not fully on it. We might do well not to read too much into what still is a league match in February. No doubt Limerick have the capacity to be formidable on their day but in last year's championship they played six matches and won just two. What they get in summertime will be earned against all opponents. And Tipp too will need to be in the whole of their health and operating at full capacity against all opponents. In that sense nothing fresh emerged in Thurles.

Nothing much new in Nowlan Park either. Kilkenny’s sense of integrity towards the process remains intact. No matter what kind of line-up they put out they will tear into it and of course have lots of hurling even if free-taking was a problem and they were probably lucky to come out of the game with a win. This free-taking is maybe a bigger problem for Kilkenny than it might seem as they have a bit more variety and pace to their attack when their regular free-taker is unavailable.

Eoin Cody at centre-forward was far less successful against a man-to-man marker than with Limerick’s zonal defending. The pace and accuracy of Eoin Murphy’s puckouts is not a favourite topic on Noreside either. Even if it was ‘only the League’ the sheer wastefulness of Waterford as well as the feeling that they were a little bit lightweight in several positions might be an omen for the summer. Yet, they will give anyone their bellyful when the sun is high in Walsh Park where ourselves and Cork must travel. The appetite is being whetted already.