Seán Finn, unusually for a corner back, has become the conscience of the Limerick hurling team. Last year he accepted that his team had been lucky to finish the Munster final with 15 men.
Now, reminded of that in the context of an at times undisciplined league campaign, he acknowledges they have to be careful and that it’s an individual as well as a collective responsibility.
“It’s not something we highlighted too much. Players know that they need to be a bit more disciplined. You’re not going to tell your forwards not to tackle and to be careful. You still want forwards tackling but it’s up to the player to be a bit more disciplined in the tackle.
“I think the onus is on the individual to be careful because there could be serious consequences if I do get sent off and the season could be on the line.
“You can be unfortunate. Your best intentions might be to make a good tackle but you get caught with a high hurley around the neck and the referee might see it as a high tackle and give you a red card.
“Another referee might say there wasn’t much force in it and give a yellow card. Obviously there’s an element of subjectivity when it comes to referees but again it’s up to the player to be more disciplined.”
At an event to promote the John West Féile, Finn was focusing on championship after an underwhelming league campaign, which they saved from relegation with a last-day defeat of Offaly.
It all starts for them this Sunday in Páirc Uí Chaoimh against the team they demolished in the 2021 All-Ireland final, Cork.
Last year is a hard act to follow for the champions. It too began with a humdrum league and took a while to take off but in retrospect, proved perfectly timed as they won the concluding 2½ championship matches – from the second half of the Munster final to the All-Ireland – by a massive 42 points.
They also rounded off the year with 12 All Stars – a record in the scheme’s 50-year history – including Finn himself. It was a fourth successive award, to go with his three All-Irelands, for the Bruff clubman, the only Limerick hurler to have been honoured every year during the county’s remarkable run since 2018.
It has flashed by, though – maybe accelerated by the two years of pandemic and lockdown, which made even getting out on the pitch an achievement not to be taken for granted.
Great game
Now teams face into the provincial round-robins, a format that has proved exhilarating at times during its first two years, before having to be suspended for the Covid championships, and in no match more obviously than when Limerick went to Páirc Uí Chaoimh on the June weekend four years ago and although reduced to 14 men carved out a draw before a record attendance for the new championship.
It added to the sense of momentum about Limerick.
“It was a great game,” he remembers. “Jeez, it was brilliant. It was on a Saturday, a beautiful evening in a fabulous stadium. We lost Declan Hannon early. A lot of things went against us that day but we dug deep and got a point out of it. It set up our year, really but yeah, it’s a great place to go, particularly in good weather. I’m looking forward to the challenge of getting to where Cork are at the moment.”
Limerick got a rude reminder of where Cork were in the league in their own back yard when beaten by nine points. Finn acknowledges that the performance was poor but argues that the rest of the campaign wasn’t all bad and that the match was “an outlier”.
“We were good in patches but below average in a lot of aspects of our game. Cork came down with a ferocious intensity that we failed to match. I think that was the big difference. They were a lot more up for that game. as a result we were punished.”
Cork are actually unbeaten by Limerick in the round-robin system. After the 2018 draw, they surprised the All-Ireland champions the following year by beating them in the Gaelic Grounds.
In fact the champions have a mixed record in the round-robins, having lost three matches and drawn one over the two years to date. Given the intensity of the scheduling is it possible to go unbeaten in the group stages?
“I’m sure it’s possible but things are so competitive in Munster that you might be tipped to win a game and might underperform and you might be clipped. It’s possible to win all games but will we win all games? I’m not too sure. You’d hope so.”
We’ll be closer to finding out on Sunday evening.
