SO HERE WE are, All-Ireland final day once again.
In one corner, we have the assured champions who seldom put a foot wrong. Who guard against complacency and despise compliments.
What must it be like in that bubble? When it’s admitted that their idea of fun includes an occasional ice cream van to go along with a scattering of jelly babies on a bench, you realise this isn’t Ozzy Osbourne taking Mötley Crüe, ‘under his wing’ during a 1984 tour. All a bit, what is the expression? Stepford Wives?
In the other corner, you have the Wild Bunch. Comparably free-spirits who like to indulge in on-field pile-ons at the end of games, with their manager at the very heart of glorious celebrations. Who leave it to the very end of games to snatch victory. For the craic, like.
Limerick and Kilkenny. Hang on, which is which?
Naturally, we are over-egging it a bit here in our recasting of these two great hurling counties. But not drastically. The surprise for anyone who goes through their lives merrily unaware of hurling is that Limerick are now the barometer of excellence and Kilkenny are recast as plucky underdogs. Where did those five years go?
Limerick are chasing down the record-equalling four All-Irelands in a row. What does the number four mean anyway?
When you have been a team that wins their first, you get the emotional waves of neutrals crashing on your shores. It’s a quick, hard and fast process of falling in love.
And then it ends just as Hemingway would have it; gradually, and then suddenly. Limerick now are subject to the same scrutiny that Kilkenny were at their peak. The latter-day ‘Tommy Walsh witch hunts’ as Cody called them have been replaced with the ‘contact lens momentum-breakers.’
Limerick didn’t do what they were supposed to do, in going away. They had their down year in 2019, understandable after such a breakthrough, and have returned to keep shifting shape through the last four summers. Ultimately, they evolve back into a team based on controlled possession, manic pressure, size and the best finishers around.
You’d have to have huge admiration for how John Kiely goes about his business. I’m sure he’d be delighted with the compliment. In lack of self-awareness, it ranks alongside the Kevin Bridges set-piece when he talks about the Glaswegian who couldn’t afford his bus fare offering financial advice to Mark Zuckerburg that he should charge people ‘a quid a go’ to use Facebook. But all the same, it’s there for him.
At their press briefing, he said something you don’t hear many ultra-successful managers say.
“I’m not a vital cog in the wheel. Nor do I want to be. I shouldn’t be. In an effective organisation around this team, they should be able to cope without me being present at all.”
The absence of ego is startling. Sport is full of people on the sidelines who make desperate lunges for credit.
You sense though, that he is merely following Brian Cody and his attitude to success. Enjoyed at the time, parked, forgotten about.
We’ve gotten this far and not even mentioned a hurler by name. Well, you’ll have Huw Lawlor on Seamus Flanagan, David Blanchfield on Tom Morrisey, Mikey Butler will go for a spin with Cian Lynch…
And you could go on in this fashion, earnestly parsing down the various pairings, impact from the bench, who can get the scores, how many, from where, puck-out strategies and so on.
Ultimately, the debate and chat won’t count. This game will hinge on bad and good luck and appetite. If Kilkenny are to do it, they need to replicate Tipperary’s bravery in the 2010 final in hitting four goals, a year after they were beaten by Kilkenny sealing their own four in a row.
Immortality beckons though, for Limerick. It’s a door they are best-equipped to walk through.
