Munster SHC Semi-final Limerick v Cork: Tom Humphries talks to former managers Tom Ryan and Eamonn Cregan about the heartbreak suffered by Limerick's hurlers since 1994

History is famously harsh on the losers. The golden age of hurling, that fat swathe of the mid-1990s, will be remembered for Clare and Wexford and Offaly and their cool temerity in keeping the silverware away from the bluebloods for so long.

A time teeming with personalities and controversies. The vibrancy and poetry of Ger Loughnane and Liam Griffin, the insouciance of Offaly. The sense that anything was possible. Eventually order was restored. The tumult subsided and Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary resumed their role as hurling's ruling class. The time of revolution is remembered fondly, however, and somewhere in the small print, down among the footnotes, a paragraph is spared for the travails of the Limerick hurlers.

History's judgment will be that they weren't good enough. For a team which snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with such elan in 1994 perhaps the judgment is merited. Five points up with five minutes left, then Offaly swept past with 2-5 before the final shrilling.

"It won't be out of our system in Limerick until we win an All-Ireland," said Dave Clarke a year later. A decade on and three under-21 titles later and that afternoon still haunts men in Kilmallock and Patrickswell and Bruff and Adare and beyond. Five points. Five minutes.

"I remember in 1973," says Eamonn Cregan, "with three minutes to go we were seven points up and Pat Hartigan said to me, 'Cregan we have it' and I said 'there's three minutes left, sure', and within a minute the ball skimmed over the bar for a Kilkenny point. Then there were two pucks of the ball left. That's hurling. You're always close to having regrets."

Regrets or not, since 1994 Limerick have been a petri dish for the development of every strain of GAA row imaginable. Club versus county (Tom Ryan, winter 1994). Power of selectors (Eamonn Cregan v Mossie Carroll). Dual players (six Limerick hurlers opting for football). Players drinking (with officials or at a Munster football final, you hears your rumours and you takes your pick). Players with too much success too early (again take your pick as to which young bucko has left the best future behind him). Disgruntled players (Mike Galligan springs to mind first but Limerick players are seldom gruntled). Holiday funds (1994. 'Holiday lads? We trained ye with that money'). Cack-handed county board interference (20 questions to Tom Ryan after the 1994 final). Crass insensitivity (the loss of trainer Dave Mahedy).

The tenures of Limerick managers never end happily either. The divorces are always messy. Tom Ryan, Eamonn Cregan, Dave Keane. The job seemed to take their passion and hand them back stress in return.

And yet. A team five points up with five minutes to go in Croke Park on a September day. Surely there was an All-Ireland in there somewhere. The rap was always that they hadn't the forwards or hadn't the heart and yet when you think back they weren't conspicuously more limited than other sides who have won All-Irelands. They had heart enough to come back to an All-Ireland final two years after the trauma of 1994. They had nerve and skill enough in Ciarán Carey to produce one of the greatest scores of all time in the Munster semi-final of 1996. They had passion enough to come back from 10 points down at half-time in the '96 Munster final with Tipp and scrape a draw.

By the time it ended in 1997 not long after Limerick finished a remarkable league campaign with a win over Galway, it was hard to know what to make of Limerick. That summer Tom Ryan's side endured an uncharacteristically tame championship exit, never truly raising a gallop against Tipp. The league, in one of its experimental phases, provided some redemption and a testing ground.

In August in Nowlan Park, with half a team (no Kirby, Houlihan or Clarke, a new full-forward line and a new half-back line) Limerick smoothly dismantled Kilkenny in the league semi-final by 1-17 to 1-10. Ryan had always had green fingers when it came to nurturing little shoots of new talent. He'd cleared out a lot of Phil Bennis's team when he took the job in 1993 and kept on filtering the side year in and year out. In 1996 Mark Foley, Barry Foley and Brian Tobin were brought on board; the following year Dave Hennessy, James and Ollie Moran plus Jack Foley. By the time of that league win in 1997 he felt that the show was back on the road.

"I genuinely believed that the team in 1997 was the best I had. We played nine matches to win that league. They got tied up here totally on the idea that it had to be an All-Ireland. Nothing else would do. From a county here that came from a very low base in terms of talent, we won a couple of Munster championships and a league and it was all dismantled. The politics had been in play since 1996. That was what drove them on here to remove me.

"No credit was given," says Ryan, still happy to round up the snipers and give them both barrels. "Not from the clubs or supporters or board. The scenario of Eamonn Cregan arriving back from Offaly fascinated them. The night he was appointed they changed the rules from a selection where the clubs would nominate to the executive nominating. The night that I wasn't reappointed there was 160 delegates in Claughaun pavilion. Members from each club plus the executive. Not one delegate, including my own club. stood up to recognise we had achieved something. That typified it for me."

Three years of Munster finals, winning two, reaching two All-Irelands. Time for a change which Limerick scarcely had the resources to effect.

"You could analyse our two losses," says Ryan. "Offaly in 1994 was a bit of a disaster. Wexford in 1996; well there's things worth analysing. They had the euphoria behind them. Twelve minutes to go we had a goal disallowed, we had to grin and bear it. We had to go home and lick our wounds. It wasn't the end of the world, we were contesting national finals. With limited resources we got a good blend of players, a good attitude to hurling, a good organisation. They treated us with disrespect. People in the county board had the idea that Eamonn Cregan was all that was needed.

"He should have stayed out of the whole scenario at the time in all honesty. He came back here, he got the job and they treated him worse than me. It's an amazing county. Cregan came in. He got lost. In the end they blackguarded him out of it too."

Eamonn Cregan and Tom Ryan would freely admit they have little in common; the passing of the baton wasn't smooth. With Ryan gone, however, his team driven so hard on the battlefield which was Limerick's training ground for the previous four seasons, flagged a little. Long seasons filled with epic games and outsize disappointments had taken their toll.

"A lot was gone from the team," says Cregan now. "In 1997 the team had reached a certain level. Two All-Irelands they lost. In 1994 they had 12 wides in the first half. In 1996 we should have won and won it well. That stuck in a few minds.

"That notion of perhaps being afraid to win. And that team had been around. It was a difficult time with them. I was trying to get them to change their style a little bit. Players who had played in two All-Irelands, though, were finding it difficult because the legs were beginning to go; they'd had long, long seasons. They were in deeper trouble than they knew. That group had great wins. Two big ones were lost.

"Suddenly it was hard for them adapting to a new voice. I had a few problems with fellas. Guys coming late to training etc. I don't know if they had the heart to start all over again. They were strong individuals, used to one way of doing things.

"You have to come in and blend them and change tactics and stuff. Then Declan Nash got injured in a car crash. That really slowed Declan down. He played in pain. We slowly had to break away from the 1994-'96 team."

Cregan's first three years brought heartbreak at the gates of summer. Three first-round defeats as pieces of the old team broke away and the new faces refused to gel.

"It's about quality coaching. Why are fellas slicing the ball? Your hurley is going in at an angle and you're an adult player. You're losing 20 yards. You're grip is wrong. You've the hurley coming in at a wrong angle. And this new obsession with short grip, holding the hurley short. That's great when you're five yards out and want to blast the goalie's head off but fellas are only using two thirds of the stick.

"Hurling is about striking the ball. Ninety per cent of the game. Concentrate on striking, striking, striking. The whole way. That's the skill. That's the way it's done in Kilkenny. Skills. Skills. Skills. Here we get the best player, put him in centre back and he drives the ball down to the other centre back. That's not quality. Teach them how to strike the ball. We're not giving them the skills."

In bad times or in good the structures served the county team poorly. Cregan points out that of the eight secondary schools in Limerick city and its hinterland, seven of them are now rugby-oriented schools. Worse, the Tony Forrestal Cup, the launching pad for young under-14 players, from Ciarán Carey through to many of the recent successful under-21s, has fallen away in influence and importance after rows over who should run it.

"The county board would deny that. They would say we have a tremendous set-up. Well we haven't won anything at schools level in a long time. I went out and I saw an under-14 match the other night and I could see 12 fellas out there with ability, fellas who could hurl. They'll be lost."

Tom Ryan concurs. Limerick is one county where a glut of underage wins is a guarantee of nothing. Too shaky. Too flaky: "It's unreal how many good young players we lose, how many fellas look good at underage but just don't come through. I had four or five outstanding young fellas coming through when I finished. Unreal what happens.

"Fellas get every obstacle put in their way. Public perception here in Limerick is odd. Nobody asked about the 1996 championship, one of the greatest campaigns ever. I'd be tough. It wouldn't bother me too much but for the people I had with me it was a shocking experience for them".

"Listen," says Cregan. "Three dates. 1940. 1973 and 2004. That's two senior All-Irelands in 64 years. And people on the executive get promoted! It takes too much energy. Phil Bennis, Liam O'Donoghue. Tom Ryan, and remember Tom Ryan was the most successful of us. He got it. They all got it. Phil won a league in 1992. He had it. You don't need it.

"Every manager has had a problem with the executive of the Limerick County Board because they always stuck their noses in when they shouldn't have."

For Cregan the tide eventually turned. New faces began to make an impact. Older guys faded away. Cregan's team reached the Munster final of 2001, beating Cork and Waterford. Lost to an irresistible Tipperary team on a day when Seán O'Connor scored 1-3. Cregan remembers the realisation that the team were learning and applying.

"I remember we had Mick Galwey and Niall O'Donovan in to talk to the guys in 2001. Munster were going very well so we wanted them to talk. Niall spoke about organising. Galwey made one statement. 'Remember every team will score against you. Accept it. How you react to that score is the difference between winning and losing'.

"The previous year in Thurles Joe Deane got a goal and our heads dropped. The next year Joe scored a point and equalised. Then they got another one. I said now were they listening to Galwey? We equalised, came back, won it."

By the Easter of 2002 the old business of guerrilla warfare was taking its toll on Cregan. Selectors. Dual players. He resigned. Came back. Saw out the season and left.

"I find it amusing that at the start of this year when it came to the issue of the dual players again, three individuals kept their mouths shut when they were very vociferous with me . They kept their traps shut when the present management said 'you play football or hurling'. The present executive will never win an All-Ireland. The players and management have to ignore them, go out and do it for themselves. Let the biro jockeys look after themselves. They don't know what's involved."

And so another championship starts. Limerick have gone outside the county for a manager. Six hurlers are playing football. The mystery of where all the great young players go continues. The 1990s look like a golden period in hindsight.