by
Seamus Morris

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been in this position before, ahead and playing an effective brand of football. Yeah, it felt right, the passes were on target and the posts were being dissected. But then history and tradition played its part…

Last Sunday in the Munster Football Final replay in Killarney the footballers of Limerick encountered a major stumbling block for many teams in the GAA. It is both its strength and its weakness. For counties such as Kerry, tradition and history are concepts to be proud of, built upon and used to their advantage. They won their seventieth provincial crown on Sunday, and have exactly enough All Irelands to give one to every other county on the whole island. As for Limerick, well, tradition is a noose around their neck that just continues to tighten, squeezing the life out of them until they eventually break free and can suck in the air of sweet success.

The facts were enlightening. Limerick had one provincial football title to their name, and this was not even won in the last century! Deep within their psyche there must have been a grain of doubt, a nagging voice gnawing away at then saying “Jesus, what do ye think ye’re playing at. Sure this is Kerry ye’re playing against and ye never beat them”. No matter how many psychologists may have been employed, no matter how many times the management team tried to drum it into them that they would win, that Limerick team must still have had a bellyful of doubt as they entered the fray last Sunday.

Flashback to the first game. Limerick are ahead at half time, they have some daylight between them and the aristocrats of the game. The match is on at home. The crowd are behind them. But… Be honest. When you watched those last sixteen minutes of play (including eight of injury time), did you really believe that Limerick would win? When Keating had those three frees, did you not feel that they were all destined, just like the team, to fall short? The draw was seen as a chance for Kerry to regroup and fire on all cylinders in their own back yard. Limerick had blown their chance.

The replay, sun splitting down and, what’s this? The ball has spent less than ten seconds in competitive action before it is nestling in the back of the Kingdom’s net. It gets stranger. Limerick, who were supposed to be mere spectators, raced into a lead of seven points over the home side. The locals were perplexed, expletives poured down from the terraces as events unfolded.

Five minutes. Tradition may refer to events over a long period of time, but all it took was five frantic minutes in Fitzgerald Stadium for tradition to take hold and smash any romanticism from the contest. Two goals and a point meant that Limerick, who had owned most of the half, were now level with Kerry. As the sides entered their half time arenas, what do you think the Limerick players were thinking? Be honest. They were thinking “Shite, here we go again. We lost to them in ’91, we missed two penalties and lost to them last year, we couldn’t even beat fourteen of them in the League semis, and we had them on the rocks last Sunday. We’ve blown it, we can’t do any more”. That’s what they were thinking, what every Limerick fan must have been thinking, what Liam Kearns had to be thinking. Kerry would have been sat in their dressing room calm and reflective, knowing that they had timed their run perfectly and could be confident of taking the finishing line first. Tradition would be their bedrock.

Even when Limerick came to within a point with about fifteen minutes remaining, there was a sense that Kerry would just put the foot down and pull away. They did, we watched, and then went home, barely bothering to watch the presentation (it gets monotonous for the seventieth time).

Almost simultaneously, in the cauldron of Croke Park, the Leinster Football Final was heading towards its conclusion. Westmeath, one of only three counties to have never won its provincial crown, were leading Laois by one point, and were hanging on. But they didn’t. There seemed an inevitability about it when Chris Conway whipped over the equaliser and saved the champions. Westmeath had been down this road before. In countless struggles with Meath they had never once come out on top. Dessie Dolan’s outrageous miss last year caused some to speak of a curse on the county. Tradition was becoming an annoying foe.

Fermanagh were the exception last weekend. They faced their tradition of defeat on the big stage head on, played their way through it and came out the other side six point winners over Cork. If they never win another match this year, their season will have been a success.

We no doubt will see tradition at play next weekend once more. Antrim will probably turn up for fifty minutes against Cork, gain the polite applause and appreciation of the HQ crowd (almost condescending in tone) and then head back up North for another twelve months, out of sight and out of mind. When Clare play Kilkenny tradition will dictate that all the skill will be the Cats and all the brawn will be the Banner men. Will Clare heads, with fifteen minutes to go, be packed with thoughts about the past success of Kilkenny, the current skill of their forward line? Or will they instead ignore tradition and history, choosing instead to write a new chapter, ignorant of past successes or failures?

It is the answers to questions like these that keep us coming Sunday after Sunday.