Clonoulty Rossmore are a good team.
They won a decent Tipperary championship, they’ve got some excellent players. Timmy Hammersely is a leader, his brother Conor is county standard. John O’Keeffe is a rock solid centre back and Enda Heffernan beside him is a serious goer.
But they were playing Na Piarsaigh on Sunday. And Na Piarsaigh were in the mood.
The Limerick kingpins lost the All-Ireland club final to Cuala in a replay only seven months ago and those wounds are still raw.
Those wounds are still gnawing away at them. They thundered through the Limerick championship as if they just knew in their own heads that none of these teams against them had any business sharing the same pitch as them.
Doon got a telling off in the county final. Strictly business.
And now they’re taking off in Munster, now they’re absolutely flying. Na Piarsaigh hit the Gaelic Grounds running and they never gave Clonoulty Rossmore a puck at it on Sunday. Still, these boys haven’t even been challenged this year.
Kevin Downes rattled in a 25th minute goal to put the Treaty champs 1-12 to 0-5 up and by that stage everybody knew that this game was over. The Na Piarsiagh players seemed knew well before that but that didn’t matter to them.
They raced into a six point to nothing lead after ten minutes. They kept the foot on the throttle until half-time and by then they were winning by 14 points, 2-13 to 0-6. Peter Casey scoring the second.
The lively little Limerick livewire scored another just after half-time and this was turning into a massacre. Na Piarsaigh don’t show mercy though.
They went onto win by 18 points, 3-22 to 0-13 the final score. The only worry being that Shane Dowling was lost to a nasty hand injury the extent of which is not yet known while Ronan Lynch also went off injured.
Right now, it will take something more than that to stop these lads though.
