Kilkenny attacker Adrian Mullen is hopeful that finally earning a long-awaited knock-out win over Limerick can help elevate the Cats to the next level as they prepare for Saturday's league final against Clare in Thurles.
Since making his debut in May 2019, the Treaty County have loomed large over Mullen and his team-mates. Nine top-tier national finals have been played in the time since (Kilkenny and Galway shared the 2021 league title without playing) and Limerick have won seven of those.
The two exceptions were the 2022 league final – Limerick failing to get out of the group stages – and the 2019 All-Ireland final where the Cats failed to build on their semi-final win over Limerick as Tipperary had 14 points to spare en route to lifting the Liam MacCarthy Cup.
For Mullen, they cannot let the momentum of another semi-final win over Limerick slip away having ended a five-year wait for that very honour two weeks ago.
"I suppose beating Limerick in a league semi-final was obviously a huge lift to the team," the 2019 Young Player of the Year said at an Allianz event promoting Saturday’s final.
"It just brings a huge lift to the county because obviously Limerick have been so good the last few years. So anytime you get a win over them it has to be a huge bonus and a huge plus.
"Now we get to face into a final against Clare. Again, that will be another huge test. It can only be a good thing really."
"Any team you play a number of times you're going to learn how to play against them, how to set up against them, try different things and see what works best for you," he added of playing the Treaty men over the years.
"I'd say Limerick are after learning from playing against us as well.
"We definitely tried a few things. A few of the things we tried probably worked and a few of them probably didn't work. Who's to say they're going to work the next day again?
"Every game probably takes on a life of its own and it's just probably about adapting and dealing with it as best as you can."
Six points from play against Offaly, five in the narrow win over Cork, a trio of white flags against Limerick – Mullen has been bringing scores to the table for Derek Lyng’s side.
He’s looked sprightly, and maybe it’s no coincidence that this is the first season that he has managed a pre-season with the Cats given that Ballyhale have made it to the All-Ireland club series every previous year – except for 2020/21 when no games were played outside county championships due to Covid restrictions – until their Kilkenny final loss to O’Loughlin Gaels back in October.
Mullen said that he didn’t have the feet up for too long after that disappointment, but hopes that he can feel the benefit of that unexpected fitness work ahead of the business end of the season.
"I wouldn't say we got too much down-time to be honest. We lost the county final against O'Loughlins and I'd say we were probably in training with Kilkenny for the pre-season no more than two, three or four weeks after the final.
"It's probably been a small bit different. There was a couple of months there were you weren't bringing the hurls to training, you were just running and doing your gym stuff as well.
"It's been great so far. This is my first pre-season since I've been in with Kilkenny. It probably gives us a chance to get a block of work done that we haven't been able to the last five years or so.
"You definitely see yourself getting fitter and stronger and getting the body into good condition for the coming championship."
There’s no doubting that Kilkenny have had Clare’s number in the championship arena with eight wins compared to their opponent’s sole success back in the 1997 All-Ireland semi-final.
For the past two seasons, Clare have travelled to Croke Park in expectation rather than hope for further semi-final encounters with the Leinster kingpins, but the Cats have cut their journey a game shorter than they would have liked on both occasions.
Still though, Mullen is urging caution.
"Clare are a serious outfit and we've seen that over the last number of seasons. There have been huge titanic battles that we've had against them over the last few years. We've beaten them on a couple of occasions, they beat us not so long ago.
"Anytime you play against them you have to be on top of your game and you have to really make sure you can produce the goods on the day or else you won't be coming out the right side of things."
One final major factor to consider for the final is the weather. While Tipperary has escaped an orange weather warning ahead of Storm Kathleen’s visit on Saturday, Semple Stadium will be under a yellow warning until 8pm, or roughly the half-time interval.
"I suppose you have controllables and you have things you can't control and unfortunately is something we can't control," Mullen said of the predicted inclement conditions.
"More often than not in Ireland the weather is usually not so great this time of the year. All we know is that we have a match at quarter past seven on Saturday night and whatever the weather is, it is. But we'll be ready to go."
Follow a live blog on Kilkenny v Clare in the Allianz Hurling League final on Saturday from 7.15pm on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live updates on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch Monaghan v Cavan in the Ulster Football Championship on Sunday from 3.15pm on RTÉ2, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to updates from all matches on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Follow a live blog on New York v Mayo in the Connacht Football Championship on Sunday from 8pm on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app
