Quote from: johnnycool on July 26, 2023, 11:01:15 AMQuote from: seafoid on July 24, 2023, 08:50:03 PMQuote from: imtommygunn on July 24, 2023, 08:32:50 PMNone of the other teams are anywhere near Limerick's S&Clevel
I hate to break it to you but Galway have plenty of beasts in there too. They do plenty of strength and conditioning. They just don't do it as well and probably don't have hurlers of the same level.
We don't know how the others would perform hurlingwise because we never had a level s&C.
S&C had very little to do with Peter Casey's 5 points, (barring the shrug off on Mikey Butler), he'd white chalk on his boots for three of them, now from a Galway perspective who could you trust to do the same for them?
Conor Cooney would put over a worldy one minute and then miss an easy chance the next, he'd have put at best two of those over, Niland needs space, Casey was well chaperoned on three of those points and still got them over, Whelan, who I rate highly BTW would also have put at least two of those wide, Cathal O'Neill comes on and puts over one of the best points of the day while being closed in tight to the sideline on the Cusack stand side of the ground.
That is the difference between Limerick and the chasing pack, when the pressure comes on their shooting averages are far higher than anyone else.
Limericks one weakness is in dealing with high ball in on their fullback line, Kilkenny, Galway and Clare got joy from those, but couldn't sustain the effort to get the ball into positions to allow good ball to get in their.
Is TJ done? He's now moreso a playmaker, some of his passes yesterday in the second half would have resulted in good goal chances, one due to a slip and the other to a lad just getting it all wrong after that. It will be interesting if he goes another year, I can't see another Leinster title being enough to satisfy him, but we'll know more when Ballyhale exit the club championship (or win it again)..
Casey has the facility to score points from acute angles and while seemingly being tightly marked. Limerick were freaky in their purple patch on Sunday though as everything they hit, wind-aided, went over the bar. As a team they've frequently had the propensity to hit a lot of wides in a match however, yes, even under pressure. E.g. 2018 AI final, 2023 league final, both Clare matches this year etc. Maybe the key to beating them is not to start well, like Galway and Kilkenny did in their games, but to tread water for as long as possible and then hammer the hammer by finishing strongly.