NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE: Keith Duggan on how Limerick football is again capturing the imagination of the county.

Limerick have made such a rich contribution to what has been a comparatively thrilling league it will seem unjust if they get squeezed out of the semi-finals tomorrow.

Although last summer's Munster championship final appearance was a signal of intent, the controlled and polished manner with which Limerick have swept through Division One football has heightened the general esteem for the county.

That Armagh provide the obstacle, as Limerick attempt to vault into the headier stages of the league, is apposite.

Armagh, the Northern revolutionaries credited with forcing all counties into reviewing their own practices and attitudes, are the real thing. Football is a solemn and proud business in that county and has been for decades.

Limerick's football team are trying to impose just a shade of that mindset upon a county where hurling has been the predominant Gaelic cultural expression and where the other sports also thrive.

Limerick won two All-Ireland football titles, in 1896 and 1897, and, as if satisfied that the sport had been conquered, it was allowed to lapse into a state of perpetual weakness.

That is why the present exalted state in which Liam Kearns and his team are regarded is of such significance. Persuasive in the league, Limerick will still be outsiders for this year's Munster championship, but they are genuine contenders.

People expect. They have not lost in the Gaelic Grounds in this campaign and Kearns - although ambiguous about his desire to win the league - is keen to close out the campaign by maintaining this record.

As he noted this week, the powers of the modern game rarely lose at home and he is anxious to "cultivate the same reputation". Fortress Limerick would certainly be a new concept in terms of Munster football. But it is realistic.

Yet, the question remains as to whether the game has truly arrived in the county. The loyalty the players - particularly the dual stars - have to Kearns is of gold standard and what the Kerry man has done for the image and belief of the game in the county has been phenomenal.

Seeing the footballers win against the established counties has been a novelty. The trick now is to sustain it.

Earlier this year, Kearns delivered a public warning at a county board meeting that more work had to be done at underage level if the county was to maintain its present levels.

Football is generally strong in the west of the county, with hurling more popular in the east. The young of Limerick city, tugged towards soccer, the glamour of Munster rugby and the distractions of urban life, have been the most difficult group to engage.

"What the footballers are doing has caught the public imagination, but not really in the city," reckons Eamon Cregan.

"There remains a grave need for more work to be done at schools level in the city because neither hurling nor football have the presence in the city that they might have."

Although nationally celebrated for his feats as a hurling player and manager, Cregan played for Limerick in the Munster football final against Kerry in 1965.

"It was out of the blue, really. In fairness, it started in the league in 1964. We had a group of players that just got serious about the thing. That said, nobody was overwhelmed about our chances against Kerry - the general perception was that it would be little more than a walkabout for them.

"Only 17,500 people came to the game, but we led by seven points at one stage. They won it comfortably in the last 15 minutes. But from about 1964 to 1967 we had a team capable of competing against the likes of Galway and Down."

The genesis of that team was city based - schools like Limerick CBS and Clohan. Cregan was a product of Sexton Street. Like him, many of his contemporaries also excelled at hurling. Cregan reckons that when he was most immersed in the game, he had a hurl in his hand for at least an hour every single day.

Although Gerry McMahon was a good trainer, football practice in that era was not the most rigorous. Most players were reasonably fit from cycling and walking anyway.

But for that brief period, football was serious in the county. Cregan identifies a league quarter-final loss against Wexford in the late 1960s as the game when that movement just imperceptibly died.

Momentum, always a fragile thing, just stalled and Gaelic football quickly became the untended garden of Limerick sport once again.

Could the same thing happen again? "I would hate to answer that," says Ciarán Crowe, the principal of Patrickswell NS. Along with three other teachers, the school fields three hurling teams, three football teams, a camogie team, a girls football team, and it organises indoor leagues and mixed games.

In addition, Crowe, and Joe Lyons of Lisnagry NS, takes charge of the Limerick under-13 primary school team. Based around the Sarsfield Cup, representative teams from schools divided into south, east, west and city play one another and the best advance to the county team and play in the Munster competition.

Lyons coached many of the present county players - Conor Mullane, Jason Stokes, Brian Geary, Johnny McCarthy, Ollie Moran - at that level.

The finest under-13 player he ever saw was John McGrath, now on the books at Doncaster Rovers and Jeremy Staunton, the Munster rugby player, also excelled.

"We always competed at that age group," says Lyons. "I remember in 1992 we beat Kerry by 6-7 to 1-1. But once the kids went on to secondary school, the momentum was lost. But the interest in football now is phenomenal. What Liam Kearns's team is doing has really made the youngsters sit up and take notice."

Lyons reckons that under the forgotten stewardship of Raymond O'Hagan, a Falls Road man who tried to revive the Limerick senior team in the mid 1980s, things began to improve. He at least forced them to look at the broader picture and set a framework where good players like Paddy Barrett and Donal Fitzgibbon could see some hope.

Then John O'Keeffe channelled that energy during his period in charge, inspiring a Munster final appearance in 1991 when they lost 3-23 to 0-23 against Kerry.

The next season, Kerry beat them 1-14 to 1-11, the last stand made by that generation of players.

And, suddenly, the standard plummeted again.

The origin of the latest revival belongs to the five-year plans established in the mid-1990s that saw a dramatic rise in the form of Limerick's underage teams.

"The funny this is that the hurlers won three under-21 All-Irelands and perhaps that led to a perception that we had achieved it all," notes Cregan. "But the footballers lost their under-21 All-Ireland and have retained that keen hunger and ambition, possibly as a consequence."

Cregan has been warmed by the achievements of the footballers over the last 12 months and will be in the Gaelic Grounds tomorrow.

He believes the county can sustain thriving hurling and football teams - but not through dual players. He thinks the combination is too much.

But he worries. "There is a tradition of failing to capitalise on success in Limerick."

Perhaps this time it will be different. Somehow, Crowe and Lyons also find time to produce a Gaelic magazine written by and published for Limerick school kids.

Hurling and football are portrayed as going hand-in-hand. The publication is impressive and in no way is football represented as the poor relation.

"We think the players are coming through in both sports. What we are tying to do is just accentuate the positive in Limerick GAA and the enthusiasm in the schools at the moment is really great to witness, says Crowe."

For Limerick schoolkids, sport is a bit like a fun fair. There is always another attraction. Because it is such a good sporting county, there are options and enticements for kids.

Next week, for instance, the Munster rugby machine cranks up again. It would not take much to overshadow the Limerick footballers.

Summer is where it is at for Liam Kearns's boys, though. Winning a Munster championshipis the stated ambition. Cregan believes that if the 1965 team had managed to topple Kerry that day, football would have been regarded in a different light. But the moment was lost. And, enjoyable as today's renaissance is, young fans will soon begin to yearn for an end result.

"It is true," says Joe Lyons, "that if things go bad, the public will drift back to the traditional sports.

"But the goodwill for football is immense here - any whiff of success and the people have always got behind it. There is a feeling that this team are achieving something deeper."

It will take a long time before the Limerick game burrows on towards the depths of feeling and meaning that prevails in a county like Armagh.

But tomorrow, they will be on the same field, chasing the same ball and looking like they belong.

For now, that is enough.