Inside Track: Records are there to be broken and Limerick might just do it

There’s a banner, hoisted at the first of this year’s All-Ireland football semi-finals, which will almost certainly be on view again at Sunday’s final.

It’s in two-tone blue, and from that you can guess it’s the work of Dubs supporters.

It reads something like: “Records were made to be broken, but not this one.”

There’s an image of the Sam Maguire Cup in the middle with the figure of 6 emblazoned on it.

No need at all to say what it’s all about.

Whatever about the record being broken, there’s a serious chance of it being equalled – not in football, but in the GAA’s other game.

Limerick hurlers are on four in-a-row following their outstanding win over Kilkenny on Sunday last, and who’s to say they won’t win the Liam MacCarthy Cup again next year, and maybe the year after that.

If they get to the half-dozen, there might be reason for the Dubs to put their banner away.

Match reports from other years were never short of clichés, and if there was a game in which exchanges were, let’s say, tough, you’d invariably read, “No quarter was asked, and none was given.” Or, maybe, “This wasn’t for the faint-hearted.”

Hands up, I used them: but never, “No holds were barred,” simply because I didn’t know what it meant, and still don’t, though I suspect it’s a close relation of the above.

Some of the tackling in Sunday’s match was of the ferocious variety.

It started at an early stage, and anyone who thought this was part of a softening-up exercise was mistaken.

It was there for the entire 70 minutes, and neither team had the call on it.

But there was also time for some great scoring, high fielding and individual performances laced with brilliance.

It was, by consensus, one of the great finals, Limerick hitting the target 30 times, and Kilkenny leading at the break and staying in touch until the last quarter.

The Cats didn’t deserve to be beaten by as many as nine points.

Limerick, often the whipping boys in the 45 years between their 1973 win and the one that came two years before the start of their four-in-row, are now being classed as one of the greatest ever teams.

That they are probably the best resourced in the country can’t be ignored; but still it has to be done on the field, and it can’t be denied no team has done it better in recent years, the Treaty with league and Munster titles to go with their All-Irelands.

Just when I thought Croke Park had absorbed all the excitement Sunday had to offer, I knocked on the radio when the hurling was over, and immediately knew it was good at Oriel Park for Dundalk’s FAI Cup tie with the holders, Shamrock Rovers.

The Dundalk FM pair, Ger Cunningham and John Cunningham, were in full voice, and it got even louder when Dundalk scored.

I feared for John’s wellbeing as the home team clung to their 1-0 lead with the ref playing seven minutes of time added on.

But this octogenarian retains the stern stuff that made him a resolute defender in the days when he wore the white jersey.

No sooner had the final whistle been blown that he and Cunningham were looking forward to the European tie Dundalk have this coming Thursday.

It’s a game against an Icelandic team, Stephen O’Donnell’s charges having qualified for the second round after a win over Gibraltar’s Bruno’s Magpies last Thursday.