Losing to Clare needn’t derail your season. Former Limerick defender Tom Condon knows that better than most.
Few could have foreseen Clare’s victory over Limerick on April 29 given that they had lost at home to Tipperary the previous weekend and their all-conquering neighbours had just extended their unbeaten Championship run to 17 games across almost four years.
But the history of the fixture must always be respected.
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“The rivalry is just phenomenal,” says Condon. “How good or bad Clare are going, they always seem to raise their game against Limerick and that just comes down to ‘we are not going to be beaten by our next door neighbours’.
“Down through the years, Limerick and Clare has always been one massive tussle.”
Clare kicked on from that 1-24 to 2-20 win to reach another Munster final and though Limerick were rocked by the defeat, they steadied themselves to set up a renewal at the TUS Gaelic Grounds on Sunday.
They have previous in that respect too as there was a spectacular response to their last Championship loss to Clare five years ago, a day when Condon was a central character despite spending barely 20 minutes on the field.
Introduced for the injured Sean Finn early on, he was gone before half-time having been sent off for a strike on Clare’s David Reidy, who was also dismissed, though his red card was rescinded.
Limerick had already qualified for the knockout stages but a longer road to Croke Park beckoned as Clare then moved into the Munster final at their expense.
“I got sent off on the day, rush of blood to the head stuff and yeah, look, personally I felt ‘I’m after blowing this’ and ‘What am I after doing?’ and it kind of snowballed from there.
“I think 11 points in the end we lost by. We just had to dust ourselves down and that’s where Caroline [Currid] came in, psychologically like, just trying to build us up again.
“John [Kiely] had a word with me after I remember, I think it was in the Radisson, we went back for food after the game there. He pulled me aside and had a chat and told me, ‘Look, it’s up to you now, take it on the chin’ and to work back into the panel and into the team and see how it goes.
“Thankfully we just got our momentum back again and the rest of history. The comeback against Cork in the semi-final, I just knew that there was something there in this panel.
“I always believed if we got to the All-Ireland final that we’d win it, it was just to get there. We’d never been able to do it over a couple of years, to get past the semi-final stage, so I think once we beat Cork I was convinced that we were going to do it that year.”
They did, beating Galway by a point in the final to take their first title in 45 years with Condon making the crucial catch in front of goal from Joe Canning’s long range free as the holders pushed for an equaliser, nine weeks after that rock bottom moment for him and the team in Ennis.
“You tend to forget about what happened earlier on that year. Everything else was irrelevant. I won’t say irrelevant, but it’s just mad how your head thinks, like.
“It was kind of forgotten about but I’d still have the few friends from Clare that would bring it up there now and again! I suppose it was a bit special for me, going from that low to that high and it’s just something that I’ll remember forever.”
Sunday’s game is the biggest Munster Championship tie between the counties since 1996, when Limerick eliminated the reigning All-Ireland champions at the Gaelic Grounds thanks to Ciaran Carey’s iconic winning point.
A 10-year-old Condon watched it at home as he couldn’t get a ticket. All these years later, he’s married to Carey’s daughter, Sarah.
"It has the makings of that again. The fine weather in the Gaelic Grounds and even from last Sunday week, the crowd that was there on the Ennis Road, both Cork and Limerick, it was just phenomenal. I hadn't experienced that in a long time.
“I think there's going to be a big crowd from both sets. It's like a home venue for Clare. They've always played well in the Gaelic Grounds. And if '96 is anything to go by, we're in for a fair feast of hurling.
“They were always my idols. I remember watching Stephen McDonagh, he was one of my favourite players growing up. When you were watching it, I suppose it was something that every hurler aspires to, to one day be out there and be able to do that.
“A lot of those players were fellas I looked up to - Ciarán Carey, all these lads - and they were special times. Packed houses and stuff like that, it would make the hair stand on the back of your neck. It was something you wanted. It was infectious."
He played his part in Limerick’s current golden era, stepping away after winning his second All-Ireland in 2020 but the records have kept tumbling since.
“Like, what they have done for the county since 2018 is just phenomenal. We would have settled for one All-Ireland a couple of years ago and to win four, no matter what they do after this I think it is irrelevant, what they have done for the county, for the young and old, is just massive and the boost it has given the city is just incredible.”
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