{"id":304306,"date":"2026-02-18T13:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/304306\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T13:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:31:11","slug":"john-kielys-limerick-remain-tipperarys-biggest-hurdle-ahead-of-thurles-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/304306\/","title":{"rendered":"John Kiely\u2019s Limerick remain Tipperary\u2019s biggest hurdle ahead of Thurles clash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Limerick aren\u2019t known to comb for crumbs of comfort but there are stark facts to consider when they meet Tipperary on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Twelve games have passed since Tipperary last won the derby in league or championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In years, the record extends to seven and you have to go back to 2018 for Tipperary\u2019s previous victory in a league meeting.<\/p>\n

Consider that the 2019 Munster SHC round-robin win over a weakened Limerick side was superseded by the subsequent reverse result in a one-sided Munster final and it\u2019s fair to say Tipperary didn\u2019t fell Limerick on their way to either of their last two All-Ireland successes.<\/p>\n

\"Sport<\/a><\/p>\n

Those realities hardly cheapen their achievements but John Kiely\u2019s side remain their itch to scratch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of the starting team in last year\u2019s All-Ireland final, nine have yet to be on the right side of a senior league or championship win over Limerick.<\/p>\n

Tipperary\u2019s unenviable record against the neighbours pre-dates Liam Cahill but he had his own issues with Limerick as Waterford manager.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His championship record against them read zero from four, the 2021 league win in Walsh Park the only one he enjoyed in the counties\u2019 six NHL and SHC meetings during his three seasons in charge of The D\u00e9ise.<\/p>\n

When Limerick inflicted a fourth win over his side in 2022, he rued his side\u2019s inability to avoid the traffic Limerick have been so good at creating to foil teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TipperaryTipperary v Limerick: nagging neighbours<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you bring the ball into contact with this Limerick team, they just dominate you and we did that on a couple of vital occasions,\u201d he rued.<\/p>\n

Cahill was singing a far more positive tune last March when Tipperary went down fighting in TUS Gaelic Grounds, even though they didn\u2019t score from play for the last 30 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not the first over the last seven, eight, nine years, a lot of teams have struggled in the physical stakes with Limerick. But today we moved that ball a little bit better and tried to avoid contact as much as possible and trust our hurling a bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n

There remain glaring key performance indicators for Tipperary, however. Sixteen games have now passed since they won a second half against Limerick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year, they went into the break of the league and championship meetings ahead by one and three points respectively only to end up losing the NHL fixture and requiring a Darragh McCarthy free to earn a draw.<\/p>\n

First halves against Limerick aren\u2019t the issue \u2013 Tipperary have led at half-time in 12 of those 16 outings and been level in one. But in second halves their average deficit is six points.<\/p>\n

Reviewing 2025, Tipperary players have recalled the importance of their performance in the championship opener in Thurles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As was the case at the same venue two years earlier, it required a last-gasp free to come away with something but here they claimed it with four SHC debutants \u2013 Robert Doyle, Joe Caesar, Sam O\u2019Farrell and McCarthy. \u201cWe have the right players in the dressing room now,\u201d Cahill said afterwards.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI think anybody who understands the hurling scene in Tipperary understands we\u2019re at least two years away from where we believe we can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the non-scoring stats belied his modesty. Strikingly, Tipperary took the turnover battle, winning the ball back from Limerick 32 times compared to losing it on 29 occasions.<\/p>\n

As attention turns to FBD Semple Stadium, up to last May there had been the matter of Tipperary not having won a home championship game in seven years. The final round win over Waterford broke a run of seven defeats or draws in Thurles.<\/p>\n

One unwanted record smashed, there\u2019s the chance to shatter another on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Limerick aren\u2019t known to comb for crumbs of comfort but there are stark facts to consider when they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[53093,5582,61,60,17406,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-304306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sport-top-picks","9":"tag-tipperary-gaa","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-limerick-gaa","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}