Some might look at the Limerick footballers’ recent progress and conclude that the JP McManus effect has belatedly dripped down to the county’s other flagship team.
Former Limerick football captain Seánie Buckley laughs off the suggestion. McManus’s contribution to Gaelic games in the county, and beyond, is not to be scoffed at but the county footballers’ climb to Division Two is the result of years of painstaking toil.
“Look,” says Buckley, “every team has their sponsorship and Limerick is no different. The answer to that is there’s no miracle cure within Limerick football.
“All you need to do is look around at the players within their clubs and a couple of standout players in each club brought in and given time.
“Even the players that are there now, very little of them are new, they’ve all been around four or five years around a Limerick set-up. Maurice Horan is in this year as coach and he has added a lot to the group.
“Their identity is a strong physical mobile athletic group and he has brought a good bit of understanding and ways to open up defences, which has given them a great opportunity in Division Three. That’s where it’s at. Anything else, no, there isn’t anything in anything else.”
Limerick’s academy system is credited with the unprecedented success that the senior hurlers are currently enjoying and while there is a similar system in place for football, the core of the current senior team wouldn’t have benefitted from it says Buckley, who has been at the coalface with development squads in recent years and is now a selector with the county minors.
“The group that’s there now, there’s a few of them, maybe the young lads, that have come through the academy as it is now but I don’t think it can take much credit for the most of the players there because it wasn’t up and running for them."
Billy Lee is in his sixth year at the helm and his first season was Buckley’s last before retirement. They didn’t make any great inroads towards getting out of Division Four for his first three seasons.
“He went through a couple of years at the start that were tough enough going, definitely. But he remained positive and he got the rewards for it now.
“When Billy originally got the job he was part of a committee to appoint the new manager and it was suggested to him, ‘Should you go for it yourself?’ and sure enough he did, that’s actually how it came about. Look, it was a case of slow and steady wins the race.
“They remained calm in situations where the first year or two wasn’t brilliant and he’s built steadily. There’s a good foundation there now of players wanting to be involved and a good core group of players that have stuck together over the last number of years as well.”
Limerick won Division Four titles in 2010 and ‘13 with Buckley as captain, making him the only Limerick footballer to lift a trophy in Croke Park. One of Donal O'Sullivan and Iain Corbett, current joint-captains, will have the opportunity to emulate him in Saturday’s Division Three final against Louth.
“It’s not often you get an opportunity with Limerick for silverware,” Buckley acknowledges. “Promotion is the key, number one, but certainly when you’re there and you’re in a final you want to go and win it.
“It’s there to look back on and say it’s something tangible that you achieved and it’s certainly one that you can look back on and it has significance that way, particularly now going into this weekend.”
And he’s confident that Limerick haven’t hit the glass ceiling just yet, with a number of players in the mid-20s age bracket.
“There’s more to come but the challenge is bringing a few players in the whole time to sustain the group.
“I know Billy is big on the idea that players have to come into the squad for a year at least before they’re capable of playing senior inter-county football.
“You come from a level within Limerick football that doesn’t get you there so you need to be inside in an environment over a period of time to try and bring yourself up to that level."
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