And then there was one, the one team that stood up to and were left standing alone after everything the year and all that came with it threw at them, the still unbeaten and now undisputed champions of hurling.
Or as manager John Kiely correctly surmised, it’s more like 13 months, given Limerick started this imperious unbeaten run in the Munster hurling league last December. Now, the original August 16th final turned to December 13th, it completes their perfectly full calendar year, this truncated and no less emphatic All-Ireland title their second in three years, and ninth in all.
No disputing either the period of the game that decided it, their utterly dominant third-quarter blitz now neatly divided by the temporary introduction of the water break. Tenacious, composed, and at times magnificently superior, Limerick outscored Waterford 10 points to three, including seven from play, and with that buried all hopes and dreams that 61 years of waiting might be no more.
Pivotal and central to it was their double-barrelled shotgun of Tom Morrissey and Gearóid Hegarty, evenly split afterwards as the most influential players of the game. Everyone said that goals would decide this game, and they might well have decided it differently, had Nickie Quaid not been so mean and unforgiving in front of the Limerick goal. The oldest player in their team lacked and was left wanting for nothing.
So, after rolling with the punches of Waterford’s opening goal chances – and persistence of their own, after coming back from six points down, 0-10 to 0-4, not long after the first water break – Limerick set out their third-quarter stall that ensured Waterford found no way back
Getting to the half-time break only a score behind (0-14 to 0-11), the so far elusive goal, certainly gave Waterford hope and belief: they’d come out in the second half of the semi-final and hit Kilkenny with two goals, deciding that game in the process.
There was hope of a goal too just before that half-time break, when Quaid again denied Stephen Bennett. That could have tied the game, and perhaps that was all Kiely and company had to say in the Limerick dressingroom.
When they re-emerged, Limerick first out too, everything was up for grabs, but Bennett uncharacteristically missed his first free shot at goal, perhaps prompting Limerick to inject the sort of mid-race surge that can put real distance in the long distance race.
First, Séamus Flanagan helped himself to his second point from play from full foward, the hard won ball first delivered into his path by Barry Nash, soaring again in the corner of the Limerick defence.
Then, as easy as he makes it look, Hegarty sent over what was then his third from play, effortlessly covering the ground with his loping stride that would hold its own in the metric mile on the track.
Five minutes in, Aaron Gillane scored his sixth point, his third free, any concern about his back injury now long since forgotten and gone. When, moments later, Flanagan sent over his fourth from play, striking with the sweet spot of his hurley, Limerick were suddenly seven points clear, 0-18 to 0-11. Flanagan afforded himself the first conspicuously vigorous fist pump of the fast darkening afternoon, as well he might.
Waterford clawed one back, Bennett’s eighth free so far, a reminder too how little Waterford can score from play. By then, his brother Kieran Bennett was also replaced by Darragh Lyons, the player who clawed back one of the goals against Kilkenny.
Instead come two more points from play on the trot from Limerick, Morrissey combining again with Hegarty to set up his fifth from play, the option of a goal possibly passing his mind briefly too. Limerick are now playing with absolute precision.
Desperate Waterford
Again, the Morrissey-Hegarty combination was seamless and seemingly unbreakable, ending with a fifth point from play for the number 10. Waterford were getting desperate, and must have known it too, Dessie Hutchinson winning a ball off Seán Finn with that sort of need, and with that fired over his first and only point of the game.
It was properly end to end by now, Morrissey racing forward to add his fourth from play, as Waterford fall further behind, 0-21 to 0-13.
Kevin Moran, turning back the clock still, tried to turn the tide, firing over his only point from considerable distance, and as if on cue and similarly inspired Calum Lyons did likewise, a superb score from long range. Only it was closer to goal where Waterford needed to find their scores.
With that came three more Limerick points without reply, another free from Gillane, just as Peter Casey was brought in to add a fresh dynamic to their attack. Then the ringleaders were back at it, Hegarty scoring his sixth from play, shortly before Gillane added another free to put Limerick up 0-24 to 0-15.
Bennett did get one point back before the water break, but that was the story of the third quarter and the game, as Limerick moved from three to eight points clear in that period. Waterford manager Liam Cahill hardly needed any reminding of how critical this third quarter had proven. Because after that there was only one team left it in, the still unbeaten and now undisputed champions of hurling.
