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seafoid

Number One question will be key for Limerick as they reach a crossroads
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2025/01/25/no-1-question-the-key-one-for-limerick-in-a-pivotal-season/

Nickie Quaid has been a hugely influential figure in five All-Ireland triumphs but John Kiely must now plan without the outstanding goalkeeper
Nickie Quaid: at the beginning of November he won his third All-Star award; a fortnight later he tore his ACL playing soccer with friends. He now faces months of rehab.

 
Denis Walsh
Sat Jan 25 2025 - 06:00

At the end of the 2018 season Brian McDonnell, the analyst and coach, produced The Green Monster, a stunning piece of long form analysis on the hurling championship.

The document runs to 12,000 words, logging every heartbeat and muscle movement and brain wave of Limerick's All-Ireland. The analysis, though, begins with the goalie.

McDonnell illustrated each of Nickie Quaid's 265 puckouts in three graphics, with coloured dots to denote the outcome.

"Quaid enjoyed an extraordinary season," wrote McDonnell. "Limerick retained possession on their own puckout 72.25 per cent of the time, which is absolutely ridiculous."

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Number One question will be key for Limerick as they reach a crossroads
Number One question will be key for Limerick as they reach a crossroads
In their breakthrough season, Quaid's puckouts were Limerick's most powerful instrument of control. Their principal puckout targets would have flourished in any era, but that year they were animated by Paul Kinnerk's imagination and Quaid's capacity to split an apple with an arrow.

"We started drilling down into it when Seanie O'Donnell came on board [as their lead analyst, in 2017]," says Barry Hennessy, who was first reserve to Quaid for a decade. "The percentage return for Limerick puckouts at that stage was 30-something per cent."


In less than two years, Limerick's efficiency doubled. In the long run, those numbers were unsustainable. There is too much transparency and too many camera angles, and too many nimble minds engaged in opposition analysis. Limerick's point of difference, though, was Quaid. Nobody could shut down his capacity to scramble.

"I know it's a cliché that the qoalie is the quarterback now," says Paul Browne, who played with Quaid for nine seasons, "but when you're watching the NFL playoffs over the last couple of weeks you'd hear fellas saying, 'that's a rookie quarterback throw,' because he's after throwing it to the wrong place at the wrong time under pressure.

"That's Nickie's biggest forte – he'll hit the right puckout at the right time, under pressure. That only comes with experience, unfortunately."

Quaid has been the Limerick goalkeeper since 2011. Their championship team has been famously stable over the years, but still, in their five All-Ireland-winning seasons, only four players were ever-present starters: Quaid was one.

At the beginning of November, he won his third All-Star award; a fortnight later he tore his ACL playing soccer with friends. If Limerick reach Croke Park at the beginning of July there is an outside chance that Quaid will be fit to play, but that would mean a rehab of not much more than seven months. David Burke, the Galway centrefielder, managed it, but the typical recovery period is a month longer. In any case, Limerick must plan without him.

Limerick's goalkeeper Nickie Quaid consoled by manager John Kiely after the defeat to Cork in last year's All-Ireland semi-final, the team's first defeat in Croke Park since 2019. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Limerick's goalkeeper Nickie Quaid consoled by manager John Kiely after the defeat to Cork in last year's All-Ireland semi-final, the team's first defeat in Croke Park since 2019. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
The void that Quaid leaves behind comes at a crossroads for this group. Just like the Kilkenny team that failed to win five-in-a-row, they are good enough and just about young enough to win another couple of All-Irelands, as long as there is some judicious pruning and replanting.


John Kiely and Kinnerk have committed for another two years, and O'Donnell is still on board too, all of which is hugely significant. Without these three legs the stool could not stand. But during the close season there was more boardroom turnover in the Limerick set-up than at any other time during Kiely's eight years in charge.

For the coming season there will be a new strength and conditioning coach, a new performance coach, a new goalkeeping coach and a new nutritionist. O'Donnell had a team of three helping him with analysis; they all stepped away and needed to be replaced. There will also be two new coach/selectors and a different captain.

Declan Hannon had been in that role since Kiely's second season in charge and in that time Hannon has also been their preferred centre back. He only turned 32 in November, but that number must be set against 14 seasons in the front line. At some point, longevity is more about subtraction than addition. In recent years injuries have become more intrusive, and his form has been more volatile. It is likely that other options at number six will be explored.

But it is certain they will need a new goalkeeper. The problem with replacing Quaid is that he was not just the executor of the puckout strategy he was also its co-creator and curator and its chief critic. That kind of institutional knowledge cannot be replaced.

Browne remembers arriving for training an hour before the appointed time to find Quaid and the other goalkeepers "pumping with sweat because they had an hour's training done already". On other nights Quaid would do an hour of video analysis with O'Donnell, just on puckouts.

Munster GAA Senior Hurling Championship Round 2, TUS Gaelic Grounds, Co. Limerick 28/4/2024
Limerick vs Tipperary
Tipperary's Ronan Maher and Declan Hannon of Limerick after the game
Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/James Crombie
Munster GAA Senior Hurling Championship Round 2, TUS Gaelic Grounds, Co. Limerick 28/4/2024 Limerick vs Tipperary Tipperary's Ronan Maher and Declan Hannon of Limerick after the game Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/James Crombie
After the peak of 2018 and 19, Limerick's puckout efficiency inevitably dipped; other teams came up with workable solutions, which forced Limerick to think again.


"Teams had a plan in place either to push up on Limerick or fill the gaps," says Hennessy, "so your puckout return would have gone from the high 60s [per cent] down to the 40s."

Limerick's response was to re-tool Barry Nash as a play-starter from corner back.

"They'd play it to Nash and he'd play the Nickie Quaid role nearly, with the same movements [up the field], but it was just staggered," says Barry Cleary, an analyst with GAA Insights, who work with a range of intercounty teams.

That worked spectacularly for a season, but with all these innovations the law of diminishing returns applies. In the second season, Nash was more harassed and disrupted. One of the alternatives that Kinnerk devised was for a fourth Limerick player to drop into the full-back line as a first receiver.

"Kinnerk is a big fan of Man City," says Cleary "and if you look at the way soccer kick-outs changed where players stand to the side of the goalkeeper [just outside the six yard box] I think he was working off that principle. By bringing Kyle Hayes or Diarmuid Byrnes into the full-back line they're opening up a gap at wing back which asks a question of the opposition. If you leave that zone free, they'll run somebody into it."

But they also had emergency puckouts and Quaid would instinctively know when to push the button.


"You look at the Crusaders [New Zealand rugby team]. Sam Whitlock [their captain] used to talk about what they did when lads' eyes were starting to glass over," says Hennessy. "You just make it as simple as possible.

"It would be a case of Gearóid [Hegarty] standing on the sideline [for a puckout] or Diarmuid Byrnes coming into the full back line. Lads would know that if the ball went to Diarmuid it was going to be landing hot and heavy down the field. Those set-ups were more of a trigger to say, 'Look, we know we're under pressure. Let's just relax for a second and get back into the game.'"

Nickie Quaid: the problem with replacing him is that he was not just the executor of the puck-out strategy he was also its co-creator and curator and its chief critic. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
Nickie Quaid: the problem with replacing him is that he was not just the executor of the puck-out strategy he was also its co-creator and curator and its chief critic. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
Limerick's puckout numbers returned to the mean over the last three seasons, in part because "everyone else is obsessed with their puckouts," says Cleary. "The other thing to understand is that if you're at 50 per cent you're grand. Tipperary won the 2019 All-Ireland with the worst long puckout in the country – they were winning something like 28 per cent. But they were eating everyone else's long puckout."

That is what Limerick have consistently done too. The common pattern in Limerick's three big defeats since 2019 – against Kilkenny and Cork twice – was that they suffered under their opponents' long puckouts. In those matches, that trend was the most subversive of all.

In clutch situations, though, Quaid had the wherewithal to find a home for the ball. When they struggled against Kilkenny in the 2022 All-Ireland final he leant on his two favourite receivers: Hegarty and Tom Morrissey. Between them they had 32 possessions. With the goalie, they had that connection.

It will be fascinating to see how it plays out. After injury forced his retirement in 2020 Shane Dowling was restored to the panel this winter, having been reinvented as a goalkeeper with Na Piarsaigh.

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"Unbelievable striker of the ball," says Browne, "and has the accuracy piece to go with it. It's not a canon, it's a gun."

But Jason Gillane was the third goalkeeper for a couple of years behind Quaid and Hennessy, and he was the reserve goalie last year.

"He has everything," says Hennessy. "A brilliant brain, a brilliant shot-stopper. He's matured a lot. He was away from the panel for a couple of years, and it hurt him. The only unknown for Limerick is, whoever goes in there, do they have the temperament Nickie has?"

In a pivotal season it is the first big question.

johnnycool

Kyle Hayes will ultimately be the new Limerick centre back.

They won't allow him to be isolated out on the wing whilst teams target the centre and other side like Cork did twice last year.




seafoid

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/2025/01/31/hurling-is-such-a-local-obsession-in-tipperary-so-where-have-the-supporters-gone/

Hurling is a local obsession in Tipperary so where have the supporters gone?
The cold distance between the Tipperary team and the Tipperary public has troubled manager Liam Cahill

Denis Walsh
Fri Jan 31 2025 - 15:06

In Liam Cahill's post-match huddle with reporters after Tipperary eviscerated Galway on the opening day of the National League nine questions were put to him. He wasn't asked about the Tipperary supporters, but in answer to the second last question Cahill brought them into the conversation, stepping on to a diplomatic tightrope. For balance he had a carrot and a stick.

"I mentioned bravery there earlier about the direction we're going and the change we have to make," he said. "I'd ask the Tipp supporters to be brave as well and come out and support them. There's not much bravery in going up to Croke Park every year over the last decade for All-Ireland semi-finals and All-Ireland finals and all that.

"These players will be around long after I'm gone. They're the catalyst to everything that gives us the joy that is being a Tipperary supporter."

Cahill's answers are rarely strangled by self-censorship; he is straight and never short. But the cold distance between this team and the Tipperary public has troubled him for a while. In 2023, his first season as manager, they upended Clare in Ennis in the opening round of the championship and drew with Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh after a storming performance. In his post-match press conference that evening he applauded the "small" Tipperary crowd who had been heavily "outnumbered" that evening and pleaded for reinforcements. For emphasis, he used the word "small" twice.

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A year earlier, when Tipp's season was sinking in quicksand under different management, they disturbed Limerick for an hour in the Gaelic Grounds, but it was alarming how few Tipperary supporters had travelled. Padraic Maher, who was one of Cahill's selectors in 2023, tweeted about it at the time: "Very poor support for our boys in Limerick today," he wrote. "They deserve better."


Cahill speaking to the media before a game against Kilkenny in February 2023. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Cahill speaking to the media before a game against Kilkenny in February 2023. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Against Cork last May the numbers reached a stultifying nadir. To have any chance of staying in the championship both teams needed to win; Semple Stadium, though, was bathed in red. Babs Keating was canvassing for the European Elections with the former GAA president Seán Kelly, and they stood on the brow of the railway bridge.


"All we could see coming up the road was Cork supporters," says Keating. "It must have been 10 to 1. It was never seen before." The attendance in Thurles that day was given as 43,792; at least 35,000 were from Cork.

In the GAA desertion is a common affliction. Every intercounty team is followed by a standing army of unblinking loyalists and a Dad's Army of reservists, who prefer to avoid losing battles. In that respect, Tipp are no different from everybody else. But in a county of Tipp's size and history of success and livid passion for the game, everything is amplified. Winning is a carnival; losing is an opera.

"What I would compare it to is Manchester United," says Tommy Dunne, the former Tipperary captain, selector and coach. "Man United are in the news every day. With Tipp there is a spotlight there all the time – and probably more so when things aren't going well. In Tipp you are expected to win. You measure yourself on really, really high standards. That's the thing. When you lose there is hell to pay.

Cork fans outnumbering Tipperary fans during
a Munster senior hurling championship match at Semple Stadium, Thurles, in May 2024. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
Cork fans outnumbering Tipperary fans during a Munster senior hurling championship match at Semple Stadium, Thurles, in May 2024. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
"I was only thinking the other day about when Cork beat us below in Killarney [2004 qualifiers]. I remember going into work two days after, ashamed of my life. F**king ashamed of my life. I was working in a place in Nenagh with 400 or 500 people and I was going around with the head down, hoping you wouldn't meet someone that was going to have a go at you about the match, or even just offer sympathy to you. You wouldn't know what to say. That was real life, and it's not any different now I'm sure."

In every county there is a triangular relationship between the team, the supporters and the local media. Cahill has spent the last three years trying to navigate that space without impaling himself on the sharp corners. Last Sunday in his post-match comments he spoke, pointedly, about the "knowledgeable people who know the hurling landscape in Tipp" and understand that this team will need time; but he also referenced the "impatient, less knowledgeable Tipperary hurling folk," who will heckle that process. That intellectual divide is not unique to Tipp either; every manager must suffer it.

In many ways Cahill is hard-nosed, and he expects his players to be tough, but in some ways he is sensitive. After Tipp fell to their fourth defeat in last year's Munster championship Cahill was asked by Shane Brophy of the Nenagh Guardian if he would be staying on for the final year of his term. It was a perfectly legitimate question, but his response was prickly and defensive.

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"I take umbrage to that question," he said, before asserting that he enjoyed the support of the county board and the dressingroom. Managers don't necessarily need an overall majority. Cahill and Brophy continued the conversation in another room when the press conference finished and in the following week's Nenagh Guardian Brophy offered his side of the argument.

"The Tipp manager did express his annoyance to me over the headline used in this paper last week describing Tipperary as 'The Whipping Boys of Munster,'" wrote Brophy. "It's not a nice headline, I agree. However, I stand by it. When you are losing championship games by 15 and 18 points to Limerick and Cork respectively there is no sugar-coating it – facts are facts ... I loved the fire in his response [to my question]. I was caught a little by surprise I admit, but I'm a grown man, I can take it."

Cahill arriving at Semple Stadium for a match against Clare in the Munster senior hurling championship in May 2024. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
Cahill arriving at Semple Stadium for a match against Clare in the Munster senior hurling championship in May 2024. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
In a phone call after the Tipperary county final five months later the two men resolved their differences. But nobody lives in a soundproofed room and the modern world bristles with noise. Cahill pays attention. JJ Kennedy has been writing his esteemed Westside column in the Nationalist newspaper since 1981 and last Monday night he appeared on Tipp FM to review the Galway game.

His contribution was balanced and temperate. The gist of it was that nobody should expect Tipp to win anything this year, but producing a competitive team was both achievable and necessary. In last year's Munster championship Tipp's scoring difference was minus 36 and there was a destructive pattern of final quarter fade-outs. Cahill accepts that they got the team's conditioning wrong.

But 16 new players have been added to the squad in the off-season, which is more churn than any other elite team in the country. After he came off air Cahill texted Kennedy, essentially to say thanks.

"Look he's under pressure at the moment, there's no doubt about that," says Kennedy. "He has been taking a lot of flak. He is sensitive to that, and he does react to it. I was saying to him, the genuine followers know where Tipperary are at, and you can't work miracles. The other ones are just background noise.


"Hurling is part of the daily conversation here in Tipperary and people take it very seriously. When things go bad criticism flies, and you just have to suck it up really."

Cahill near the end of a game against Clare
in the Munster Championship in May 2024. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
Cahill near the end of a game against Clare in the Munster Championship in May 2024. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
But if the game is such a local obsession where have the supporters gone? Michael Bourke is a former chairman of the county board and is now chairman of the Tipperary supporters' club. When it was set up during Babs Keating's first stint as manager nearly 40 years ago it was the first such enterprise in the country, and in the years since they have raised more than €8 million, a staggering amount.

Last year they raised nearly €100,000. Supporters are still prepared to put their hands in their pockets. "Maybe some people are fickle in their view and they don't see prosperity," says Bourke. "Maybe there's an expectation from our supporters that we should be in Croke Park every year, and that would be your dream – but that doesn't happen. Everyone hits a lean period. Now, Liam is bringing in a huge amount of young, energetic players, and they will capture the trust of the public."

The absenteeism, though, is difficult to ignore or explain away. "It's hard to make sense of it," says Dunne. "It means so much to many people and yet so many people don't go and follow the team. What I do remember from playing is the feeling that letting down supporters is the worst feeling in the world.

"It happened a few times when we were playing and you never forget it. There is a responsibility there and that is part of playing for Tipp. There are certain standards that you must meet. That is a savage challenge for a group of players year after year. I was conscious of the pressure of being a Tipp player, I'm certain about that. Did it affect me? Did it bother me? It did affect me. There's no getting away from that.

"The jersey weighs a bit heavier when things aren't right. But I still love the fact that it carries so much weight with the public. I still love it because it means something. We are a county of substance, of tradition, we are a county with history – that's still there."


Tipperary selector Tommy Dunne in 2019. 'My perception is that the public look to the management first in terms of blame or accountability, and that's perfectly understandable.' Photograph: Oisin Keniry/Inpho
Tipperary selector Tommy Dunne in 2019. 'My perception is that the public look to the management first in terms of blame or accountability, and that's perfectly understandable.' Photograph: Oisin Keniry/Inpho
After the Cork game last year Dunne sent Cahill a text in solidarity. He says he wouldn't normally do something like that, but it was an excruciating a day for everyone who cared about the jersey. They had played together for a few years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and like Cahill, Dunne had not been afraid to step into management, first with Declan Ryan and later with Liam Sheedy. On the sideline nobody wears a helmet.

"It was as bad, if not worse [being involved in management]," he says. "My perception is that the public look to the management first in terms of blame or accountability, and that's perfectly understandable. I remember the debacle of the All-Ireland semi-final in 2012 and the shame and embarrassment I felt [as a coach] incredibly hard. It was horrendous, absolutely horrendous. This feeling that we got it so badly wrong and it was on us.

"But you step into those roles and the reality is that that kind of stuff is never far from your door. There's no point in looking for sympathy or living in a pretence that it's not going to happen because you're only one performance away from negativity or maybe abuse. I'm not saying that's right – that's just the way it is.

"But every year I was involved with Tipperary I believed we could win a championship. I'd be surprised if that still isn't in the Tipperary manager's psyche right now. I think you're hard-wired to think that. All logic might say, 'you can't, you shouldn't, you won't.' But the hard-wired part of me says, 'we're Tipperary, and therefore anything is possible.' What are we if we lose that?"

That part is safe, come what may.