​By John Harrington

When Limerick footballer Ian Ryan burst onto inter-county scene in 2008 he joined a Limerick team that was capable of mixing it with any county in the country.

Many of the stars of the team that had narrowly lost consecutive Munster Finals to Kerry in 2004 and 2005 were still going strong and the emergence of a top-class forward like Ryan had the potential to turn them from nearly-men into winners.

In his first Championship campaign they ran Cork close in the Munster Semi-Final and then made headlines by hammering Meath 4-12 to 4-3 in the first round of the Qualifiers. Ryan scored 3-7 himself that day and finished the year with 3-20 from four Championship matches to frank his status as one of the most outstanding young forwards in the country.

Limerick knocked loudly on the door again in 2009 when they were desperately unlucky to lose to Cork by a point in the Munster Final, and they could easily have beaten Kerry again in the provincial decider again the following year. Since then though, Limerick football has been on a slow, steady slide with no signs of a recovery anytime soon. They are no longer capable of mixing it with the big-boys, and Ryan admits it has been hard to come to terms with.

At the age of 27 he is in the prime of his career, but his prospects don’t look good. Many of his peers have quit the game, and the only thing that keeps him going is he doesn’t know any different.

"In 2009, we lost to Cork, 2010 to Kerry,” says Ryan. “Two bad defeats. We definitely had the chance to win the Cork one. Against Kerry, they had a good lead and we came back from seven points down. They are games I'll never forget. There's still a bit of regret, feel a bit bitter towards it.

"Maybe, in years to come, I'll be able to look back and say 'God, I actually played in a Munster final which was fantastic'. But the gap has widened an awful lot. It is hard to see how we can get back to having a chance of getting to a Munster final. 

"It’s hard, a lot of my friends have gone, players from the team I started playing with have retired. A couple of players my own age have retired as well, very young. The main thing that keeps me going is I don’t know any different. Ever since I’ve been 14 or 15 I’ve been training for football. I find that when we are out, even with the club in October or November, very tough. I find it tough midweek sitting down watching TV and you are thinking ‘I should be doing something.’

“It is hard to change a routine, it becomes part of your life really. You would question it sometimes like ‘why am I doing it?’ but it’s lack of other interests really, football is my one and true interest. It’s like a past-time and a job.”

It must have felt like hard-work during this year’s Allianz League Division 3 campaign when Limerick finished bottom of the table with just one point from seven matches a scoring difference of -35. They were unlucky in some of the matches and lost narrowly to Kildare and Longford, but Ryan admits the confidence of the group has taken a hit from the six defeats in a row they suffered after drawing their first-round match against Tipperary.

"Very disappointing,” he says. “We had aspirations of promotion and, in the first two games, we set our sights on four points. We were disappointed with the result in Tipperary. Up three points and we threw it away. The following week, then against Longford, and we lost a five point lead with 15 minutes to go. So we could have had four points, instead we had one. We were chasing after that. Winning is a habit. You see that with the big teams. They get on a roll and it makes a big difference.

"We're stuck in a rut and found it very hard to get out of it. We just couldn't get a win, no matter what we tried. We couldn't get a result. It was a very difficult League. We probably deserve our status in Division Four next year with the way we played. We were in winning positions in a couple of games and had chances to win them. We failed to get over the line. When it happens repeatedly, it's tough.

"Definitely, it gets at your confidence. Doubts start to creep in at times. You start thinking 'are we doing something wrong?' or maybe start thinking about your own game, thinking too much. It would definitely affect your confidence.”

When Limerick were competitive in the mid-2000s, many of the best dual players in the county like Stephen Lucey, Conor Fitzgerald, Brian Begley, Mark O’Riordan, Mike O’Brien, and Mark Keane chose to play football when they were told by the Limerick hurling team management they had to pick one code to focus on. 

Nowadays though, the best dual players in the county all put hurling first at senior and underage inter-county level. But a bigger issue again for Limerick football is that many of the county’s best players are sufficiently motivated to play inter-county football.

"We would have a lot of excellent footballers in Limerick who are not committing to playing football, at the moment,” says Ryan. “There are a number of issues. Number one is the time commitment...it is a huge commitment. You start training November, December, January in the worst of weather. Who in their right mind would want to be out Tuesday night, Thursday night in very bad conditions? In cold, wet weather. That's definitely tough.

"The average life expectancy of a GAA player has gone way down. I remember when I first came on to the Limerick panel back in 2008, a lot of fellas on that team played 12, 13, 14, 15 years with the county. At the moment, with the time commitment, you're probably looking at an average of four to five years.”

The current senior inter-county team might be at a low ebb, but there are some green-shoots of growth at underage level. Clare senior hurling team coach, Paul Kinnerk, is also Head Coach of Limerick’s Underage Football Academy, and it’s clear his work is starting to have an impact. The Limerick minor footballers beat Tipperary and Waterford on route to the Munster semi-final this year, and the U-21 footballers gave Kerry a run for their money in the Munster semi-final. Ryan is encouraged by the talent that is starting to emerge, but believes it will be hard for the Limerick seniors to be competitive in the short-term because a generation of footballers have simply disappeared off the map.

“There is a four or five year gap,” he says. “When the present minor team made the Munster semi-final it was the first time since 2008 and there are none of the 2008 team on the senior panel at the moment. I was on the 2007 team, we got to the Munster semi-final and I’m the only player from that. So fellas who would be 26 or 27 this year, I’m the only one that is there.

“A missing generation there definitely. The underage academy at the minute, there is great enthusiasm, you see a lot of the older Limerick players there training the teams. They have great knowledge and they are bringing a buzz back into Limerick football which is great.”

Ryan gets a familiar buzz himself at this time of the year when the Championship comes around. Limerick might not be where they were when he first burst onto the scene, but he’s as committed to the cause as he’s ever been.

It’s all he knows.