Limerick beat Clare after 100 minutes and free-taking shootout

Limerick 4-21 Clare 0-33 (AET Limerick win free-taking competition 7-6)

Excuse me while we’re still totting up the scores. Because after a madly punishing and at times slightly confusing ultra-marathon of a hurling match Limerick have further extended their unbeaten start to the season to nine games.

Exactly how they achieved that would be worthy of a small dissertation, especially as they twice pressed down on Clare to force two periods of extra-time, before winning the new 65-metre free-taking shoot-out designed to eliminate the need for a replay.

What it probably wasn’t designed for was the finishing up of a game just before 7.0pm on a Bank Holiday Monday, with most of the players and management back at work or college the following morning.

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Indeed both teams got a standing ovation at the end of the second period of extra-time, and deservedly so: some Clare supporters didn’t appear entirely happy at how the game was ultimately decided and while Limerick won’t have any complaints, it was a properly exhausting evening’s work by any standards.

It involved 100-plus minutes of actual hurling, before the final shoot-out –Colin Ryan sending over the decisive score for Limerick on the seventh ‘attempt’, after Niall Deasy had just missed the previous one for Clare. It certainly felt a little cruel on Clare to lose that way, having been in front for large parts of the actual game thanks in part to the brilliant Peter Duggan, who finished with 0-19.

Limerick simply refused to give in, however – the fearless Aaron Gillane once again showing them the way with his 2-11, his last free forcing the actual shoot-out: substitute Ryan had forced the first period of extra-time with a terrific sideline cut in the last minute of normal time (Duggan did have a later chance to land the winner, only for his free to fall short): then at the end of extra-time, when trailing Clare by three points, Diarmuid Byrnes fired home the goal from a placed ball which in truth caught almost everyone by surprise, not just the Clare defence.

After another five minutes aside, they still couldn’t be separated and by now the last rays of the evening sunshine had long disappeared, and the stadium floodlights were on: with that the five nominated players from each team took their turns over the 65-metre frees, each hitting their first five from five, before Clare cracked first.

It was first time a national fixture was decided this way – and already one of the longest hurling matches in GAA modern times: the shoot-out rule will apply for the qualifier stages of the championship this summer, and the way things are going, expect some repeat of it.

Anyway, after already winning eight games this year, including the Munster League and last Sunday’s promotional decider against Galway, Limerick go on into the league semi-final against either Tipperary or Dublin, that game postponed over the weekend, likely to be re-fixed for this Sunday – thus giving Limerick an accidental weekend off, as they will well need. Still their heady times for continue, still in the hunt for a first league title since 1997.

Just how much a slog of a game like this adds further weight to the argument against the need for hurling league quarter-finals remains to be seen – particularly as the weather blows holes into the GAA’s master fixture plan.

If the game wasn’t already exerting enough it was also played at near breakneck speed throughout: Clare hit the damp but firm ground running and with the wind also in their backs soon had Limerick in their rear-view mirror. Up 0-11 to 0-2 after 22 minutes, Tony Kelly hit three early points from midfield while Peter Duggan was also laying down a marker with his free-taking,

Limerick hit six wides in the first 11 minute, and looking shaky and nervous, struggled to get Gillane and Gearoid Hegarty into play or possession. Suddenly they put the pedal to the metal – Gillane kicking home the first goal on 23 minutes, with pure determination as much as deftness, after latching on to a long back from Seamus Hickey. Perhaps taking an extra step in the process.

That got Limerick’s mojo working, and Paul Browne and Hegarty added points in quick succession: Limerick finished out the half strong: getting it back to three points, 0-14 to 1-8.

Six minutes into the second half: Conor McGrath had a goal disallowed, after a fine catch from a ball from Tony Kelly, but definitely taking an extra step in the process. Gillane’s goal was a beauty, albeit started by David McInerney’s miscued ball around midfield: Tom Morrissey latched onto it, passed off to Seamus Flanagan, who set up Gillane for the finish on 54 minutes.

So Limerick very briefly went ahead, and again on 63 minutes when Pat Ryan came off the bench to blast home their third goal, putting them in front 3-15 to 0-21. Duggan then swing in Clare’s way again with four frees in succession, seemingly enough to give them the win, before Ryan’s sideline levelled it all up again.

Both periods of extra-time swung back and forth, Limerick at times losing a little of their focus, hitting nine wides in the first period of extra-time. At times it seemed neither team had the capacity to close out the game in the time that remained, and so it proved. Limerick’s fourth goal from Byrnes certainly game against that last run of play, but came full of heart no less,,

The tiredness was visible in the last 10-minutes of extra-time, Tony Kelly coming off for Clare (and not taking part in the free-taking shoot-out either);

Clare had held the razor’s edge in recent years, winning last year’s Munster semi-final and two years ago Clare squeezed Limerick out of promotion, so maybe this was a little revenge – Limerick’s first league win over their close neighbours since 2011. They certainly had to earn it.

LIMERICK: N Quiad; S Finn, S Hickey, R English; D Byrnes (1-1, a free), D Hannon (capt), D Morrissey; P Browne (0-1), C Lynch (0-1); G Hegarty (0-2), K Hayes, T Morrissey (0-1); A Gillane (2-11, 11 frees), S Flanagan (0-1), B Murphy.

Subs: C Ryan (0-3, one sideline) for Browne (50 mins), P Ryan (1-0) for Murphy (54 mins), D Reidy for Hayes (63 mins), R McCarthy for Hickey (79 mins), B O’Connell for Hegarty (85 mins), O O’Reilly for Flanagan (86 mins)

CLARE: D Tuohy; P O'Connor (capt), C Clearly, J Browne; S Morey, D McInerney, D Fitzgerald (0-1); C Galvin (0-1), T Kelly (0-6); C Malone, J Conlon (0-2), D Reidy (0-2); C McGrath (0-1), P Duggan (0-19, 15 frees, two 65), S O'Donnell (0-1).

Subs: I Galvin for C Galvin (51 mins), C McInerney for McGrath (52 mins), J Shanahan for Morey (61 mins), J McCarthy for Reidy (64 mins), P Collins for Malone (68 mins), M O’Neill for C McInerney (for extra-time), R Taylor for I Galvin (89 mins), M O’Malley for Kelly (95 mins), N Deasy for Collins (98 mins)

Referee: Alan Kelly (Galway)