Limerick hurling is at a low a point as it has ever been, but there will be no resolution to the sorry saga as long as Justin McCarthy is manager.
A 13-point defeat to Cork on Sunday represents a moral victory of sorts for the Limerick hurlers. At this stage of the game, however, moral victories are as far from what they need. It’s time to bring this charade to a stop once and for all.
Cork, as acknowledged by JOE columnist Seán Óg Ó hAilpÃn, went into the game on a hiding to nothing. Everyone knew they were going to win, but the manner of their victory was always going to come under scrutiny.
If they won well, it would have been dismissed as a shallow victory against a shadow Limerick XV. Â If they won unconvincingly, questions would have been raised about their ability to push on after their impressive victory over Tipperary.
What they got was something in between. There was enough evidence in the performance to suggest that the Tipperary victory wasn’t a once off. Yet because they didn’t set the world alight, Denis Walsh has been given the ideal excuse to dampen expectations and raise the stakes in training ahead of their Munster final date with Waterford.
For all of Limerick’s fight and endeavour on Sunday, the truth is that Cork never had to get out of second gear and always looked capable of upping their performance levels if required.
David Breen, Kieran O’Rourke, Thomas O’Brien and Graeme Mulcahy all performed admirably for the Treaty men on Sunday, but how they could have done with the likes of a Mark Foley, a Donal O’Grady, a Damien Reale or some of the 21 others missing in action.
Limerick’s squad on Sunday contained only six survivors from last year’s humiliation at the hands of Tipperary and featured only four (James O’Brien, David Breen, Paul Browne and Tadhg Flynn) who had ever started a Munster Championship game before. Flynn’s previous experience was in the Kerry colours against Cork in 2004.
To place so much faith in the young players and the players not part of the revolt may well have been a reward for their loyalty, it may well even be seen as a defiant statement by McCarthy against the exiled 24, but what good does it do for hurling in the county?
A team with so much inexperience was never going to trouble an established championship side such as Cork but even before Sunday’s encounter, the writing had been on the wall for some time. Never was this more in evidence than in the defeat to Dublin in the last game of the league, where although there was plenty at stake, Limerick walked away licking their wounds after a humiliating 31-point defeat.
Experiences such as those can do irreparable damage to a player’s confidence and to the confidence of a team as a whole. They say winning becomes a habit, but so does losing. After the whole debacle, Limerick will be hurling in Division 2 from next year on and with all due respect to the Clares, the Laoises and the other teams in that tier, Division One, particularly in hurling, is where it’s at for any team with even vague Liam McCarthy aspirations.
Even the fans are becoming disillusioned. 13,638 patrons at Páirc Uà Chaoimh on one of the finest Sundays of the year represents a paltry attendance for what would normally be considered a mouth-watering clash between two powerhouses of the game (Incidentally, the last time the two teams met in the championship, the attendance figure was 31,500).
Even the die-hard fans are staying away and the message displayed on a banner by the Limerick fans that did show up, expressed the feelings of the majority loud and clear. “County Board, can time travel set us back 10 years – sort it out. Limerick boys,” it read. Limerick fans, like the exiled players and the rest of the hurling public throughout the country are fed up and want to see this sorry saga brought to a close once and for all.
Justin McCarthy may well have been within his rights to cull the Limerick panel at the end of last year, but surely he should realise that his time is up. He has the backing of the county board, but that’s not much good when, rightly or wrongly, everyone else looking in on this embarrassing episode for Limerick hurling sees him as the bad guy.
It is a shame that the reputation of one of the most distinguished characters in the game has been dragged through the gutter, but the longer he hangs around, the more his reputation suffers. Justin McCarthy should get out now, before this whole situation gets even messier.
