Limerick come close to hurling perfection in a brilliant first-half
Inside Track with John McIntyre
Any long serving Galway hurler who was half-thinking of following Joe Canning’s footsteps into retirement would have had their minds made up for them after Limerick’s ruthless demolition job on Cork at Croke Park last Sunday. We have seen some spectacular performances in All-Ireland finals down through the decades, but none better than what Limerick produced in the opening 35 minutes. In amassing a staggering half-time total of 3-18, the reigning champions took their game to a new level in crushing the Rebels by a whopping 16 points.
Even Brian Cody’s great Kilkenny team in their hey-day would have struggled to live with Limerick. The power, pace, skill, cohesion and tactical awareness of John Kiely’s charges had Cork in all sorts of bother and only for the knee injury to Peter Casey, who had fired over five points from play inside 25 minutes, it’s arguable that Cork’s margin of defeat could have hit 20-plus points.
Limerick’s awesome first-half display was surely the greatest ever seen in the annals of the sport’s biggest occasion. They repeatedly cut Cork to pieces with goals from Gearóid Hegarty (two) and Aaron Gillane ensuring that they had the county’s first ever back-to-back titles secured by the interval.
Cork didn’t lie down and engineered a terrific early goal of their own from Shane Kingston, but they couldn’t match Limerick’s physicality and got few opportunities to exploit the mobility in their ranks. They were often turned over in possession and key players like Jack O’Connor and Mark Coleman didn’t have the expected influence, while their full-back-line endured a nightmare experience.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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