“When men were needed, a man stood up.”
- Darragh O’Donovan to OTB’s Aisling O’Reilly this week.
“He is the man, so he is.”
- Declan Hannon in 2022, explaining why he asked an injured Cian Lynch to lift Liam MacCarthy with him.
THE LINES ARE from a year apart but the theme is consistent: Cian Lynch is the man. He wasn’t man of the match on Sunday, but when it comes to impact made when the need was greatest, Lynch was Limerick’s standout player.
That’s not to disparage Peter Casey, whose point-taking was outrageous and beautiful. Yet in Lynch, we are looking at a truly special player in a great team.
The game hinged on the 10 minutes before half-time; this is when O’Donovan says men were needed. Lynch wasn’t central to every single play, but he was central to most. It was as vital and timely a contribution as I’ve seen in a final. Let’s take a closer look:
25.54. Kilkenny 1-6 Limerick 0-5: TJ Reid pucks over a free after Eoin Cody is fouled by any number of defenders after tying them up with his run and beaut of a dummy hand-pass, which takes out Lynch of all people. This type of inspired play is what it takes to beat Limerick.
26.16. Kilkenny 1-7 Limerick 0-5: Richie Reid cuts out Nickie Quaid’s puckout and slings it over the bar on the run from the left flank. The wind made puckout accuracy a challenge for keepers at the Davin end, which Reid exploited here.
27.50. Kilkenny 1-8 Limerick 0-5: Richie Reid picks up the breaking ball from the next puckout and angles it towards the full-forward line. Barry Nash wins possession against TJ Reid but over-carries into the Kilkenny traffic. It’s not just family loyalty which makes me say this is unusual. He and his team are under proper strain here. TJ scores the free.
28.37: Richie Reid emerges from a lengthy ruck with the ball, and feeds John Donnelly who sends a sweet diagonal ball forward. Yet Mike Casey gets a free after a tangle of legs with Eoin Cody. This is big. Referee John Keenan lets it go and it’s probably a goal. Ollie Canning was sitting behind me on Sunday and said it was never a free. I told him his corner-back bias was on show, but he had a point. If it happens out the field and there are covering defenders, I’d say Cody is let go on. This is a pivotal moment; the momentum is about to switch. A man will stand up.
29.25: Quaid launches the free to the square.Conor Fogarty wins it but it’s Lynch in there like a hungry dog to scrap for the ball and hold Fogarty up. For all of his class, Lynch is far from above the gritty toil. He thrives on it, loves contact.
31.15 Kilkenny 1-8 Limerick 0-6: From the resultant throw ball, it’s clear Limerick have had a shot of adrenaline. They harry and block, preventing Kilkenny easy passage up the field. Play culminates with Mikey Butler swiping his hurley across Lynch’s leg. Again he’s in there competing for ground ball and taking the flakes that go with the role. Aaron Gillane hits the free.
31.54. Kilkenny 1-8 Limerick 0-7: A man stands up, part two. Limerick win the puckout and it’s worked through the hands until Gearóid Hegarty plays it forward from halfway to Gillane. Lynch comes on the loop when Gillane gathers. He shortens the grip and zips it over under pressure. This is all about the timing of the run, the speed of the wrists, and accuracy. Lynch pumps his fist. This was the man who had apparently lost his form and rhythm during his injury lay-off. By this stage, that talk is redundant. Over the following minutes and hour, it will seem delusional.
32.34: Martin Keoghan gains possession from the puckout but hits the post with his effort. Eoin Cody shoots for goal from the rebound but his shot is wide. The angle is narrow but he’s right to go for the throat. Kilkenny need a decent half-time gap considering the breeze and Limerick’s conditioning and relentlessness.
33.11. Kilkenny 1-8 Limerick 0-8: Nobody wins the puckout cleanly, Fogarty and Richie Reid make attempts to gather but can’t quite get it under control in the chaos. Lynch has half a second with Tom Morrissey acting as a shield and he uses it to roll lift and pump his legs towards the centre of the field. Reid challenges him but loses his footing and stumbles as Lynch remains on his course despite the hit. He hops the ball off his hurley as Adrian Mullen approaches, and shields the ball before popping it off to David Reidy who strikes over the bar. In this four-second play, we see Lynch’s mastery of the basics under pressure in the pickup, his intelligence to run towards the danger area, and strength in fending off Reid, but what ties it all together is the exquisite placement and weight of the handpass to Reidy: right in front of him and with the perfect pace for his teammate to gather in stride, buying him a half-second to get the shot away.
35.34. Kilkenny 1-9 Limerick 0-8: TJ Reid points a free after the freak event which was him missing an easy one moments before. This breaks Limerick’s sequence and if Kilkenny can add another before the whistle, then it’s a more than satisfactory half’s work.
36.53. Kilkenny 1-9 Limerick 0-9: This is the play! A long free to the Limerick D is cut out and scooped up by Nash. With speed, it’s transferred through the hands to Tom Morrissey and Kyle Hayes on the run. Hayes looks up and sees Lynch with Richie Reid at his back. The fact that he doesn’t have to think before popping the ball off to him shows the faith they all have in Lynch. He’s the Barcelona tiki-taka player who demands possession when marked and in tight spaces. The best players in any sport have that extra moment, which is created by any combination of footwork, scanning, spatial awareness, quick-thinking, first touch and anticipation. The elite thrive in the most intense seconds of the game, calm, where the mere excellent begin to feel the heat.
Lynch spins, makes progress from his 65 to between the Kilkenny 65 and 45. He attracts four Kilkenny players in the process but a deft sidestep buys him another moment and he loops a handpass to Morrissey, unmarked due to the attention Lynch has attracted. Of course, Morrissey does not miss. Now it’s half-time. Limerick have a three-point deficit with the wind at their backs and a catalogue of memories to draw on, similar situations where they turned opposition’s leads to dust.
*****
For a lot of the championship, well Munster at least, it seemed the pack were gaining on Limerick. The All-Ireland semi-finals challenged that story. You could deduce that Leinster is weaker than Munster this year as a result, but the outcomes of Tipp-Galway and Clare-Kilkenny undermine this argument.
Could it be that Limerick in Munster were simply a team of excellent players against teams that were almost as talented? And a fit, on-form Lynch is the component that elevates them to the place where they look untouchable?
He is the compound that binds all of the other elements, the central nervous system, the glue, whichever metaphor you’d care to flog.
I’d look at it this way. If hurling were a global professional game, then he’s the one Irishman you’d be confident would be in the Champions League or NBA.
With the best of the best, it’s not the technique or the physical attributes which set them apart, for those are a given. It’s the decisions, that’s the difference. Look how quickly Lynch sees things. His speed of execution is superb but that’s only the hardware; others could do the same things as quickly, but they don’t see what he does. They aren’t looking at the same picture, and they can’t imagine how it can be subtly manipulated to your will.
The only thing that is more thrilling than watching him do his thing is the thought that maybe your county could put a stop to it all next year. At moments like this it can seem unlikely, but as many within the Limerick set-up have said: the wheel always turns. Who knows where the next great team, the next generational talent, is coming from?
I was chatting to Sean Lynch, Cian’s dad, a while back. He’s a brilliant guy, and used to work as a guard with my dad. He said one of Cian’s heroes growing up was Joe Deane. You can sense the echoes of Deano in a lot of what Lynch does, the dancing feet, the brain that’s even faster than those feet.
Both exposed the beauty of the sport time and again, from Deano knocking over points with his hurley upside down to Lynch doing John Troy-style pickups between the legs. Our game is their art.
Just as Lynch was inspired by his uncle Ciarán from close by and Deane from afar, there are thousands of kids around the place, pucking left and right, dreaming of where hurling can take them. Some of those dreams will happen. Most won’t, but in those moments they are as real as anything. That’s the real magic our greatest players bring.