When Limerick first rose, Cork were in charge of Munster. Back-to-back titles in 2017 and ’18 went hand-in-hand with a good record against John Kiely’s team. Until the recent semi-final in Thurles in July, Limerick hadn’t beaten Cork in the province during Kiely’s tenure.
This was particularly pronounced in the early years of Limerick’s emergence. Between 2018 and ’19, the teams met four times in league and championship, Cork winning two, drawing one and losing an All-Ireland semi-final epic after extra-time in 2018 when their opponents went on to be crowned All-Ireland champions.
The original meeting that summer on the June bank holiday also produced a great contest, which ended in a draw before a crowd of 34,000. It was the first year of the round-robin provincial championships, which proved such a success, partly because of nights like that in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
"The format is what all the players want in terms of regular games of significance with a bit of pressure and tempo," says now retired Cork hurler, Daniel Kearney. "The round-robin was very well received."
Limerick's arrival in 2018 had been presaged by under-21 success under Kiely and that year in the league they had been promoted. Cork were aware of their opponents' improvement but not well versed in how to counter it. They also found themselves with a man advantage after Aaron Gillane was sent off.
Kearney remembers that it was all a bit of a revelation.
“In that championship game in 2018, we didn’t know a lot about them beyond that they were improving. We went a man up but up to then we had been on top. But down to 14 they really put the game to us and we were lucky in the end to get the draw. It was then that it dawned on us that they had become tough to beat.”
A year later and both Cork and Limerick were both about to have disappointing years, each ended by Kilkenny. It started disastrously for Kearney and his team-mates in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in the opening match against Tipperary, who by twists and turns would win that year’s All-Ireland.
"In 2019, we had been Munster champions for two years and had gone unbeaten in eight matches," he says, "which hadn't been done since the 80s or something. Lovely day for hurling. Liam Sheedy was back and we hit a brick wall that day. They were at a level of pace and intensity we couldn't match. We should have given them a better game."
The doleful look on manager John Meyler’s face after the match reflected the fact that his team would have to play their second match a week later in the home of the All-Ireland champions. Two defeats would be almost the end of any provincial ambitions.
For Kearney and other players, the great benefit of the new format was that it allowed no time to brood on a defeat. You have to be up and running and focused on what comes next.
“It was really challenging to take that hit and move on to the All-Ireland champions in Limerick. I remember going into Brookfield and trying to decompress on the Monday night and look at the analysis of how poor we’d been and try to get our heads ready for Limerick. The defeat had been shattering.”
Somehow they responded and won. There had been a portent in that during the league they had travelled to the Gaelic Grounds and won but the assumption was that league would prove a poor indicator. It didn’t and Kearney hit four from play.
“People assume that your memories as a player are built around medals and winning things,” he says, “but they’re not. What sticks out are those turnarounds: how we turned it around from losing at home to Tipperary to beating Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds. You’d take pride in how you did that in the home of the All-Ireland champions.”
Cork’s defeat of Kilkenny in the recent All-Ireland semi-final was the county’s first in seven visits to Croke Park between finals, semi-finals and quarter-finals.
Of them all the match against Limerick in 2018 stands out as an extraordinary match and also a big chance that went for nothing from, a Cork perspective. Six ahead with more than an hour gone, they were overhauled by what would become a familiar power play.
It went to extra-time and subs became important. Kearney himself had been replaced late in the match, exhausted, and had to return for the additional period.
“Against Limerick, there was a shift in the style of the game plans. They have their own processes and systems. They’re quite zonal in defence and have a really hard-working forward unit. I felt we were doing the same sort of thing – marking zonally and playing to speedy forwards.
“So here were a lot of substitutes, who’d come on, on both sides. Maybe those changes led to slightly different styles and ways of playing compared to the first 50 minutes. By the end Limerick were executing better. There were fine margins – Séamie [Harnedy] had that goal chance saved.
“When you step away from it and try to pick out narratives, things that tell the story easily, there are a lot of things that if they go the other way, end up in a different outcome. Coming into extra-time we just didn’t have the strength-in-depth that Limerick had.”
Both teams have improved since the Munster semi-final and he believes Cork’s bench options were evident against Kilkenny. “In the modern game if you’re not looking to replace players by the final quarter you have to ask yourself, are they working hard enough?”
