LIMERICK are out of this season’s Munster football championship. The Shannonsiders lost out to Kerry on a humiliating score line of 1-26 to 3-9 at the Gaelic Grounds last Saturday evening.The 6,800 in attendance were treated to a lesson in football by a rampant, but merciful Kerry team. Limerick never looked at the races. The gap in footballing class was indeed a chasm.
The possession football and will to win shown by Kerry was similar to that of Barcelona in the Champions League final seven days before. People may say that Kerry were not really tested, but when the green and gold are on song, (no wides in the second half, 12 players scoring from play) no one can live with them.
Taking into account the injuries Limerick started with, it was an almost impossible task. Made even more impossible of course by the loss of O’Donovan and Joy.
Speaking, dejectedly, after the game, Limerick manager Maurice Horan struggled to explain the defeat.
“It was a real baptism of fire – we got off to a terrible start and never recovered from it. We appeared very nervous at the start for some reason. We lost a lot of key players and we missed them and in the dressing room beforehand, just to steady things down. But they weren’t there and Kerry were 1-9 to 0-1 ahead at one stage and we were in a deep hole. Then Kerry had a great start to the second half as well and they ran out easy winners”
People say you can learn more from defeat than a win. That can be the case. Limerick will have seen that four of five of the team named last week are just not good enough for inter-county football. They must also realise that they cannot play any worse. The second round of the qualifiers beckon, but Limerick’s biggest victory might be just getting over last weekend.
Limerick: B Scanlon, S Lavin, S Gallagher, M O’Riordan, P Ranahan, J McCarthy, B Fitzpatrick, T Lee, J O’Donovan, S Buckley, J Kelly, S Kelly, G Collins, J Cooke, I Ryan
Subs: E Joy for J O’Donovan (28), M Sheehan for E Joy inj (30), E O’Connor for J Kelly (32), J O’Riordan for B Fitzpatrick (45), S O’Carroll for S Kelly (60)
