A SNAPSHOT OF Semple, last Sunday.
In the 43rd minute, Dessie Hutchinson had a shot for Waterford that looked to have hooked inside the posts. The Hawkeye computer said no.
From the next play, Aaron Gillane won a penalty for Limerick. He stepped up himself and his contact wasn’t clean. The momentum of the ball was slowed by thudding off the grass.
Waterford scrambled. Tom Barron had the ball barrelling down the wing and tossed Gearoid Hegarty like a great redwood. He was caught then with two fair and clean shoulders and the ball was turned over.
Seamus Flanagan feathered a lovely reverse pass towards Barry Nash, but Jack Fagan got their first for a ground stroke. Fagan was caught high, but it looked entirely accidental.
Nonetheless, the ball was live and heading right for where Davy Fitzgerald was standing on the line. Conor Gleeson was favourite to collect but he was unaware of Hegarty coming in hard and blindsiding him with a big hit.
Yellow card, no question. Hegarty was off. The scoreline read Waterford 0-13, Limerick 1-12.
The time was 45.34 when Hegarty caught Gleeson. Anarchy reigned along the line and referee Liam Gordon had a job to do, to steady tempers and get around the various county board officials and medics and dish out some yellow cards.
It took exactly four minutes before play resumed again. It’s worth going into the details of how Waterford passed victory up from this point.
Action resumed with the free from Hegarty’s hit. Stephen Bennett struck it wide on the near post.
From Nickie Quaid’s restart, Darragh Lyons sent another shot side from the middle of the field when he had loads of time. In his defence, the inside of his helmet could have been a loud place at that time with the blood thumping and adrenaline flowing.
Soon after, Austin Gleeson announced his arrival by kicking over a ball after a Mark Fitzgerald shot dropped short, but the point was ruled out for a foul on Quaid.
On 57 minutes, Neil Montgomery’s shot dropped short. On an instant counterattack, Aaron Gillane nailed a brilliant effort from out on the sideline.
In the next minute, Bennett was fouled for a free. Inexplicably for the standards he kept the rest of the day, he didn’t catch the routine shot at all and it flew head-height to Quaid.
On 61 minutes a long Conor Prunty delivery was mopped up by Limerick.
By the time Bennett slotted over a free, Waterford had gone five minutes without a score, while up a player.
More points from Patrick Fitzgerald and Dessie Hutchinson left a goal in it with what would be 13 minutes to play.
All set up for the grandstand finish, instead Patrick Fitzgerald (2), Padraig Fitzgerald and Dessie Hutchinson all blasted wide in the closing period, while an Austin Gleeson free dropped short.
Limerick? Well they dug in so much that they found their escape route by tunnelling out of Semple Stadium.
After the game, Davy Fitzgerald was entirely right when he said, “We had the chances to get the result. It wouldn’t have been a sneaky result, it would have been a result we would have deserved if we would have got it.”
They had the extra man, the chances, but also, they had measured up to Limerick physically.
From the moment Liam Gordon put the ball in, Neil Montgomery was showing little respect by horsing into Will O’Donoghue.
Conor Gleeson won a free after big contact from the twin towers of Gillane and O’Donoghue. Declan Hannon caught Colin Dunford high. Barry Nash tried to make a dash upfield to join the attack and Dessie Hutchinson floored him instead.
All of that action? Came in the first minute. Actually, 55 seconds.
That was four incidents of heavy, significant impact. It would happen 24 more times before the first half was over.
Aside from that, there was a perfect demonstration of how Limerick sap your willpower. In the ninth minute, Jamie Barron was standing over a sideline and no fewer than five Limerick players surrounded him in a semi-circle, daring him to loft the ball over them.
He attempted it, but O’Donoghue stretched one of those enormous arms up to turn the ball over and the play was completed by Peter Casey striking over to make it 0-5 to 0-1.
The mental focus Waterford had to recover from that start was married with a physical durability.
Which brings us to Clare and this weekend.
You are looking at a big man in Conor Cleary at full-back. In front of him he has absolute units in Diarmuid Ryan, John Conlon and David McInerney. Cathal Malone in midfield. Peter Duggan at centre-forward.
The inside forward squadron of Ian Galvin, Mark Rodgers and Tony Kelly do not fit that physical profile, but have other outrageous gifts. Aidan McCarthy is flourishing nicely too after his display against Tipperary.
If anyone can measure up to Limerick, Clare can. And that is borne out in the results against them since the beginning of the John Kiely era.
More than any other team, Clare have been the stone in Limerick’s shoe.
And while the Banner won their meetings in the 2017 and 2018 championship, it’s not all ancient history, as last year’s draw in Ennis in the Munster round robin shows.
As did the act of taking them into extra time in last year’s Munster final after finishing the first half level, with Tony Kelly’s stunning sideline cut balancing the books at the end of normal time.
Limerick are under greater scrutiny by now. They will know that it comes with being champions. They play more games, more big games and there is greater opportunity to really study them.
With that, comes people expressing their honest opinion. Such as Liam Sheedy rightly saying that Seamus Flanagan was a lucky boy to escape a red card for a high challenge last week. And Barry Nash cannot get away with serial fouling on top of hitting with the hurley on an opponent’s helmet too many times.
It’s always been the way. During Kilkenny’s great run, they faced criticism for not always taking the utmost care of opponents.
A worrying habit of flicking the hurley back during or after making a catch was a regular complaint.
Tackling with the free hand is virtually expected rather than accepted nowadays, but back then it brought criticism.
When on a winning run, you have to re-frame your goals.
Starting the same team they had for the 2021 All-Ireland final shows us that the evolution of playing staff is slow, so little wonder that they are seizing on a brand-new cause as unveiled by John Kiely, ingenious as it is in hitting back not at their critics, but at their fanboys.
“Listen, let’s be honest about it, there was some amount of bullshit spoke about our team and the season ahead this week and the week before,” he said in an early frontrunner for quote of the season.
“It’s a softening up exercise mentally from those outside our camp. But we’re around a long time. We know that’s all folly and nonsense.”
The work they do with Caroline Currid has to be an ever-evolving piece as their position in the world changes. You have to find motivation in other ways.
As Marvin Hagler said, “It’s tough to get out of bed to do roadwork at 5am when you’ve been sleeping in silk pyjamas.”