Former Tipperary goalkeeper Brendan Cummins believes Limerick's speed and stickwork makes them particularly suited to Croke Park.
Limerick plotted their route to the 2023 All-Ireland title in a slightly different fashion than previous years, shipping their first championship defeat of the decade to Clare in the Munster round robin and then being held to a draw in a dogfight with Tipperary in Semple Stadium.
They even flirted with elimination in the final round in Munster. Had their one-point win over Cork in the Gaelic Grounds gone the other way and had Tipp scored one more point to lose by five to Waterford - both of which looked highly possible with 10 minutes remaining - then they'd have been dumped out at the provincial stage.
They squeezed home by a point against Clare to seal the five in a row in Munster and then cut loose in the All-Ireland series, devouring both Galway and Kilkenny in similar fashion, turning a six-point first half deficit into a nine point win in the finish.
"I think the game in Croke Park is played slightly differently in Munster," Brendan Cummins said on the RTÉ GAA podcast.
"I think Clare have suffered in that. In Munster, it's blood and thunder and 'we'll all kill each other'. But the stickwork and athleticism that Limerick have will kill every team in Croke Park.
"Or when they get them in Páirc Ui Chaoimh as we've seen in previous games. It's a racetrack down there."
It isn't just a matter of speed and skill but also power, with Cummins suggesting that Kilkenny were unable to keep up with Limerick athletically or physically as the game wore on, with the champions making hay the longer the game progressed.
"I think the interview that Derek Lyng did afterwards was very similar to Henry Shefflin.
"Is there a glaring thing? If I'd put in a sweeper would that have fixed it? No. They're sitting at home watching the video at home tomorrow and they're going, what else could we have done?
"Yeah, we could have went shorter on the puckout. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, we could have worked the ball a bit better.
"But as we saw in the first 20 minutes of the game, while Limerick have only scored five points, they were still trying to work the ball. They were still taking on contact all the time. And every time you smack into a Limerick fella, it takes about 30 or 40 seconds out of your game.
"And they kept on running and running and running. And eventually, you can't track the runners. And that's what happened in the last five minutes of the first half. Kilkenny just couldn't keep their foot on them because Limerick are so powerful and so strong.
"[That's] The big problem for Henry and Derek Lyng and every other manager. They're looking at this and saying 'I'm not sure what else we could have done'."
Shane McGrath, who argued earlier in the year that the best five teams in the country were situated in Munster, gently returned to that theme after the decider, arguing that despite Kilkenny's presence in the final, the best teams still reside down south.
"I think this is their best All-Ireland with who they were missing, what they did coming through the Munster campaign.
"Leinster people aren't going to like me saying this but I'm going to say it anyway. I still feel that three or four of the best teams in the country are still in Munster.
"When you see what Limerick did to the two Leinster teams in the semi-final and final... Look, Kilkenny are there on merit but I still feel that, look at what Limerick had to come through in Munster - +2 [scoring difference] after five games.
"They demolished Galway in the semi-final and they did more or less the same yesterday in the All-Ireland final."
Cummins didn't entirely go along with the claim that the best teams in the country all resided in Munster, given that Kilkenny overcame Clare in the semi-final for the second year running, while Galway also knocked out Tipperary in the quarter-finals in the Gaelic Grounds.
"Consistently, Clare have been the best team in the Munster championship based on the table. And they can't beat Kilkenny. And they've had two goes at it. They tried three different ways of doing it. And they still haven't been able to do it.
"I think the argument on that is that Galway and Kilkenny would be okay inside in the Munster championship.
"But if you look at the other teams in Leinster, the Antrims and Westmeaths going up and down. Carlow will have a go at it this year.
"Dublin and Wexford have had particularly poor years this year. I think they'll be a lot better this year based on how thick they'll be over how this year went."
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