"We'd played two games and been bate in both games. It was a case of... what's another year? Simple as that."
Now in his seventh campaign as Limerick senior manager, John Kiely is seeking a fifth All-Ireland title. He already has five Munster titles in a row, a feat only achieved before by Cork.
Across league and championship, he's managed Limerick in 12 finals and won all of them. Comparisons with Brian Cody's Kilkenny team of the late 2000s are inevitable and they are building a compelling body of evidence that they are the greatest team in history.
And how did his first season in charge go? With a Round 1 qualifier exit to an otherwise out-of-sorts Kilkenny in Nowlan Park, having earlier finished third in Division 1B of the National Hurling League.
It's one of the curiosities of the last half-decade in hurling that one of the most success laden managerial runs in the game began on such a forgettable note.
The first season feels like it barely belongs in the Kiely managerial story.
That it belongs in the story of a different manager altogether, one who vacated the post after two years having achieved little, with a perfunctory statement from the county board that autumn wishing him all the best in the future. Before talk swiftly moved onto his successor.
As if you were watching 'Sunderland 'Til I Die' and it suddenly turned into 'The Last Dance'.
While the Limerick dynasty did not spring up out of nowhere - they had won Under-21 titles in 2015 and 2017 and their minors had been massive favourites for the 2014 final - the abruptness of its onset was pretty startling.
At the conclusion of Kiely's first season, they sat at or near the foot of the pecking order among hurling's elite. Dublin had experienced something of a player revolt that year and their season was probably marginally worse. But Limerick were unquestionably regarded as the worst team in Munster after 2017.
They had lost in that year's Munster semi-final, aka, their first match, to Clare, who didn't win again after that either. Ger Loughnane wrote the following day that Clare had been "atrocious" and only "the most deluded" of supporters could have enjoyed the victory. They had merely succeeded in being less bad than Limerick which was considered to be no great accolade that summer.
"It was probably no different than the previous couple of years really," Shane Dowling tells RTÉ Sport, a few days out from Limerick's fourth successive All-Ireland final appearance.
"I remember sampling a pint with Jim Bob Ryan, who was the captain that year, inside in some hotel in Kilkenny, after having a bite to eat.
"It was just, we'd played two games this year and been bate in both games. It was kind of a case of... what's another year? Simple as that.
"For anyone to turn around to you and say oh I believed we were on the cusp of something special at that stage is probably lying to you."
Limerick had improved swiftly from their historic nadir in 2010, when a players' strike rendered the entire year a write-off.
They rather dutifully followed the Cork template in post-strike recovery. Donal O'Grady was hired in year one, restoring them to some semblance of respectability. Then when he departed, John Allen came in, lifting things a couple more notches. An unexpected first Munster title in 17 years arrived in 2013, after landmark wins over Tipperary and Cork.
TJ Ryan, two-time Munster winner in the 90s, versatile stalwart throughout the lean early 2000s, now beloved podcaster, stepped up as manager at the end of 2013. While they missed out against Cork in their quest to retain the province, they did reach the All-Ireland semi-finals again, this time putting up a significantly better fight.
In Croke Park's wettest day of the 21st century, they took Kilkenny to the brink in a match lauded by corner-backs and ex-defenders everywhere. The Hill briefly emptied at one point early in the second half as the downpour became too much for even the terrace-dwelling hurling folk to bear. Kilkenny squeezed home thanks to a couple of goals on a throwback scoreline of 2-13 to 0-17.
However, the promise fizzled out and by 2016/17, Limerick were back in a rut. Disappointed also-rans, to borrow a popular phrase.
The credentials of the incoming management team in late 2016 were fairly bulletproof. Kiely had presided over the 2015 U21 success. He was already flanked by his tactical super brain Paul Kinnerk, renowned as a genius coach since his time with Clare. Caroline Currid was in on the psychological side.
"The things they were trying to implement are the things that are probably still there now," says Dowling.
"But it was year one. And things probably didn't bed in. The training was different, there's no question about that.
"There was a older group that weren't used to their ways. And there was a younger group that were probably adapting to a whole senior setup.
"So it was probably a bad year in the sense of you'd a brand new management team with basically a brand new group of players. And it just took a bit of time."
Hurling was changing from a harum scarum route one affair to one of playing through the lines and supporting the ball carrier. Adjusting to Kinnerk-ball, with its premium on movement and good decision making in possession took some time.
"Trying to implement something in five or six months with a brand new group is probably a hard thing to do and that's what Paul tried to do.
"It was the same with Clare. I think Limerick knocked Clare out in 2012, in my debut year. And they went onto win the All-Ireland in 2013. It takes a bit of time adjusting to new ways."
Kiely sounded a bullish note after the loss in Kilkenny, saying they were "building something strong and sustainable. It is there for the future".
After an inter-county season in which Limerick had won just one from six games against top tier opposition - a league quarter-final victory over Cork - it might have sounded like Staunton-esque self-justification of a flailing gaffer.
Ahead of last year's final, with three All-Ireland wins under his belt, Kiely felt freer to characterise how he was actually thinking at the time.
"It wouldn't have been a surprise to me had I got a phone call at the end of '17 to say, 'Listen, thanks very much, you’ve done a great job, you’ve done the best you can, but we’re moving on,'" Kiely told the Irish Mirror.
"There was nights when I was pacing the yard out the back, wondering, 'Am I the right man for this job?"
Another duff year in 2018 and Kiely said he'd have been out, "not of anybody else's volition, but my own".
Regardless of his own feelings, the county board weren't going to pull the trigger. And Dowling says there was little prospect of the manager being thrown overboard after one year.
"He was never going to be gone. Definitely not. But I know he said himself that he paced the lands at home, wondering was he the man for the job and was he good enough. So I imagine it was a bleak winter for him.
"He was brought in. He'd only been used to success with the U21s. He had as good a management team as he could gather. So I'm sure he probably questioned himself. But I wouldn't imagine anyone else did."
Dowling recalls the mood started to turn in the 2018 league campaign, when Limerick claimed a landmark victory against then All-Ireland champions Galway in Salthill, a match he watched from the Stand as Na Piarsaigh were still involved in an All-Ireland club tussle with Cuala.
"Momentum built after we beat Tipperary, beat them comprehensively inside in the Gaelic Grounds. An inner belief started to grow.
"There were small moments throughout the year. Kyle Hayes' equaliser against Cork down in Cork, not losing when down to 14 men. Beating Kilkenny for the first time in 45 years, then the Cork semi-final... Momentum built."
Most great GAA success stories begin with the tale of some boorish yahoo abusing our hero from the stand.
We all remember the impatient Clare woman who pegged a programme at Leo Mulqueen in early 2013 and, as Dowling details, the Kiely supremacy has its own 'I took that personally' moment.
"But it's gas, I do remember in one of his first games in charge, it was a Munster league game in the Gaelic Grounds," recalls Dowling.
"We leaked five goals against Cork. And there were a couple of Limerick supporters had a couple of, I won't say nice words but had a couple of words, to say to him coming off the field that night."
Dowling is inclined to wonder if the lads in question have sourced tickets for Sunday - Ard Comhairle, presumably - as Limerick seek to complete a four-in-a-row. That's the new reality for Limerick hurling, one which seemed inconceivable after year one of this staggeringly successful project.
Watch the All-Ireland Hurling Championship final, Limerick v Kilkenny, this Sunday from 2.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to live commentary on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio
