All-Ireland hurling final: Awesome second half leaves Limerick top of the world

Limerick 0-30 Kilkenny 2-15

An extraordinary All-Ireland final finished in a blaze of glory, with Limerick becoming just the third team to win four successive hurling All-Irelands. That blaze ignited in a second half of such incandescence that Kilkenny’s ambitions, up to the break uncomfortably plausible from the champions’ perspective, were incinerated and reduced to smoking ruins.

The obvious explanation is the familiar one with Limerick’s opponents: they were overpowered just as Galway had been in the semi-final and in remarkably similar circumstances.

Leading by six with nearly half an hour elapsed, Kilkenny lost the initiative just as surely as Galway had, and in the end lost by the very same margin.

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The strength and power of the champions became a dominant factor but there was more to it than that. In the second half their score-taking was rampant and unerring, hit from either wing and points in between.

There was only one wide, from an out-of-sorts Séamus Flanagan, while the match was a contest, and by the time the second arrived Limerick were six ahead and motoring with whopping contributions raining in from everywhere.

Peter Casey had the misfortune two years ago to injure his cruciate before half time after scoring 0-5 from play. This time he took it the other way around and shot five from six, going through markers like disposable wipes.

Diarmaid Byrnes went one better. His six second-half points came in a flawless exhibition of free-taking – and in critical circumstances when for the most part they came as Limerick chased down the lead for the ultimate equaliser and to go three and four ahead. All the while knowing that any miss would drain momentum, spread unease and relieve the pressure on Kilkenny.

Orchestrating it all in a spectacular return to form was captain Cian Lynch. He had hinted at that emergence in the semi-final but this was glorious confirmation. His first half was as difficult as it was for the entire team. Their familiar attempts to play the ball through the lines created claustrophobia and bottlenecks.

Kilkenny were in impressively aggressive form, surrounding the ball-carriers and hustling their intended targets. For the first time in a long time Limerick looked hunted and struggled for flow.

Even so, Lynch shot a couple of points and made a couple of assists. Ironically for someone who was intended to be liberated by a switch to centrefield it was a move back to centre forward that really brought him to life.

After half time, as they hit their stride, the opposition press flagged and the movement became more menacing and incisive. Lynch was in the middle of it, his repertoire of flicks bringing the ball under control even in the face of the unruliest passes and forcing the hitherto influential Richie Reid to back-pedal a bit.

[ As it happened: Limerick beat Kilkenny 0-30 to 2-15 as John Kiely’s team secure four-in-a-row ]

Kyle Hayes had begun to impose himself in the first half but after the break he was back to his most awesome, a destroyer of worlds – certainly the world of the Kilkenny puck-outs, which came under remorseless pressure.

The Leinster champions came into the match with a high-energy plan to disrupt Limerick’s patterns of moving the ball through the lines. It worked so well that the whole world felt turned upside down. The champions had barely ever trailed in an All-Ireland final let alone at half time.

Early exchanges can often be accurate indicators. Within seconds Huw Lawlor had beaten Aaron Gillane to the ball and throughout the first half Limerick’s full forwards were shut down. Gillane got in for a point and a couple of frees but he was also off target with two shots.

As Limerick’s top forward his travails must have made his team and support queasy. They were definitely off their game and they were playing second fiddle.

Kilkenny got in for their goal within 10 minutes, just after Byrnes had posted his only miss of the day. A long ball from Conor Fogarty was forced into Eoin Cody by Tom Phelan, and the end result was both predictable and wounding to Limerick.

Phelan had a fine debut final with three points and two goal assists, casting what shadow there was on Byrnes’s afternoon. By the 16th minute Byrnes and Will O’Donoghue had each been yellow-carded, a troubling development for a half-back line whose calling card is no-holds barred physicality.

Kilkenny lost David Blanchfield to his reported shoulder injury, and his replacement, Conor Fogarty, switched from the centre, had to leave at half time, also injured.

They still had the tonic of a quick 1-1 after Byrnes had shaved the interval deficit to one, 0-11 to 1-9. Phelan got up for a great catch and pointed. Next he played in wing back Paddy Deegan, whose shot across the goal burst the net, creating confusion until the umpires waved the green flag in the 42nd minute.

This was a five-point lead but appeared to inspire Limerick. Within three minutes Casey had held off the tackler on the right sideline to sweep over a defiant point and Barry Nash came up for another. whereas Gearóid Hegarty, the hero of many a final, added a third to cancel the goal.

The equaliser came just after a potential third Kilkenny goal had been lost after a wonderful ball from TJ Reid, who was unable to leave his usual imprint on the match, placed Martin Keoghan, but at the critical moment he slipped and the ball ended up with Gillane popping a point.

Kilkenny led briefly just once after that. All in all from the 42nd minute, when they scored the second goal, they were outscored 0-5 to 0-19.

It unravelled with such frightening speed to leave them shell-shocked and Limerick entering another dimension.

LIMERICK: Nickie Quaid; Mike Casey, Dan Morrissey, Barry Nash (0-1); Diarmaid Byrnes (0-8, 7f), Will O’Donoghue, Kyle Hayes (0-1); Darragh O’Donovan (0-1), Cian Lynch (capt; 0-2); Gearóid Hegarty (0-2), David Reidy (0-2), Tom Morrissey (0-1); Séamus Flanagan, Aaron Gillane (0-5, 3f), Peter Casey (0-5).

Subs: Cathal O’Neill (0-2) for T Morrissey (55 mins), Graeme Mulcahy for Flanagan (62 mins), Conor Boylan for Hegarty (68 mins), Barry Murphy for O’Donovan (71 mins), Aaron Costello for M Casey (73 mins).

KILKENNY: Eoin Murphy (0-1f); Mikey Butler, Huw Lawlor, Tommy Walsh; Conor Fogarty, Richie Reid (0-1), Paddy Deegan (1-1); Adrian Mullen (0-1), John Donnelly (0-1); Walter Walsh, Martin Keoghan, Tom Phelan (0-3); Billy Ryan, TJ Reid (0-7, 0-6f, 0-1 65), Eoin Cody (1-0).

Subs: Pádraig Walsh for Fogarty (half-time), Alan Murphy for W Walsh (48 mins), Cian Kenny for Ryan (54 mins), Cillian Buckley for T Walsh (64 mins), Richie Hogan for Buckley (65 mins, temporary), Buckley for Donnelly (69).

Referee: John Keenan (Wicklow)