The provincial hurling season reached a climax with two compelling finals. There are certain immutables, however, when Limerick face Clare. This weekend brought to four the number of matches they have contested in the past two Munster championships. All of them have had no more than a point in them at the end of 70 minutes.
So it was again, this time in the TUS Gaelic Grounds. Wasteful shooting by Clare undermined their chances with 12 wides, some of them astonishing. It wasn’t the operatic hurling of 12 months previously when Limerick won in extra time and individual feats were to the fore.
Aaron Gillane was the leading personality on the afternoon, scoring 1-11, 1-3 from play but Séamus Flanagan who scored eight from play a year ago in Thurles didn’t raise a flag and Tony Kelly, who dazzled in that match, struggled a little to be Tony Kelly — getting four from play but with three wides and getting blocked twice, wasn’t operating in quite the same stratosphere.
Clare had a legitimate complaint at the end that referee Liam Gordon overlooked two fouls at the very end — one common or garden one on Adam Hogan but the other a spectacular head-high shoulder hit on Kelly by Peter Casey that was duly breaking the internet by teatime.
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Limerick manager John Kiely was having none of it but in a mixed-message kind of way.
“For me, there was no free there. No free. Listen, we were there in ‘19 when things don’t go your way in the last minute. You have to suck it up when it doesn’t come your way.”
The reference to 2019 was the lineball that got deflected out off Cillian Buckley’s hurl — about which more below — when Limerick trailed by a point at the very end of an All-Ireland semi-final. In fairness to Kiely, he notably refused to make an issue of it afterwards, instead lodging it in the bank of karma for withdrawal on days like Sunday.
His Clare counterpart Brian Lohan took much the same route when asked about the missed fouls.
“Disappointing, yeah, yeah, disappointing.”
Had he got to see replays of the incidents?
“Didn’t get to see them, no.”
Any dressing-room discussion?
“Sure, look, there’s always talk. Yeah, there’s always talk.”
You sensed that — as had been the case with Limerick four years ago — his own team’s profligate squandering of chances had drained Lohan of any fervour about his justified claims.
Anyway, after last year’s experience of extra time, which left their tanks spectacularly empty when the longer route for defeated provincial finalists opened up, maybe it wasn’t seen as an unmitigated disaster.
For Limerick, the big prize that accompanied their record-equalling five-in-a-row provincial titles is a four-week break before the All-Ireland semi-final, as Kiely emphasised.
“It’s a great opportunity. We’re the first team now to qualify for the semi-finals. We managed the four weeks last year. We’ve done it in the past. We know our routine — it’s nailed down. Everybody knows what to expect before I say it. They know exactly what is going to happen this week, the week after, the week after that and the subsequent week.
“So, we know our routine. We’re a team that works according to our routines. It’s not an issue for us. Yes, it’s an opportunity for us to recharge, an opportunity for a few guys to get a few little bits and pieces together in terms of their own preparation, fitness levels, knocks and bumps and lumps — and just take a break.”
In Croke Park, Kilkenny retained their Leinster title in spectacular fashion. Galway had eased two points ahead in the last minute of injury time but found themselves scrapping for ball in the corner of the Davin and Hogan Stands with time all but up.
A panic of fostering erupted, as one side and then the other tried to seize what would have been a decisive possession for Galway and a final possibility for the champions. It ended with Pádraic Mannion kicking the ball as far away as he could, which turned out to be into the keeping of Cillian Buckley.
Not a renowned scorer he was sufficiently cool and precise to sweep it into the far corner of Éanna Murphy’s net. Goal! Final whistle. Another sorrowful mystery for Galway hurling.
