If Cork want to take down Limerick, they'll need to hold some aces in reserve

WE will not have a full gauge on just how great this current Limerick hurling team are until we get to look back on their amazing era when it is all done and dusted.

It does not look like that piece of retrospective will be occurring any time soon though. Many teams actually do well against them early on in big games.

Bar the 2021 All-Ireland Hurling Final, when Limerick led Cork by 3-18 to 1-11 at halftime, it is difficult to come up with too many examples where John Kiely’s side blew anyone away early.

It is the second half where they invariably go to full ‘shock and awe’ mode.

To think that Kilkenny led by five points in the 42nd minute after Paddy Deegan’s thunderbolt of a goal, only to be outscored by 0-19 to 0-6 from that juncture until the final whistle.

The Cats may have nine lives, but this was death by a thousand cuts for Derek Lyng’s charges.

They simply had no response. It was similar to Limerick’s Munster Final performance of 2021 at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, when they turned a 2-16 to 0-12 half time deficit against Tipperary into a 2-29 to 3-21 victory. These two wins were 14- and 15-point turnarounds, with seemingly nothing that Kilkenny or Tipp could do about it.

This makes you think that opposition managers must specifically prepare for the ‘inevitable’ second-half Limerick onslaught. The first thing to do is to not completely empty the tank in the first half. Hold something back in terms of energy reserves. Last Sunday Kilkenny chased everything in packs in the first half, but come the second half when Limerick stepped up through the gears you could visibly see that most of the Kilkenny players were gassed, and simply could not maintain their previous physical efforts.

Management teams must plan for the Limerick ‘advance’ by having two or three players specifically held back for this important period in the game.

SURVIVE

To beat Limerick you must survive the third quarter and still be in the game coming down the home stretch.

Speaking from a Cork point of view that might be trying something like holding back Seamus Harnedy, so he is fresh for the last 25 minutes of these battles, so he can provide his leadership when it really matters, or springing Tim O’Mahony late on for a similar impact effect.

We all know how good Shane Kingston is as an impact sub in recent years, so keeping him in reserve until the game opens up just makes sense. These are just examples of what could be tried.

One of the most important considerations about adopting such an approach is to encourage the narrative that it will take a squad effort to defeat Limerick.

Just because a player is not in the starting line-up does not detract from that player’s contribution. Coming on late and being a match-winner is not a role to be sniffed at. In fact, it is one that should be promoted.