Clare hurler Paul Flanagan as he was appointed as GAA’s Ambasadóir na Gaeilge for 2023 at Croke Park in Dublin.
By John Harrington
The shadow cast by the Limerick hurlers must feel like a very long one for their rivals.
Much like Kilkenny were in the noughties, Limerick are surely now bogeymen who live inside the heads of other teams rent-free.
Everything you do as a team to try to raise your level is done in the context of Limerick’s dominance of the game.
Can we compete physically with them? How do we contain their half-forwards? What game-plan could pull their half-backs out of position?
If you hurl for a county with genuine ambitions of knocking Limerick from their pedestal it’s hard to know whether it’s better to avoid fixating on them or to source motivation from putting a target on their backs.
Whatever is the best approach, there’s certainly no getting away from Limerick hurling for Clare defender Paul Flanagan, who yesterday was unveiled as the GAA’s new Ambasadóir na Gaeilge.
A teacher in Ard Scoil Rís in Limerick city, it can’t be an easy station at times.
“Yeah you are dealing with students that do have the bragging rights over you at time and they are pretty quick to reference it but most of the time I love to see the impact of students of that age,” says Flanagan.
“We’ve 800 boys in Ard Scoil Ris and I suppose the buzz sport gives them, the outlet is amazing to see.”
As a Clare hurler Flanagan is highly motivated to lower Limerick’s colours, so it’s ironic that he does great developmental work for Limerick hurling as a teacher in Ard Scoil Rís.
He managed the team that won last year’s Masita Croke Cup Final, and has coached a number of Limerick hurlers like Aaron Gillane, Peter Casey, Conor Boylan, Shane O’Brien and Cathal O’Neill in the school.
“It can be interesting,” says Flanagan. “Myself and Cathal O’Neill actually have the same hurley supplier down in south Tipperary so I ended up ringing Jim O’Brien who makes my hurleys and I said ‘Jim is there anyone coming up Limerick or Clare direction’
“And he said actually Cathal O’Neill is coming up. And I said right give my two hurleys to Cathal and he can drop them into Ard Scoil. Cathal would have been a past pupil of ours so it is interesting, so you’re on both sides of the field and certain situations pop up from time to time.”
Paul Flanagan of Clare in action against Aaron Gillane of Limerick during the 2022 Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Final match between Limerick and Clare at FBD Semple Stadium in Thurles, Tipperary.
The Monday after Clare’s Allianz Hurling League defeat to Limerick last month can’t have been a fun one at work for Flanagan. It served as another reminder that the three-in-row All-Ireland champions remain the standard-setters in the game.
“Yeah, from a performance point of view, it was disappointing,” says Flanagan. “Every day you go out you want to give your best and that wasn't our best. If you looked at the league campaign between this year and last year, it's probably the most disappointing we've been over those fixtures.
“In saying that you just have to put the head down and see what did work and what didn't work and just put the head down again. Limerick, for a team that have come back from last year, they've started this league campaign really strongly and eked out a good victory against Galway so they're moving really well.
“I think we have work to do to get there over the next few weeks. It was great to get a few more guys back into it against Wexford and we got some good momentum from that game but I think the next two weeks will give a good idea of where you're at.”
Clare’s 22 point victory over Wexford in Round 3 was certainly an impressive reaction to that defeat to Limerick.
It was Flanagan’s first League match of the season and also marked the return of others like Tony Kelly and Ryan Taylor.
Another obvious positive was the performance of Aidan McCarthy who missed the 2022 season with an ankle injury but has been outstanding in the League thus far, scoring more than any other player in Division 1 after three matches.
“Yeah, it's great,” says Flanagan. “I was only saying to him a couple of weeks ago, to have a year off and he was rehabbing his ankle pretty intensely for that year but it has given him a breath of freshness and hunger coming in having missed out on a year.
“I know all too well how that feels. He's a great addition to have back so that's really good.”
Clare hurler Aidan McCarthy.
With attackers like McCarthy, Tony Kelly, Peter Duggan, Shane O’Donnell, Mark Rodgers, and David Reidy to call on, Clare certainly have the firepower needed to challenge for silverware this year.
They also got closer to Limerick than any other county in the championship last year, but were then beaten surprisingly easily by Kilkenny in the All-Ireland semi-final.
How did they rationalise that defeat? Did they learn any lessons that can be put to good use this year.?
“You come away from a game like that and you are bitterly disappointed,” says Flanagan.
“I know a lot of the talk afterwards would have been in relation to our Munster campaign and would that have taken quite a lot out of us.
“Munster last year, it was gruelling like. It was pretty intense, week on week and obviously you had a Munster final and extra time and because you didn’t win that Munster final you were straight into a quarter-final against Wexford a couple of weeks later.
“In saying that, I think there was an awful lot that can be learned from last year. It was our first time playing in Croke Park in quite a while.
“Even I was looking at that documentary on Liam Sheedy during the week, Laochra Gael - in 2008 they played and were well beaten. That team were probably getting used to playing up here on big days.
“I think it’s something that certainly we can learn from. It’s a routine thing. It’s how you approach coming to Dublin and making sure your energy is right for that.
“That’s definitely a learning for us going forward, how we approach that and how we approach coming up here.”
Every day is a learning day and a Sunday’s League clash with Galway will give us fresh insight into how Clare are shaping up this year and whether they have the wherewithal to build on last year’s positives and learn from the negatives.
“Matches against Galway are always great tests,” says Flanagan. “They always show you where you're at. We played Galway last year in Pearse Stadium and there was very, very little in it.
“I think it ended up a draw. They have shown recently obviously in terms of how they've competed with Limerick what type of level they're at.
“These next two games, Galway and Cork, yeah, they're going to be a real learning for us in terms of where we're at and what we need to improve on for Championship over the next few weeks.”
