The late Liam Kearns was in great humour in Páirc Uí Chaoimh back in May, 2003. The former Kerry footballer, who guided Limerick to an All-Ireland Under-21 final in 2000, was now in charge of the Limerick seniors. They had just beaten Munster champions Cork in the provincial first round.
It was the county’s first A-list championship scalp – Cork or Kerry – since 1965. A big deal. More startlingly, it was achieved pulling away at the end of a comprehensive 10-point victory.
By now, we were into the third year of the All-Ireland qualifiers and Kearns testified to the extent to which the new format had psychologically liberated underdogs from the pressures of sudden death and helped them perform.
“The qualifiers helped us big time,” he said. “They gave us confidence last year.”
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It wasn’t the only source of confidence within the previous year. In the 2002 league – when that year’s All-Ireland finalists, Armagh and Kerry, had spent the spring in Division Two before getting promoted – Limerick beat Kerry for the first time in an elite football competition.
In fact, under today’s rules, Limerick, having finished level on 10 points, would have gone up on the basis of head-to-head results.
I was reminded of these days by the ongoing disagreement in Munster concerning the changing of championship rules to the advantage of Cork.
By settling on a qualification process about which the contestants can now do nothing – seeding determined by final league position when Cork are the only county besides Kerry in either of the top two divisions – the provincial council has caused unhappiness in the other four counties’ football teams.
Crucially, that unhappiness wasn’t shared by Limerick’s administrators, who voted to introduce the new format despite the objections of their football team.
That is an ongoing matter but it focuses attention on the whole question of provincial championships.
In many ways, former Clare manager Colm Collins was correct when expressing on these pages the opinion that the Munster championship was broken. It was, in his more blunt assessment, “a joke” that pitches the best team in Ireland against an array of lower-division opponents.
As manager of his county for 10 years, Collins had Clare in Division Two of the league for seven of those seasons – finishing as Munster’s second county ahead of Cork on five occasions.
Within two years of Clare getting relegated to Division Three, suddenly league positions will determine semi-final seeding.
It is easy to see why Collins and others might see little justice in the provincial system, but whereas Clare in 1992 and Tipperary 28 years later managed to break through the barrier of disadvantage and win Munster, Limerick footballers have been the ones most consistently tilting at the windmill.
As far back as the first open draw in Munster 34 years ago, Limerick reached the provincial final and lost by just two points under the management of another former Kerry player, John O’Keeffe.
They followed up the above referenced sensational win over Cork in 2003 by losing the provincial final to Kerry by just five points, having failed to make a fiery opening pay on the scoreboard and also having missed two penalties.
A year later, it took a phenomenal catch by Darragh Ó Sé over his own bar to prevent Kerry losing the final in Limerick. They prevailed a week later in Killarney.
Dara Ó Cinnéide was the Kerry captain who would lift Sam Maguire two months later in Jack O’Connor’s first year in charge. He said that Limerick had pushed them all the way in a year when they felt they were well in contention for the All-Ireland and that their opponents should reset immediately because they had nothing to fear in the qualifiers.
That practical advice to put the disappointment to one side and get on with it was easier for serial winners Kerry than for a county which would have seen little difference between the Munster title and an All-Ireland – at least in the journey to be travelled between one and the other.
In history, Limerick footballers have two 19th-century All-Ireland titles, including the very first one in 1887, which was open draw, and 1896. So the county actually has more All-Irelands than Munsters.
They have been desperate to win the provincial title. After the 2004 draw in the Gaelic Grounds, Kearns convened a meeting in a Limerick hotel and the mood suggested that they had been beaten, making the replay immensely challenging.
Five years later, back in the final under the management of another Kerry great, Mickey Ned O’Sullivan, they lost by a point to Cork. The following season, another final in Killarney and another one-score defeat by All-Ireland champions Kerry despite John Galvin ripping it up at centrefield and having the shout of a last-minute penalty.
He summarised afterwards: “Another Munster final we have, I suppose, not thrown away, but another one we could have won.”
For good measure, the qualifiers threw Limerick in against a Cork team on the way to winning their most recent All-Ireland. It took extra-time and two points to escape that evening.
Twelve months on and the county finally navigates the qualifiers all the way to Croke Park for All-Ireland quarter-finals. Their draw: Kerry.
This year, Limerick have been building again. Promotion from Division Four and the divisional title as well as a creditable Tailteann Cup final appearance. The footballers, now contending with their county’s most successful hurling team, asked that the county support them in voting against a proposal intended to rewire the Munster championship against them and the others.
In their history and specifically this century, that trophy is all they have ever wanted – and they were turned down. No wonder manager Jimmy Lee told the Irish Examiner that it felt like they “had been knifed in the back”.
