Back in the foothills, Limerick boss John Kiely is anxious to push on

The obvious classical parallel is the eternal task of Sisyphus. Condemned to heave a boulder up a steep hill, lose control and watch it roll all the way to the bottom, he then must repeat the labour.

When a four-in-a-row team loses the following year, it must feel like everything has slid down the mountain. Limerick manager John Kiely saw his side’s prospect of making history roll away in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final against Cork. It happened narrowly and they had every chance to win but, a year later, they are back pushing through the foothills.

In this Saturday’s Munster final, they renew acquaintance with Cork, having drubbed their tormentors just three weeks ago and looked sharp and focused in the process. Have there been compensatory benefits to last year’s disappointment?

“Yeah,” says Kiely at an online Munster GAA promotional media briefing. “Setting aside the disappointment, which was huge – but listen, the narrative has changed. You know, the first words out of everybody’s mouth that you meet when you go to the shop or go to the post office or, you know, go to Mass, it was almost the first line at Mass, you know. We’ll pray for the five-in-a-row and we’ll move on down to the more important matters of life and death.

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“So, you know, it’s definitely no harm that it’s finished with. It would have been lovely to do it, of course it would, but such is sport and we move on to the next challenge and we don’t look back very much at all.”

This season has been about processing the disappointment and repositioning for a further tilt at the All-Ireland. A scrappy league of uneven performance and recuperating injury created a sense of uncertainty about the team that has won five of the last seven All-Irelands.

The manager acknowledges that they “struggled at times during the spring,” adding, “you have to embrace the disappointment and you have to try and make yourself better”.

Limerick's Declan Hannon lifts the Mick Macky Cup after beating Clare in last year's Munster final. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho

In recent years Limerick have almost taken out a lease on the Munster Championship. Saturday could be their seventh successive title and that local supremacy is another positive.

“We won a fantastic Munster title in Thurles in 2024, which we are very, very proud of and which meant a lot to us at the time. But at the minute, our focus is very, very firmly on Saturday.

“There’s great credit [due] to the players for what they’ve done over the last number of years. To be so consistent in a world of competition that the Munster final is, or Munster Championship is, it’s just a remarkable achievement what they’ve done.”

Kiely points out that there are only a few days when silverware is given out and this Saturday is one of them.

“I’ve enjoyed every single one of them. They have been special. When you’re in the bus coming up the Ennis Road and you see the mix of colour, the one in 2023 in particular with Clare.

“Outside the Greenhills Hotel there were 5,000 or 6,000 Clare supporters and we drove through them and it would make the hair stand in the back of your neck. It was just an incredible moment. You looked up the road and there were about 10,000 supporters coming out against you.

“In any other society, war would have broken out! Thankfully in the GAA it’s a shared celebration of a really special sporting event. Long may that be the case.”

Limerick's Michael Casey in action against Cork at the Gaelic Grounds on May 18th. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho

Their long-running rivalry with Clare never ignited this season, as the neighbours, having taken last year’s All-Ireland, succumbed to weariness and injury – but not before they had reminded Limerick that they were still there by winning the last, dead-rubber fixture when Kiely’s team were already qualified for the final.

The signature performance that catapulted Limerick into favouritism was against this weekend’s opponents at home last month. Cork had stormed to the league title in April but championship displays were fitful and Limerick beat them by 16 points.

Despite that win, considered by many the best performance his team had given in years, Kiely is keen to explain that room for improvement isn’t just for Cork.

“There was plenty we came away from that performance that we weren’t happy with ourselves that day. When you sit down and watch these games back again, you can find those missed passes, those missed pickups, those dropped balls, that puckout that was just five yards too tight that should have been five yards wider.

“A ball that should have been cleared that ended up spilling out and being put over the bar. A near-goal chance created because the ball wasn’t stopped. All these things are there.”

This is Kiely’s ninth year in management and after the first in 2017, he was awaiting a phone call “to say thanks very much”. But the following year, many of the players who he had guided to under-21 success in 2015 and who won another two years later, sprang from Division 1B to take the county’s first All-Ireland in 45 years.

Kiely’s focus remains on treating every match as a platform for getting better.

“We’re continuously looking for improvements in our performance levels right throughout the championship. That’s where 90 per cent of our focus will be going into this month’s final game, to see if we can find more enhanced performance levels in ourselves.”