LIKELY soon to be a three-time All-Star, Barry Nash revealed that Limerick never truly panicked in Sunday’s All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final showdown with Kilkenny.
The eventual winners trailed by three points at the short whistle but came storming through in the closing period to skip home by an impressive nine.
“Look, we’re cool, calm, and collected. We’re a very composed team,” Nash said afterwards.
“I suppose we didn’t really get into much of a flow in the first half, but I know the men that were on the field with us there today, and the boys who came off the bench (surely Cathal O’Neill, as an example, with two cracking points). And I know what we can do, those guys – you could see it in the second half, there were scores going over from everywhere.
“Once we get into that flow, into that rhythm, it takes some team to stop us.”
“Like Ciano (Lynch) said in his speech, it’s not just a group, it’s not just a team, it’s a family. And I know it sounds a bit clichéd, but that’s exactly what it is.”
The South Liberties man is still pinching himself over the current wellbeing of the game in Limerick.
“It’s a sweet feeling. I suppose it hasn’t really fully sunk in yet,” said Nash.
“I suppose when we look back on our career, once we finish up, I think that’s when you can really look back and you’re up there with one of the greatest teams that’s ever played the game, in that Kilkenny team in the 2000s.”
He concluded: “We looked up to a lot of those Kilkenny hurlers growing up. They would have been the guys at the top at the time.”
