![\"Referee](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/5162968_5_articleinline_3516238.jpg\" "\\"Referee")
Referee Colm Lyons shows a yellow card to Mike Casey of Limerick. Picture: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\nTwo similar thoughts came to mind while watching the All-Ireland final wind to a close.<\/p>\n
What must Clare, having come so close to eliminating Limerick in the semi-final, be thinking as they watched the Shannonsiders\u2019 cruise to the title?<\/p>\n
And then, what must Cork, having fallen to a Galway avalanche, be thinking as they watched the Tribesmen slump to a landslide defeat?<\/p>\n
They must\u2019ve been kicking themselves as the 70 minutes served to hammer home the opportunity wasted to contest a third consecutive final.<\/p>\n
Galway were magnificent to sweep aside a vulnerable Cork team, but how easily Limerick negated the Westerners underlined how weak the Rebel effort was.<\/p>\n
In the post-match press conference, John Kiely\u2019s first port of call was to pay an extensive tribute to his right-hand man, Paul Kinnerk, for masterminding the triumph.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo produce that level of performance in a final takes an incredible level of preparation. Paul deserves an incredible amount of credit for the manner in which he had the team prepared,\u201d said the Limerick manager.<\/p>\n
\u201cGalway bring a very difficult tactical challenge to the table, and we’ve seen in the last two games what that can look like when you don’t control it or impact it in any way.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a credit to Paul how we were able to gain control of the game, keep control of the game, and limit Galway in the areas that they’re strongest in. It was just extraordinary, the detail that he got to and how he nailed it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kiely also lauded his players\u2019 level of tactical intelligence and capacity to absorb detail as \u201ca very rare quality in elite sport\u201d.<\/p>\n
Whether it was Cork\u2019s game plan that was lacking or its execution must be conclusively diagnosed in the season review across the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
By contrast to Cork, Limerick refused to follow Galway out the field, restricting Jason Rabbitte\u2019s space. They simultaneously condensed the centre to suffocate Galway\u2019s distance shooters. The space was left for Aaron Gillane and Peter Casey to exploit at the other end.<\/p>\n
Yet Kinnerk\u2019s masterplan wasn\u2019t so much a triumph of tactics as work-rate. They hounded Galway across that middle-third battlefield, simply refusing to let maroon jerseys move through the lines. Opponents had to absorb big hits until the sliotar was knocked to the ground, where Limerick gobbled up the breaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat bunch of men, their identity is based around how hard they work, on the training field, in matches, and how committed they are to doing the right thing for the group at all times,\u201d said Kiely. \u201cThat’s what it takes. That’s what they’re willing to give. That’s what makes them special.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leaving aside placed balls, the \u2018from play\u2019 scoreline of 1-23 to 0-8 encapsulated the difference between the sides. Like Cork in the Munster final, Galway were utterly reliant on frees.<\/p>\n
When they got back-to-back points early on, Limerick came up with big plays to reply with the next four in a row; a puck-out catch for an immediate response, followed by two intercept points and an overcarrying free.<\/p>\n
Where were the big plays, the pressure on the sliotar, and the leadership to break Galway\u2019s momentum as they took Cork for nine successive points?<\/p>\n
\n Where Cork let Galway back into the contest before half-time, Limerick shut them out with the final three points before heading back down the tunnel.\n <\/p>\n
One difference in Limerick\u2019s approach was the manner in which they navigated Mike Casey\u2019s 10th-minute yellow card for a third foul on Rabbitte.<\/p>\n
Kiely has previously hooked Diarmaid Byrnes and Adam English in games against Waterford in the past two seasons for picking up a yellow followed by a warning. Cork have encountered the same scenario on multiple occasions across Pat Ryan and Ben O\u2019Connor\u2019s tenures, with Damien Cahalane the latest to suffer on Rabbitte. Se\u00e1n O\u2019Donoghue\u2019s Munster final withdrawal was even more costly.<\/p>\n
With Mike Casey, Kiely quickly reshuffled his match-ups and the corner-back played on until the final quarter.<\/p>\n
Referee Colm Lyons shows a yellow card to Mike Casey of Limerick. Picture: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n
While Galway were overpowered across the field, it was interesting that the U20 duo of Rabbitte and Aaron Niland were two of their top performers and their only scorers in the first half, while fellow rookie, Darragh Neary, was their best on show in the second half.<\/p>\n
At the end of the year, three of Limerick\u2019s top four scorers from play were their fresher faces: Cathal O\u2019Neill, Aidan O\u2019Connor, Peter Casey, and Shane O\u2019Brien. Rabbitte, Niland, Neary, and injury-victim Rory Burke accounted for nine Galway goals this year.<\/p>\n
\n William Buckley and Barry Walsh would sit comfortably in that company. If they\u2019re good enough, they\u2019re old enough.\n <\/p>\n
Ultimately, Cork are closer than anyone to Limerick \u2013 indeed, they were the only team to better them in 13 games since their season opener \u2013 but that doesn\u2019t mean Liam MacCarthy is closer to a Leeside return.<\/p>\n
The greatest compliment to Limerick is that they, again, brought their best on the biggest day. Cork must find a way to do the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two similar thoughts came to mind while watching the All-Ireland final wind to a close. What must Clare,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1965,1964,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-559379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-hurling","tag-cork-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559379","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=559379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}