'It’s everything, a superb feeling. It doesn’t matter about any other year - it’s now, it’s the moment, it’s the feeling you have at the final whistle, or a minute to go. It’s ours. We got a great start, the start Limerick got against Waterford the last day, the start they’d have loved again. They were always going to have a period of dominance, but they were also going to have to do a lot of hurling to catch up.' Manager Brian Cody delights in leading his side to a fifth Liam McCarthy Cup in eight years.
'Our plan was not to concede early scores to Kilkenny but we let them in for two early goals and were playing catch-up for the rest of the match. If we were to have any chance we needed a similar start to the one we got against Waterford, or at least prevent Kilkenny from starting well. The two goals were killer blows, but credit to the lads they got stuck in and made a match of it.' Limerick manager Richie Bennis rues the early goals that left his game-plan in tatters.
'Last year was really special, stopping Cork from the three-in-a-row but this year we did it for James McGarry. That put the whole thing in perspective. At half-time we’d lost two of our big players, Henry and Noel, so it was time for some of the other players to stand up to the plate and show some leadership.' Kilkenny midfielder James 'Cha' Fitzpatrick dedicates his side's victory to James McGarry.
'We didn’t come up just to be in the final. We came up to win it. What killed it was that every time we got a score - and we fought hard to get scores - Kilkenny just went up and popped another one over the bar. They kept getting them just after we got ours, which killed us - we needed to get on a run, to get three or four scores, but it didn’t happen.' Limerick selector Gary Kirby highlights one of the reasons why his side never got close to Kilkenny after their early burst.
'He’s brought hurling to a new dimension; I believe it is right to recognise greatness and special talent and such skill levels. I constantly talk team and panel, and will continue to do that, but he has set milestones, he adorns the game of hurling and he is such an influence.' Cody waxes lyrical about the importance of Kilkenny captain Henry Shefflin to his team.
'Andrew had been flying all year. He is a super hurler, you just can’t let him win the ball and I went out with that attitude. They’re a lethal forward line who were getting a lot of scores throughout the year. We knew we had to be at our best to stop them by being very tight at the back, bunching it in and crowding them out.' Last year's winning captain Jackie Tyrrell reflects on the importance of their battle with the prolific Limerick forward line.
'There is a guy from Clare talking rubbish. I know Ger very, very well obviously and it’s sad to see him descend to that level. It’s inferiority; I believe it is a serious sense of inferiority to descend to that silly talk. He suggested that we are a dirty team and that’s wrong. Very wrong. He was an analyst on The Sunday Game for a number of years and he never once uttered that statement. Now he’s a manager and before we played Galway he came up with that stupidity. It’s sad to see.' Cody again, this time letting Galway manager Ger Loughnane know what he thought of his assertion that Kilkenny are a 'dirty team'.
'Where's the hearse?' Limerick full-back Stephen Lucey after his side's defeat to Kilkenny.
'Kilkenny’s hurlers have once again proved to be the best in the land and it will take a massive performance from one of the other counties to stop them achieving that three-in-a-row in 2008!' Adele Thompson, Ladbrokes Ireland, after announcing that Kilkenny would be even money to capture the Liam McCarthy Cup next year.
