ALL-IRELAND SHC NEWS:AT 34, Mark Foley is an old man in intercounty hurling parlance. Anyone who has survived this long patrolling the Limerick half- back line would acquire the glare of Oliver Stone's Sgt Barnes in Platoon;back for yet another tour of duty and able to harness emotions like fear to his benefit.
When Dublin sought to close down last Sunday’s game, Limerick defenders like Foley and Brian Geary or Damien Reale or footballers Stephen Lucey and Mark O’Riordan used whatever means necessary to set up an All-Ireland semi-final with Tipperary.
Cajoled to stall for a moment in the Semple tunnel after putting Dublin to the sword with a confident, late blitz, the Adare man was no longer annoyed, nor surprised by Limerick being constantly dismissed as a serious hurling team.
“I have been hurling with Limerick for 15 years now and nearly every game you play you are being written off or being written up – there is no in between. At this stage I am not saying we are a great team but I don’t think we are a very bad team either like people were saying we were.
“Inside in the camp it doesn’t matter what is being said outside the camp. We know what we are capable of and we know we are not going to put up a cricket score on any team but there is a lot of character in there and there is certainly improvements to be made.”
It remains a genuine concern to be so reliant on their sixth defender Gavin O’Mahony’s free-taking abilities.
Much is being made of Dublin’s rise through the hurling ranks in 2009 but beating a team with a captain that retains insider memories of three All-Ireland final days (1994, ’96 and 2007) will also prove difficult.
“We got breaks at vital stages and I felt as the second half went on we got a bit stronger. Dublin played well at stages as well. I don’t know, without being cocky, I felt comfortable all the time that we were going to get a 10-minute purple patch where we were going to win the game.”
Dublin and Galway seemed certain to be contesting All-Ireland semi-finals until Munster’s long suffering teams raged in the last quarter. But it begs the question of Foley: is there more to come?
“There has to be and I think there is. We haven’t played to our potential all year. We are only hurling in fits and starts and to be fair that is our third week on the trot.
“We went down to Wexford, which was played in atrocious conditions. That took a lot out of the players and it was always going to be hard no matter who we were playing last week and I am not taking anything away from Laois.
“It was good to be getting tests like that rather than winning by 12 or 13 points because you learn more about yourself as you go along. We know we will have to hurl an awful lot better in the semi-final.”
