The Munster hurling final commands a prominent position in Irish sporting folklore, and this year’s edition enhanced the legend that surrounds it.
A packed Semple Stadium, local rivalry, heavy conditions that lent itself to the fierce physicality, no little skill, an unbearably tight finish, extra time and, eventually, the team that has dominated the game in recent years underlining just why they are such great champions by coming out on top, just.
There was quite a bit of cross-pollination between the two camps also. Paul Kinnerk, though a Limerick native and former county footballer, comes from a Clare background and coached them to the 2013 All-Ireland.
Clare man Alan Cunningham was also part of the Limerick coaching set up.
On the other side, James Moran, from the well known Ahane family and whose brothers Ollie and Niall played with Limerick, was part of the Clare management.
“They wouldn’t talk to me for a few weeks!” he jokes of his siblings. “Look, that’s the nature of it, that’s what you sign up for and that’s half the enjoyment as well.
“I’m from Limerick, represented Limerick and that but I’d a job to do and that’s the nature of the business.
“You have a job to do, you get on with it and you leave your emotions at the door and try and do as good a job for the team as you can do. That was the way I thought about it.”
The 100-odd minutes exacted quite a toll on both sets of players, physically and emotionally.
“Ah look, the emotion of the Munster final that day, it was a full house that day and even the weather that day, there was something different about it,” Moran explained.
“It was a hazy kind of a rain and then look, it was a big game, the ref contributed a lot to that, he let it go, he let the game flow, it was typical Munster Championship, 140 years history of it or whatever.
“We had a lot of sore bodies after that. The fact that you go there and you go away with nothing on the bus the way you went up, that was probably tough to take but all dues to Limerick. We asked the questions and they came up with the answers.
“I remember being on the sideline that day thinking… Jesus, I’ve been on a good few sidelines but you could hear the physicality coming out of it which I’d never heard before. I never heard it at that level before.”
The quality of the Munster Championship had been conspicuous in contrast to Leinster, where Galway and Kilkenny had played out a rather tepid final the evening before. It wasn’t a flight of fancy to anticipate that Limerick and Clare would be facing off again in the All-Ireland final.
But Clare’s graph dropped alarmingly after the Limerick loss. Wexford had them on the brink in the All-Ireland quarter-final only to lose their way coming down the stretch and any optimism that Clare had flushed the dirty petrol from the system that day proved unfounded come the All-Ireland semi-final.
A revitalised Kilkenny were home and hosed by half-time, leading by 14 points.
“Our performance, we’d have been disappointed with that,” Moran acknowledged. “It wasn’t the performance that reflected the team throughout the course of the year. Is there any one thing or two things, probably not.
“Probably a combination of factors as such, plus we had maybe 10 or 11 guys that it was their first game ever in Croke Park ever as such. I read some stat there, since the last time Clare had played there, TJ [Reid] played there 16 times so you can’t beat that experience around there as well.
“Look, it’s something we’ll take away. We’ll work on it this year. Every time you have a loss from that, there’s so much more learning in it than in a victory. That’s the way we’re going to take it on.
“We have a lot of learnings out of that to tell us actually where we’re at and we intend to address a lot of those this year as well. It mightn’t be enough but that’s the philosophy within our group, a growth mindset.”
The loss of centre-back John Conlon to injury ahead of the Kilkenny game was a significant blow, though the Clare management’s decision to pitch Paidi Fitzpatrick into the team in his absence raised eyebrows.
Fitzpatrick, an experienced club player who has only featured sparingly for the county team, was withdrawn at half-time.
Moran stood over the management’s approach, however.
“Paidi had been doing really well in training. He’s an experienced guy, he’s 30/31. He had done quite well for us in games up along throughout the last couple of years he was involved with us.
“We felt that John had been a great leader and we were going to give him every opportunity to prove himself, that he was possibly able to take the field.
“We made a decision at the start of the week that we’d give John every opportunity to be able to play this game so, no, would we have done anything different in that? John knows himself, John will put his hand up and tell you, ‘I’m ready, I’m not ready’ but he was saying, ‘Look, I’m not 100%, give me the time’ and we gave him the time and he deserved that right to get the time.
“But look, would we have done anything different? Our preparation was spot on, we felt in training guys were moving well. I wouldn’t have done anything different.”
If the physicality of the Munster final drained Clare to a greater degree than they could afford, then they appear to have gone some way towards addressing that as the new season approaches, with another Limerick man, Adrian O’Brien, drafted in as strength and conditioning coach.
They open their 2023 season in the Co-Op Superstores Munster Hurling League against Tipperary in Nenagh on January 8.
“You have to have the building blocks and one of those building blocks is you have to be able to match up physically,” Moran explained.
“Adrian’s proved himself below in Cork. He’s won a couple of championships with Ballyea, a couple of championships with Kilmallock.
“Were we as physically prepared as Limerick? We are as physically prepared as Limerick but we know that Limerick are going to move on another step and Tipp are going to move on another step and Adrian has a wealth of experience in that.
“So just we felt it would have been a very big plus and the feedback from Ballyea about him is so positive so he’s there on our doorstep so anyone that can add to our set up, we’ll involve and Adrian was somebody that we feel can add to our set up.”
