THE CLUE TO John Kiely’s long-term plans as the manager of Limerick came well away from any playing fields and in the corridors of his workplace, the Abbey CBS in Tipperary town.
By the start of this new term, Kiely had stood down as Principal of the school after holding it for a decade. David Sadleir was appointed as his successor.
Being a vice-Principal is hardly considered light duties, but Kiely and those around him have clearly freed up a bit more thinking space for hurling as Limerick chase down the chance of making history by winning five consecutive All-Irelands in 2024.
Being handed another one-year extension at the county board meeting on Tuesday night is bad news for Limerick’s competitors. It would have been highly unlikely for Kiely to have left at this point anyway, but no man’s life and circumstances can be seen accurately through the funnel of public appearances.
What’s obvious, though, is a man who has grown comfortable in his role as one of the most recognisable men in the country without letting it affect him.
His evolution has been instructive. Outwardly he has developed from the man who scolded journalists in the moments after they beat Cork in the 2018 semi-final, warning the assembled pressmen that should they attempt to contact players, he would ‘hut the whole thing down’.
That was a mis-step, but one he couldn’t risk. He had witnessed close-up how the hype-machine affected the team in 2007.
Perhaps it didn’t. Kilkenny were always going to win anyway. But in compiling the list of excuses afterwards after defeat to Kilkenny, blaming the hype is just too succulent a low-hanging fruit.
It was a deliberate act, but not one he wanted leaving any rancour. In the lobby of Citywest the morning after they won that All-Ireland final against Galway, he told the press, “I’m sorry if I offended any of ye a few weeks ago, it wasn’t meant, I assure you of that.
“What I’ll say about that now is, on a personal level number one, after the semi-final was a very difficult situation. You’re being pulled and dragged, left, right and centre, fired into a room full of reporters, and I’m a fighter. So when I’m put into a corner, I will fight.
“I’m a protector, I’m a teacher, I’m a parent. I wanted to protect the people that mean most to me, and I was protecting the Limerick players.”
He will maintain that it was the right thing too, as he said that before 8am the day after the semi-final, six players contacted him saying that approaches and requests had already been made.
Now, he is easy company. The man who dances with delight on the steps of the Hogan Stand with the Liam MacCarthy at full-length grip in his hand.
Anyone examining the clues of successful people and teams, might have concluded that Jim Gavin’s demeanour was the only template.
Gavin preferred to keep his distance from cups and especially players. Plenty was made of it. It worked for so long for Dublin. But it was uniquely Gavin’s style. Anyone quick to state that this was an indisputable approach lacks an understanding of the human desire to feel wanted.
Everyone wants to be loved.
That’s Limerick’s way. There is just too much self-expression in the group, too many public examples for it to be the grim process of self-sacrifice that other camps have become.
It’s there in Darragh O’Donovan’s partying on the platform of Colbert Station, to Cian Lynch’s baseball cap back to front, and the breaks away from hurling that the frontline men are granted.
Kiely, along with Paul Kinnerk, Alan Cunningham, Aonghus O’Brien and Donal O’Grady have created that environment.
Caroline Currid has left, but you sense enough of her work has been absorbed into the hard drives of the management for it to be critical. Call them out on thrown handpasses all day long. They won’t be sweating it.
Now, he has his ways too.
Finding an angle for this year, he executed a perfect inverted form of the ‘you writ us off’ approach, instead turning his fire on the pundits who suggested they were favourites for the All-Ireland title.
“Let’s be honest about it, there was some amount of bullshit spoken about our team and the season ahead of this week and the week before,” he said after the win over Waterford in Thurles.
“It’s a softening up exercise mentally from those outside of our camp. But we’re around a long time.”
The messages were absorbed by his players too.
By the end of May, the reigning Hurler of the Year Diarmuid Byrnes spoke after scraping out a one-point win over Cork, with the backdrop a one-point loss to Clare and a draw with Tipperary.
“People talk, the media talk. They need their reference points. They need something to talk about. They need their likes and shares on Instagram and Twitter,” he told RTÉ.
“The pundits have to come up with something to write about and unfortunately it’s us!”
And just like that, the mood had flipped from being ‘softened-up’ to being ‘written off’. Kiely ended the season on the steps of the Hogan Stand, ‘going-off’ as he said to the tune of a changing-room favourite of the group.
There hasn’t been an ultra-successful team that didn’t have a highly charismatic leader.
Manchester United under Alex Ferguson. The LA Lakers with Pat Riley. Liverpool and Bill Shankly. Micko’s Kerry. Cody’s Kilkenny.
Some were able to achieve a smooth transition from one leader to the next.
Take Shankly. His formative years were spent feeling hunger pains before heading down the pit to face the darkness, rats and general degradation of such work.
He was managing for ten years before he got his big break with Liverpool. He spent years ingraining a culture that carried through his successors for over a decade with similar levels of success.
By the time his fellow Scot Alex Ferguson came to leave Manchester United, the game gone changed. He nominated his successor, but David Moyes didn’t have the assurance to carry it off.
It’s hard to think of anyone who could have come in replace John Kiely or the effect.
Thankfully for Limerick, they don’t have to worry about that. Bad news for all the challengers.
