Well now we know. Limerick are still Limerick and Cork are still Cork. Nobody really imagined that the All-Ireland champions were doing anything other than playing possum in the league and so it told. They spotted Cork a goal after 16 seconds in Páirc Uí Chaoimh and still ran out 2-25 to 1-17 winners. If they give Waterford the same treatment next Saturday night in the Gaelic Grounds, an already compressed championship could feel done after six days.
John Kiely’s side are long enough at this now not to be fretting over the concession of a first-minute goal. But even so, Shane Kingston’s early strike looked like setting everyone up for one of those bumper Munster Championship afternoons; keep your eyes on stalks until teatime. Instead, Limerick were able to cruise to the usual dismantling and had the luxury of pucking 17 wides while they were at it.
“The goal caught us,” said man of the match Diarmaid Byrnes afterwards. “We probably should have tuned in. We probably didn’t need that kick up the hole but there was only a few seconds on the clock. We got refocused and we’ll look at that again for the next day.”
All the staples of the Limerick machine that has them going for three Liam MacCarthys in a row were here in abundance. Byrnes was imperious at wing-back and tossed over six points from distance - including three from play - for good measure. Cian Lynch scored a point off his knees in the second half, just because he could.
For Cork, this is a third big-day wash-out in a row, following last year’s All-Ireland final and the league decider a fortnight ago. Their continued inability to learn the lessons of defeat hardly promises much for the road ahead. The worst-kept secret of the week was the switch of Kyle Hayes to the Limerick full-forward line, yet nobody seemed to let Cork in on it as they waved him through for a straightforward first-half goal. And if that was mystifying, the space given to Aaron Gillane for the second was downright confounding.
None of that is for Limerick to concern themselves with. They can only do what they can only do. They may have disappeared from view in the early months of the year but their aura never left the scene. They won pulling up and they have players to come back and shooting to fix. They’re dancing their own dance. It’s up to everyone else to see if they can fall into the rhythm of it.
“Satisfying, yes,” said Kiely afterwards. “Satisfying from the point of view of the work, how hard the boys worked for the team and for themselves. They managed to generate a huge amount of energy onto the pitch and to get that energy exerted on the ball a lot. I think that was the key piece, really, so very happy about that aspect of it. Seventeen wides as well so shooting efficiency would be something we’d be disappointed with.
“There was a question or two asked of this group in recent weeks. And I think they gave a fairly decisive answer there. These guys are incredibly united as a group, we have very high standards and they expect very high standards of themselves in the way the play the game. Our coaches expect a hell of a lot off them and we’ve got to go and raise that banner again next week. That’s the challenge.”
Facing them will be Waterford, who came through a welcome gut check in Walsh Park against Tipperary. Liam Cahill’s side had to knuckle down after a shaky opening half to pull off a 2-24 to 2-20 victory, with the half-time double substitution of Austin Gleeson and Jamie Barron crucial to the turnaround.
It was the sort of afternoon Cahill probably hoped for, in all truth. The bubbling sense around Waterford these past few weeks is of a county whose time is now, who were possibly even the competition’s team to beat going into the weekend after closing off their league title in such rampant style. That sort of hostage to fortune was never going to be any good to Cahill.
“We do our best and I do my best to protect these players from that,” he said afterwards. “Some of it is out of our control. You have guys that have big opinions and a lot of them are relayed out in the media over the week as to where this Waterford team are at and where they’re going.
“Really and truly, it seems very premature because the test of it will always be championship hurling. Today was a real test for us and we’re delighted to get through it. You’d like to think it wasn’t a factor here but you’d have to ask the question afterwards was it. Yeah, 100 per cent you’d have to ask that.”
Waterford have six days to get ready for Limerick now. If the opening weekend took a little of the bullishness out of the air in the south-east, Cahill couldn’t have asked more from it.
