2022 was yet another record-breaking year for Limerick as they achieved only the eighth three-in-a-row in the history of the All-Ireland Championship.
Moreover, it was the first time that a county outside of the traditional ‘big three’ had managed it.
They weren’t nearly as dominant as in the two previous campaigns, however, and the Championship was certainly a lot more competitive than in 2021, with restoration of the round robin element a welcome development after the pandemic-enforced constraints over the last two seasons.
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Two of Limerick’s stronger challengers in recent years, Waterford and Tipperary, fell off the pace to varying degrees, with both failing to emerge from Munster, and though Kilkenny improved considerably come the back end of the Championship and came closer than most would have expected to delivering what would have been a 12th and final All-Ireland for Brian Cody.
As always, hurling is crying out for more teams to become competitive at a high level and so Westmeath’s form in the Leinster Championship was encouraging in that regard. Against that, Laois find themselves on an alarming slide.
1 Limerick (last year 1)
They were several lengths ahead of the field last year but only pushed ahead of a largely unheralded Kilkenny side coming to the post this time having been matched stride for stride by Galway and Clare for long periods prior to that.
It suggests that a brilliant team is perhaps just past its peak - but that’s not to say that they will be toppled in 2023 even if that is the case. The levels that they reached in 2020 and particularly 2021 were always going to be difficult to sustain.
On the other hand, they may be stronger next year than they were in 2022 and, if they avoid injuries to key players, they certainly should be on paper at least with Cian Lynch, the finest player in the game, and Peter Casey having only played peripheral roles this year.
Limerick have accumulated much mileage at this stage but undoubtedly remain the team to beat. The chasing pack will take confidence from the fact that their level of dominance has dropped, however.
2 Kilkenny (4)
For the first time ever, Kilkenny lost three games in a single Championship campaign and yet they might have snatched what would have been Brian Cody’s last All-Ireland and almost certainly his greatest.
Within a week of the three-point loss to Limerick, Cody had announced his retirement after 24 seasons at the helm and it will be fascinating to see how they evolve under his successor Derek Lyng, particularly from a tactical viewpoint, an area that was seen as something of a Cody blindspot relative to the managers he was competing against at the back end of his career.
Lyng will look to extract a more consistent level of performance from the team as, while we rank them second, the numbers are reasonably fluent from here down and Kilkenny could easily have found themselves well down the ratings having lost to Galway and Wexford as well as riding their luck early on in the Leinster final.
Relieving the burden on 35-year-old TJ Reid, who they are still reliant on beyond just what he contributes on the scoreboard, is essential too if they are to take the next step.
3 Clare (6)
A campaign that promised so much ultimately ended with nothing and on quite the whimper too in the All-Ireland semi-final against Kilkenny.
Some of their performances in the Munster Championship were hugely impressive as Clare found arguably their richest vein of form since the All-Ireland win in 2013 yet, for all they contributed to a memorable provincial final, at no stage were you gripped by a feeling that they were going to beat Limerick.
Their form tailed off dramatically after that and the nature of their capitulation against Kilkenny suggests that they lack the staying power and consistency to really challenge for top honours.
4 Galway (9)
Credit to Henry Shefflin for extracting the best performance of the year from Galway when it was needed most in the All-Ireland final as they came as close as anybody to toppling Limerick, but it doesn’t hide the fact that they were rather patchy up to then.
They let Wexford off the hook in the opening Championship game and while they went unbeaten from there to the Leinster final, the defeat to an unheralded Kilkenny side in the provincial final was a bitter pill to swallow, particularly for Shefflin on a personal level, and set their campaign on a different course.
They were fortunate to get past Cork before summoning that commendable effort against Limerick but Shefflin probably put it best recently when he described his first season at the helm as “average”. The potential is there to kick on, however.
5 Cork (3)
There is optimism on Leeside that their longest ever drought without an All-Ireland title will end in the not too distant future given their recent underage titles, but there was little about this year’s senior campaign to point to it being imminent.
After a poor League final showing bled into the Munster Championship, they did well to keep their season alive with convincing wins over Waterford and Tipperary, with Ciaran Joyce emerging as a fine centre-back, but old failings returned in a wasteful showing against Galway.
Pat Ryan has since succeeded Kieran Kingston and it looks a smart choice given his hand in the under-20 wins over 2020 and ‘21.
6 Waterford (2)
After claiming a League title in impressive fashion, Waterford were anointed as the team best placed to challenge Limerick, with former manager Derek McGrath even claiming that they were now the “team to beat”, but they imploded spectacularly after a nervy opening Championship win over Tipperary.
It’s not exactly unprecedented as Waterford fell off the face of the earth for two seasons after reaching the 2017 All-Ireland final under McGrath before Liam Cahill revitalised them.
The nature of Waterford’s exit this year brought Cahill’s tenure to a natural conclusion but the age profile of the team is still reasonably healthy and new boss Davy Fitzgerald will be rightly confident that he can draw a tune out of them.
7 Wexford (8)
Albeit they started out under Darragh Egan with maximum points from their opening five League games, everything else about Wexford’s season screamed inconsistency.
Waterford wiped them out in the League semi-final and they laboured through Leinster, even drawing with Westmeath, before pulling off a superb victory over Kilkenny to reach the knockout stages.
But they couldn’t kick on from a commanding position against Clare and, as a couple of faithful servants like Shaun Murphy and Paul Morris move into retirement, it’s increasingly difficult not to conclude that this generation of Wexford players peaked in 2019.
8 Dublin (7)
Flattered to deceive yet again as they failed to emerge from the Leinster group on scoring difference, with a 17-point mauling at the hands of Kilkennt ultimately derailing their season which had looked like it might take off after a crucial win in Wexford.
Mattie Kenny has since been moved on and the appointment of Micheal Donoghue shows much ambition, but how much scope there is for him to make Dublin a force at the back end of the Championship is questionable.
9 Tipperary (5)
A dreadful showing this year from a county that were All-Ireland champions as recently as 2019, with their home losses to Clare and Cork particularly galling.
It was always going to be a big ask for Colm Bonnar as he suffered with a number of retirements and injuries, with the loss of Padraic Maher particularly crippling, but the callous manner in which he was removed as manager reflected poorly on the Tipperary county board.
Yet, for Liam Cahill, who worked with many of the players successfully at underage level and couldn’t turn down his native county for a second time, it’s not a bad time to take over as surely the only way is up.
10 Westmeath (-)
As good a showing as Westmeath could have hoped for as they were competitive against Kilkenny and Dublin, scored a remarkable draw with Wexford and made light work of Laois to keep their spot in the top tier, with the defeat to Galway the only game in which they didn’t show up.
Carlow, Antrim and Laois have threatened to break into the elite in recent years before regressing alarmingly - the question is whether Westmeath can now buck that trend.
11 Antrim (-)
By staying in Division One and making an immediate return to the top tier by winning the Joe McDonagh Cup, Antrim did all that could be expected of them in 2022 and were even on course to shock Cork at one stage in the preliminary quarter-final.
Establishing themselves in the top tier and turning good performances against stronger counties into victories will be the priorities for manager Darren Gleeson in 2023.
12 Laois (10)
Bar a victory over Antrim which kept them in Division One, it was a brutal year for Laois, who dropped to the Joe McDonagh Cup after a series of heavy beatings in the Championship.
Seamas ‘Cheddar’ Plunkett stepped down as manager with Willie Maher taking over, but he has his work cut out to restore the team to the levels they reached under Eddie Brennan in 2019.
13 Kerry (-)
After losing a third successive Joe McDonagh Cup final, and in heartbreaking circumstances to Antrim, Kerry were never likely to be anything other than cannon fodder for Wexford in the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final.
They would benefit from breaking into the top flight of the Allianz League but going one better in the McDonagh Cup is really the only metric that will apply for manager Stephen Molumphy next year.
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