Listen to this. Four years ago, before Limerick played Cork in the Munster championship, Sean Finn decided to change his hurley, dramatically. The modern preference is for shorter sticks, 33 inches or 34, handy instruments for slick pick-ups and snappy passes, but Finn thought he needed more reach for the mechanics of defending. So he practised for a while with a 37 inch hurley and committed to the switch.
Anybody who plays golf will know the perils of changing clubs and for hurlers the same dynamics apply: for the relationship to flourish, the hurley must feel like another limb. Longer hurleys are heavier and a little more difficult to manipulate, and all of that must have entered Finn’s calculation.
Anyway, Limerick played with 14 men