Of all his 16 semi-final wins, this must have given Brian Cody immense satisfaction. It wasn’t a radical blueprint but given the struggles of recent years there was a breath-taking quality to how Kilkenny went at it and set the tone for what would be a ferocious challenge to impressive champions.
A couple of the younger players were up and in opponents’ faces straight away. Conor Browne and John Donnelly put their bodies on the line from the start with ferocious hits on Will O’Donoghue – who had been previously and even again in this match, one of Limerick’s most energetic performers – and Dan Morrissey.
The champions didn’t help themselves with the amount of wides (15) they shot throughout the evening but it was clear from the start that they had been really rattled by the aggression of their opponents’ opening moves.
In those 10 minutes Cody’s team set out their stall and took the fight to what had been Limerick’s power-centre, the middle third and the champions struggled to steady themselves in their two key lines, the half backs and half forwards.
Whether it was simply the blunted hunger of All-Ireland champions or the now extraordinary hoodoo that afflicts the Munster title holders, Limerick simply weren’t able to cope. That’s not to take away from the incredible commitment of Kilkenny.
When David Reidy had the injury-time goal chance that Eoin Murphy saved, the celebrations in the Kilkenny full-back line underlined the powerful collective commitment that drove the team all evening.
During the first-quarter blitz, they took a steady succession of points and when Colin Fennelly powered past Seán Finn for a 14th minute goal, Limerick were in serious trouble. It also showed the leadership of the team’s experienced troops and inevitably TJ Reid was the vanguard.
He is an amazing player and Limerick suffered by not deploying an out-and-out man-marker to try to mitigate his influence. He mightn’t have scored from play but was involved in everything and his free-taking cranked up the pressure on Limerick throughout the first half.
Even when he missed his only placed ball, he promptly won the resulting puck-out.
It showed champion qualities for John Kiely’s men to haul themselves back into the game and having cut the deficit – at one stage, nine – back to three by half-time was a serious recovery but Kilkenny still got the last score before the break.
It seemed that whenever they got their energy and industry up to recognisable levels, Limerick undermined themselves with poor shooting. Inexplicable inaccuracy from top players like Cian Lynch, Aaron Gillane and Graeme Mulcahy – who to be fair was otherwise outstanding – just added to the growing sense of anxiety and helped to sustain Kilkenny.
This became critical in the second half. Effectively Limerick were taking over but when they closed to within a point they either missed a straightforward chance to equalise – Kyle Hayes had a particularly bad wide and so did Diarmuid Byrnes – or immediately conceded another score, like in the 45th minute from the impressive Adrian Mullen – and the anxiety intensified.
You felt that if they could get level that the momentum would switch and the Limerick crowd would really become a factor and take them home in the closing stages.
They never got enough ball into the full forwards who were causing difficulty for Kilkenny and at one stage Mulcahy, potentially a major threat, was on his own 20-metre line clearing a ball when Limerick were six points behind.
It’s only fair to point out that they were wrongly deprived of an almost certain equaliser and a shot at extra-time when Darragh O’Donovan’s last-minute lineball was deflected out for what should have been a 65.
It wasn’t obvious from everywhere in the ground but at close quarters it was clearly detectable and poor officiating all around, as the linesman definitely should have spotted it – not to mention very unfair on Limerick but it summed up their day.
