Revenge mission against Cork caused Limerick to peak on 18 May
THIS WASN’T ABOUT Limerick but Dublin. John Kiely was magnanimous and generous with his words on Saturday, yet not entirely true.
It was of course about Dublin and their supreme effort, allied to impressive heights reached in skill and decision making.
But it was and is about Limerick as well. A team that has won five of the past seven All-Irelands should not really lose to a Dublin side that finished third in Leinster. And when that team has a man dismissed after 14 minutes – and the player happens to be their most influential – then you’re into the realm of the freakish.
Limerick had looked a bit sluggish before the red card, but had a two-point lead and seemed to be working themselves into the contest. Dublin’s lift in application and desire was palpable in the minutes after Chris Crummey’s sending off. As was Limerick’s sense of drift. Kiely himself spoke about this.
“Our energy levels were that bit down,” he said. “I could see it after 10 minutes, I could feel it from the group after 10 minutes.”
What was behind this malaise? Nobody can say for certain, not even the Limerick players and management who have been wracking their minds for the past four days.
Complacency has been dismissed by Kiely but Limerick’s players would not be human if a degree of “we’ll be grand now” did not seep into their thinking after Crummey went off.
The thing about a slight drop in levels is it’s infuriatingly hard to get back. We’ve all been in that situation. You’ve eased off the pedal ever so slightly, the other side has seized the initiative and now they are getting energy from all kinds of sources. You realise the need for corrective action, but sometimes the momentum has just swung that bit too far the other way.
Were this a round robin game, Limerick could stew on it all for a week and then volley the next outfit to stand before them. But now they’ll have to wait a good while, and this is a problem for them. Perhaps this kind of finality sowed the seed of their demise this season.
It’s been undoubtedly tough for Limerick to bounce back from the penalty shootout loss to Cork in the Munster final. The two-week gap was probably not sufficient for them to recover mentally from such a devastating way to lose the provincial crown they’ve held since 2018.
Yet the more costly game in the long run may have been their crushing defeat of Cork in the group stages on 18 May.
This is just my theory, but Limerick left the best version of themselves in the Gaelic Grounds that day . . . and for what? Putting it right against Cork, the side that beat them twice in big games in 2024.
From the first play on 18 May you could see that Limerick had taken the highlighter pen to the date and added a note: Beat the shit out of Cork.
Well it worked as far as that day went. Yet – and this is admittedly said with hindsight – Limerick peaked too early as a result of their grievance. They have not repeated this level of performance since, or even come close.
It was a bit unLimerick like, at least in the sense that it’s hard to remember them being at this pitch of effort and performance at the Round 3 stage of the Munster Championship in recent years. They have been masters at getting their conditioning right so as to be in prime physical and mental shape on All-Ireland final day.
They likely would have had themselves on a similar trajectory this year had they not come unstuck against Dublin, but they did.
Limerick are far from the only side to cash in their anger prematurely. Cork clearly circled 9 March against Clare and added a line about vengeance. Clare were hit for six goals but Cork’s form tailed off a bit after that win, with a decent league win over Galway followed by a very good first half against Tipp in the league final and more patchy displays until they snapped back to their desired level of consistent effort against Limerick in the Munster final.
Cork will not so much relieved that Limerick are gone in 2025, more so relieved that are gone with a video in wide circulation of them asking why Limerick won’t fuck off home. They know a motivational hostage to fortune escaped, and are at least guaranteed it won’t be redeemed this year.
Because when all the weights are lifted, the game plans devised, the sprints sprinted and various branches of sports science enacted, the GAA still runs to a decent degree on anger and the ancient lust for revenge. The GAA is not alone in this, such motivation pervades a load of sports; in rugby language they have rebranded it as “finding your why”.
But it’s really big in GAA, probably due to the familiarity and proximity of the rivalries.
Anger as a motivation isn’t healthy from a mental well-being point of view. But, honestly, most teams would take the mental well-being hit if it means more fuel for combat. But maybe it’s time they reassessed how smart or sustainable it is as a fuel.
You can get up for a big game and act out all of your defiance. But how does that help you on a wet night in Stoke? You need something more plentiful and renewable to get you through the longer season with more games.
You need to figure out what works best for you as a team and cultivate the ability to slip into the form of relaxed concentration that allows you to play as well as you can together. Or, in Limerick phraseology, stick to the process – something they couldn’t manage this year when it mattered.
There’s another, maybe even a simpler, way to approach games: just do your best and enjoy them. And if you lose then it’s not a slight on your character.
Jack McCaffrey famously walked around in the parade smiling and waving at people in the crowd. For this he was seen as some kind of beautiful freak in the GAA world, the 29 men around and the thousands who had marched before all serious in their expression. We’ll have fun in the session afterwards, from about the third pint onwards.
Dublin’s hurlers weren’t for indulging themselves on the field after their phenomenal victory against Limerick. They jumped and embraced at the whistle. You were waiting for them to go to the crowd, maybe take a jog down towards the Hill and pump a fist or two.
But no. They were across the pitch and into the dressing rooms under the Cusack Stand. I was mighty impressed and at the same time a small bit rueful for them. Here is a team that is all business, and if Cork are slightly off it on Saturday week then they’ll go the same way as Limerick.
But this was the greatest Dublin hurling victory since 2013, and was probably more impressive than anything which happened in that landmark year. They could yet have greater wins ahead in 2025. But even the teams that win the World Cup are happy to dance around the pitch and go a bit mad with the crowd after the quarter-final.
The most important part of any process is to enjoy the good days when they happen because, as even the greatest of all teams know, they slip away so easy for a finish.
The 42
