I WANT MORE, impossible to ignore.
Dolores O’Riordan’s vocals are quickly becoming as much a part of the All-Ireland Sunday traditions as the Artane Band and the pre-match parade, and as her words settled over Croke Park and Limerick’s latest celebrations, you didn’t have to reach too far to find the line that captured the moment.
Now that this remarkable group of players have climbed the mountain to unequivocally take their place alongside the legendary Cork and Kilkenny sides, there is no doubt that they will be back in 2024 with designs on the win that would leave them out in front on their own.
It is fitting that this, the crowning glory of an utterly exceptional four years, will be remembered for a whirlwind second half of pure perfection: 35 minutes of precise, unsparing hurling that drained the life from Kilkenny’s dogged challenge and brought them to their knees.
When the game was there to be decided, Limerick did so in emphatic fashion, winning the second half by a phenomenal 0-21 to 1-6 that turned the final minutes of what had once been a suffocating battle into a pure exhibition.
They might well drink it in, for these are rare days.
Few sides in hurling history have won three straight All-Ireland titles and then made it all the way back to the big dance with a clear shot at immortality; in the past, the challenge has inevitably unravelled before the final day.
So as Limerick took aim, it fell to Derek Lyng in his first season as Kilkenny boss to try to keep the wolves from the door and preserve the pinnacle of Brian Cody’s legacy.
So many times, Cody’s sides turned Croke Park into a phone box and left their rivals without an inch to hurl, smothering them with relentless intensity and swarming pressure.
That was the hallmark of the first half again here: with the wind at Kilkenny’s back and the drizzle unrelenting, it wasn’t a classic befitting the occasion or the quality of either of these sides, but it was unmissable, played with a ferocity that made every ball feel like a life or death moment.
The latest instalment of Huw Lawlor versus Aaron Gillane had been billed as one of the day’s defining match-ups, and you would have struggled to slip a sheet of paper between them in the early exchanges. Twice in the opening minutes, Limerick tried to get Gillane on the ball: Lawlor scrambled away the first delivery, and although Gillane won the second, he was whistled by referee John Keenan for playing it on the ground as he slid to gather it.
Lawlor did his chances of another All-Star at full-back little harm, holding the Hurler of the Year frontrunner to 0-5 in total, and just two from play, but it was a rare positive on a day of very few of them for the Cats.
Neither side could be found wanting in the physical stakes. Adrian Mullen and Tom Phelan — another of Kilkenny’s better performers — hunted as a pair, forcing Barry Nash to spill the ball over the sideline. Will O’Donoghue then thundered into Phelan before a defiant fist-pump from Diarmaid Byrnes, not to mention the first of his seven pointed frees.
Kilkenny sought to exploit any space in behind the Limerick defence, and it was the direct route that led to the game’s opening goal on 10 minutes: Conor Fogarty dropping a long ball into the forwards where it came off the shin of Mike Casey. Phelan was quickest to react, scooping it into the path of Eoin Cody, who left Nickie Quaid with no chance.
Phelan’s all-action start continued: he drifted into acres of space and pointed, and after Gillane knocked over his first free of the day to keep Limerick in touch, tacked on another after linking up with Mullen in midfield. He could have had a third in as many minutes after John Donnelly hounded Kyle Hayes to force the turnover, but shot wide.
Limerick were trailing 1-4 to 0-5 when Gillane hit two uncharacteristic wides, and that blip was the spark for a Kilkenny run: they reeled off four unanswered points — a Richie Reid score in amongst three TJ frees — that left Limerick struggling for air.
The final free of TJ’s treble came at the expense of Barry Nash for taking too many steps as he burst out from the back. While Reid settled himself to take aim and push Kilkenny’s lead out to six, the camera cut to Declan Hannon on the Limerick bench with no further explanation needed.
Tom Morrissey went down in the middle of the field in need of attention. Thoughts of Nickie Quaid’s well-timed breather a fortnight ago couldn’t have been far from the mind of the referee as Keenan waved play on.
Whatever momentary respite there was was enough to spark a Limerick revival spearheaded by Hannon’s deputy, Cian Lynch embracing his role as captain on the day as he bent the game to his will in the closing minutes of the first half.
Encouraged to press on into centre-forward, he engineered a run of four Limerick points — scoring one himself, winning a free for another, and setting up David Reidy and Tom Morrissey — to ensure that they finished in the ascendancy and went in at the break just three points down, 1-9 to 0-9.
As it has been so many times in the past, the third quarter was once again to be Limerick’s championship quarter, but not before Kilkenny threatened to wrestle the game from their grasp.
Many a shot into the Hill 16 end has been figuratively described over the years as bursting the net, but Paddy Deegan’s rifled shot was the genuine article. It put Kilkenny five points up, 2-10 to 0-11 — but more than that, it provoked a truly frightening response from Limerick.
This side has waded through their Championship campaign, shorn of key men — not only Hannon, but Sean Finn and Richie English among others — and beset by questions as to whether or not they are still at the peak of their powers.
Stung by Deegan’s goal, and the prospect that Kilkenny could turn this arm-wrestle into a knife-fight down the stretch, Limerick outscored their rivals 0-10 to 0-1 in the 14 minutes that followed.
They outfought and outthought Kilkenny. When Kyle Hayes was fouled deep inside his own half, Hegarty — back to his best, in the second half especially — was alive to the possibilities when nobody else was. He took the free quickly to Byrnes, who boomed over from distance.
For all of Limerick’s dominance, it must be remembered that Kilkenny still found it within themselves to a make game of this, on paper at least, and however fleetingly. John Donnelly, and then Mullen, twice made it a two-point game with just over 10 minutes to play.
Not satisfied with crushing Kilkenny once in an afternoon, Limerick did it all over again with eight of the last nine scores and an exhibition of point-taking that put a exclamation mark on their superiority.
Of all the 82,000 people in Croke Park, nobody enjoyed themselves quite as much as Peter Casey. The Na Piarsaigh man delivered one of the great All-Ireland final flourishes, scoring four of his five-point total down the stretch, capping a display that will be heralded and savoured in the days and weeks to come — and that will leave the rest of the country in no doubt about the challenge that faces them in 2024.
Impossible to ignore.