Limerick showing the poise of a champion team

Sometimes when watching sport you like to try to make sense of it all with a few self-cooked truisms.

One such instance was at the 1993 All-Ireland football semi-final between Derry and Dublin when midway through the second-half the Leinster champions looked poised to strike for home. They led by 0-12 to 0-6 and the article of faith in this case was that Derry would need a goal to win. How could a team which had been outscored two to one up to that point in the game summon the resources to outscore their opponents by seven points during the remainder? History records that they did exactly that winning 0-15 to 0-14 and won the subsequent All-Ireland. Only for the experience of the hurling championship so far this year which taught us never to write anyone off there were various stages over last weekend when the chances of Clare and Limerick might have been subjected to the same common-sense dismissal.

Limerick had a points’ deficit against Cork for much of the game and when Conor Lehane struck a goal it was hard to see the Shannonsiders turn it around without putting one in the onion sack. They did so with some aplomb but not in the sense of snatching an unlikely victory. It was the scale of the domination of Limerick in the last half-hour including extra-time that was impressive.

 

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