Tom Morrissey steps up to lead his generation from the front

Limerick are built on the All-Ireland-winning under-21s of 2015 and ‘17. A dozen of them started the breakthrough senior final in 2018 and the same number lined out for the semi-final against Galway the week before last. A generational takeover.

Only Nickie Quaid, Dan Morrissey and David Reidy were too old for the cohort.

A distinguishing feature of the team under John Kiely is that different players step up at different times to compensate if there is any malfunction in the collective. So far, in six years, they have lost just one sudden-death encounter, the semi-final against Kilkenny four years ago.

This hasn’t been their most dominant championship despite a spring that ended with them lifting the league title for the third time in five seasons, which prompted general wailing about the All-Ireland already having an ‘acquired’ sticker attached before a ball was pucked.

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One match in, all that talk ended. Waterford gave the champions a tough contest and revealed the first inkling of an attack that wasn’t fully functioning. As Irish Times hurling analyst Nicky English put it: “Apart from Tom Morrissey, none of their players produced big performances”.

Morrissey went on to score 0-4 from play against Clare in the champions’ first defeat since 2019 and was nominated for Hurler of the Month in April. Younger brother of full back, Dan, he has been no stranger to individual accolades and picked up MOTM awards in the All-Ireland semi-finals of 2020 and ‘21 – as well as the 2015 under-21 meeting with Galway.

To date he is the only player aside from Aaron Gillane to have scored in all of Limerick’s matches.

He captained the under-21s to their 2017 success as well as completing a very influential switch the same year, according to Maurice O’Brien, the former Limerick under-21 winner and coach that year, who hurled senior with the county and also Dublin.

“I had coached him in Ahane the year before that. When I joined the [U-] 21 set-up, I had prior knowledge of his leadership qualities.

“He had been full forward in 2015 and even at club level but as 2017 progressed we had Aaron Gillane at wing forward, where he had played all his club hurling up to that point, as a number 10 with Patrickswell.

“We were able to deploy Aaron’s pace and get Tom into the game more. It suited him out on the half-forward line and as we’ve seen since, it’s his natural position.

“He still plays a bit of full forward and centre forward for the club where his form I’d say has been probably the best in Limerick over the last number of years. His performances have been nothing less than outstanding. He’s been holding Ahane in the top six and the scores he’s racking up are sensational.”

After a championship of subdued scoring – their average of 0-26 is down on last year’s 0-29, and the previous two years’ 0-30 – Limerick appeared to pick up momentum in the recent semi-final.

Morrissey’s input to date doesn’t surprise O’Brien.

“He’s been doing that for years but this time, the sense of it has been heightened by the slight drop-off from the others but when needs must, he’s the one winning the ball.”

He identifies the player’s coming-of-age display in the breakthrough year of 2018 when Kilkenny were defeated for the first time in 45 years – the very gap that would be bridged when the All-Ireland was won.

Morrissey seized the initiative at the end after a Kilkenny goal looked to have knocked them back.

“When Richie Hogan got the goal and he [Morrissey] wins the next puck-out and puts it over the bar before the final point that day, coming down the right under severe pressure when a point needed to be scored in that quarter-final.

“To beat them – they’re standard bearers. It was a breakout moment.”

Another attribute impressed O’Brien, who was a member of the 2002 Limerick under-21s, the third of the three-in-a-row All-Ireland teams at the turn of the century, who never managed the transition to senior with any sort of commensurate success.

They became a mysterious example of how under-age success, even at under-21 level, carries no guarantees. O’Brien still doesn’t fully understand why that was the case but knows that the “chopping and changing” at senior level contrasted with how firmly the county board supported John Kiely in his progression to senior manager.

“As under-21s they were trying to learn from what had happened to our generation. I think it was fed into them at academy level that nothing was guaranteed.

“I had a couple of conversations with Tom on what had gone wrong for us. I thought they were extraordinary questions from a 20-year old to find out how to be better and how to avoid pitfalls.”

So far, he has been foot-perfect in negotiating them.