Richie Bennis pictured after Limerick's draw with Tipperary in 2007 Munster SHC semi-final replay.
The Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tour of Croke Park with Richie Bennis takes place this Saturday at 2pm. For ticket details click here.
By John Harrington
Limerick hurling great Richie Bennis received his hurling education in a school of sibling hard knocks.
He grew up with six brothers and six sisters, and all of them shared a passion for the game.
In terms of the familial pecking order, Richie was fairly low down – 10th out of 13 – and there was little in the way of handy ball pucked in his direction.
You had to learn how to win it yourself, and that often meant earning a lump or two along the way.
“You can chalk that down,” says Bennis with a chuckle.
“You know yourself, in a confined area we didn't have a whole lot of room.
“We lived in a lodge running into a big domain and there was a wood beside us and we had it kind of worn away from our hurling.
“It was a very confined space so you got the rough and the tough!”
The Patrickswell club is now one of the most famous in the country, but until the Bennis boys came along it was hardly mapped.
In 1963 the club was seriously contemplating dropping down to the Junior grade, but after a vote decided to continue plying their trade in the senior.
That proved a wise decision, because two years later they won their first ever county senior title with five Bennis brothers leading the charge.
They made it back to back county titles in ’66, and this time there were six Bennis brothers on the team.
“That second county championship, we won it out of just five houses,” recalls Bennis.
“That's because there was no television back then! Television is one of the best contraceptives of all time!”
Spend any time talking to Bennis and he’ll keep a smile on your face with zingers like that one, which is good news for any GAA supporters planning to attend his GAA Legends Tour in Croke Park this Saturday.
Richie Bennis (centre) celebrates Patrickswell's 2016 Limerick County SHC triumph with his grandson Riain Bennis and team captain Diarmaid Byrnes.
A key player for the Shannonsiders when they won their last All-Ireland title in 1973, Limerick fans in attendance could hardly ask for anything better to get them in the mood for the following day’s All-Ireland Final against Galway.
The Treaty County has endured no shortage of heart-break since ’73, and Bennis and his team-mates endured plenty of it too before that landmark success.
The one-point Munster Final defeat to Tipperary in 1971 remains a sore one.
Bennis regards that Limerick as an even better one than the ’73 All-Ireland winning side, but in that Munster Final they somehow lost a match they really should have won.
“My recollection is that we were six points ahead at half-time which would have been a huge lead in those days,” says Bennis.
“Then all the ex-hurlers of 1940s Limerick team jumped on the bandwagon and came into the dressing-room at half-time telling us how great we were instead of keeping out of it.
“We got complacent then and the rest is history.”
Watching that Tipperary team go on to win the All-Ireland Final in ’71 rubbed salt into Limerick’s wounds, but they made amends two years later when the teams met again in a Munster Final.
This time it was Limerick who came out on top by a point, with Bennis hitting a somewhat controversial winner from a last-gasp ’65.
The Tipperary players and supporters were adamant the ball had drifted wide, but Bennis is just as certain the score was a good one.
“It was a point,” he says. “Of course the Tipperary crowd weren't the best in defeat, I suppose none of us are, in all fairness.
“The relief in the stadium that day when we won by a point was unreal.”
The 1973 All-Ireland winning Limerick hurling team. Richie Bennis is pictured on the far left of the back row.
The relief felt by the supporters was shared by the players. They had never put in a greater effort than they had in ’73, so it meant the world to finally deliver the county’s first Munster championship since 1955.
“In ’73 we had a very good trainer in Mickey Cregan, he was an army man,” says Bennis. “The panel was very dedicated, there were no problems with training.
“People talk about hard training now, but we trained fierce hard in '73. Mickey was only two or three years older than me at the time so he was young, and he really knew his stuff in terms of physical fitness.
“We trained for an hour and a half of constant going at every training session.”
Because they knew they had all that hard work banked, the Limerick hurlers went into the All-Ireland SHC Final against Kilkenny in a relatively sanguine state of mind.
The county hadn’t won an All-Ireland title since 1940 so hype in the county was at the same sort of fever-pitch it is this week ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland Final.
But that never translated into any sort of performance anxiety as far as the players themselves were concerned.
“We were very well prepared,” said Bennis. “Believe it or not, I don't think there was any nerves worth talking about before the match.
“That's because we were so well prepared. We had confidence in what we were doing and we felt that we were well capable of winning regardless of what Kilkenny team was fielded that day.
“We had beaten them in League matches prior to that. We were something like the current Limerick hurling team. They're going up to Croke Park this weekend with no baggage and it was the same for us.”
Bennis scored 10 points as Limerick stormed to a 1-21 to 1-14 victory, and it was only when the final whistle blew that the enormity of what they had just achieved really dawned on the Patrickswell man.
“It was unreal, the relief,” he says. “I'd say Mick Slattery blew up the game a few seconds early because the crowd had all around the pitch invaded and it was only a matter of time before they ran on to it.
“When the whistle went the celebrations were unreal. Everyone was wearing paper hats and it was an awful wet day so you could see all the dye running down people's faces, but they didn't care.”
Limerick players and supporters celebrate on the Croke Park pitch after their 1973 All-Ireland SHC Final victory over Kilkenny.
Limerick reached the All-Ireland Final again in ’74 but this time Kilkenny turned the tables on them, running out comfortable 12-point winners.
When Bennis looks back on that day and his inter-county career as a whole, he can’t help but feel he and his team-mates of that era were underachievers.
“We didn't put in the same effort in '74,” he said. “No fault of the trainer, it was our own fault. We knew too much and probably thought we didn't need to put in the same effort.
“We were six points up after eight minutes and then they got two goals. One of them was a free that I'd dispute to this day. But after they got those two goals they beat us fairly well.
“As a team we could have achieved more and we should have achieved more, in fairness.
“From '66 to '74 we should have won two or three All-Irelands. But, that said, Kilkenny, Cork, and Tipperary were all at their best around the same time.”
Bennis retired from inter-county hurling in 1975 and poured his considerable energy in playing and then coaching at all levels for Patrickswell.
He was appointed Limerick’s interim manager in 2006 in the wake of 17-point defeat to Clare in the group stage of the All-Ireland SHC Qualifiers, and immediately had a restorative impact on the team.
Victories over Offaly and Dublin clinched a place in the All-Ireland SHC quarter-final against Cork where they were unlucky to lose by a point to reigning All-Ireland champions.
Bennis was appointed manager on a full-time basis on the back of that achievement, and proved his worth once again in 2007 as Limerick reached the All-Ireland Final against the odds.
Richie Bennis celebrates with his daughters Imelda (left) and Alison after Limerick's All-Ireland SHC semi-final victory over Waterford in 2007.
The success-starved Limerick supporters turned Croke Park green and white on the day, but their team never quite recovered from a slow start against a great Kilkenny team at the peak of its powers.
“Joe Rock, who would have been caretaker in Croke Park for a very long time, said it was the biggest roar in his life-time in Croke Park and Brian Cody said afterwards it did more for them than us,” said Bennis.
“We were nine points down at one stage and got it back to five points by half-time.
“Andrew Shaughnessy, who was a great hurler and a fine game on the day, he lost his hurley for some reason or another in front of the goal and had to kick it.
“If he had his hurley we may have gotten it back to two points and had a chance, but Kilkenny pulled away after that.
“We played that Kilkenny team at their very best. We'd have beaten anybody else at that time.”
Bennis gives the current Limerick team the edge over the side he managed in that 2007 All-Ireland Final for a surprising reason – he believes there’s an internal tension caused by club rivalries that's fuelling their fire.
“To me, that (2007) team was too close,” said Bennis. “At club level there were no bitter rivalries at the time, which is unusual.
“It was the opposite in my time and even in the present day there's a bit of rivalry in the current team which is a good thing.
“You can't beat rivalry, it brings the best out of you. You don't want your players to be best friends in that dressing-room.
“If there's an edge there the players will drive another on. There was a serious edge there in '73 and I think it might be similar this year.”
It’s often said of young up and coming teams that they have to lose one to win one, and that line has been trotted out this week more than once about the current Limerick side.
Limerick manager Richie Bennis (l) and Kilkenny manager Brian Cody pictured on the sideline during the 2007 All-Ireland SHC Final.
Bennis thinks it’s a load of hogwash, and hopes these young Limerick hurlers realise they have to seize the day on Sunday because there’s no guarantee they’ll ever be back here again.
“They're young and they very talented and they're very level-headed,” he said. “They know what they're doing and they're sticking to a plan.
“But I don't like this talk of saying they're young as if that's an excuse for not winning this match, because next year anything could happen.
“Even getting out of Munster next year will be a battle. You could easily be beaten by a point by Tipperary, Cork, and Clare. That wouldn't make you a bad team but you wouldn't qualify.
“Your future is your next match. You have to seize these opportunities when they come along.”
“What will stand to this Limerick team is that they're after winning an All-Ireland semi-final where the atmosphere was something like what it will be in the All-Ireland Final. So they're prepared for what will come on Sunday.
“I definitely think they can win. I said coming up to the Cork game that we were good enough to beat them and if we hurled to our potential we would.
“I feel the very same way coming into this game.”
As one of the men who won Limerick’s last All-Ireland medal in ’73, Bennis is as close as you’ll get to hurling royalty in the Treaty County.
He doesn’t mind admitting he enjoys that status, but he’d love nothing more than to cede his throne to this current generation of Limerick hurlers.
“We'd like to pass on the baton at this stage,” he said.
“Nobody likes to be forgotten. Anyone who says they wouldn't mind being forgotten is telling lies.
“But it's time for a new team to come through now and do it because the youth can't relate to the likes of me or Eamon Cregan.
“They need new heroes. I really hope we can do it this year.”
The Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tour of Croke Park with Richie Bennis takes place this Saturday at 2pm. For ticket details click here.
