Anthony Daly has described Limerick hurling coach Paul Kinnerk as "the master" when it comes to strategy on the pitch.
Kinnerk, who played inter-county football for Limerick, was part of Davy Fitzgerald's backroom team when Clare won the All-Ireland a decade ago. He was also a coach with the Banner U21s as they won three All-Ireland titles.
Kinnerk joined the Limerick senior hurlers in 2017, and has been one of the main men behind their four Liam MacCarthy title wins in the past five seasons.
"He has come up with different ways of playing it," Daly told the Electric Ireland GAA Minor Moments podcast.
"Look at the evolution of someone like Barry Nash over the last couple of years. A total new dimension. Declan Hannon, when had all pigeon holed Hannon in the sitting deep in the pocket six, but how often now in every game is Hannon going up and scoring a couple of points and really making teams think?"
During his three years as director of coaching for the Limerick hurling academy between 2015 and 2017, Daly would often pick the brains of his football counterpart. That was Paul Kinnerk. He held that role for eight years between 2014 and 2022.
28 May 2023; Limerick manager John Keily celebrates with Paul Kinnerk and Mike O'Riordan, right, at the final whistle of the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 5 match between Limerick and Cork at TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
"We discovered him as a hurling coach up here in the Banner," said two-time Clare All-Ireland winner Daly.
"He's teaching in the Comp. He has big Clare connections back in Doonbeg.
"He was doing the football academy every Saturday morning the same as I was. Then he was doing one night in the middle of the week, probably a Wednesday night, with their minors or whatever.
"Any time I got a chance to get a hold of him, come in and do a session, and break down a few things [I would]. We'd meet the whole time.
"I'd be going into Limerick early for a Wednesday night session and I'd say, 'Are you around UL?' He'd say, 'I am. I am. We'll go for tae'.
"I'd bounce a few ideas off him about tackling - when to swarm tackle, when not to swarm tackle. He had great ideas. An innovator really."
Daly recalled a Limerick coaching conference, which was chaired by current senior hurling manager John Kiely, where he saw Kinnerk's desire to learn.
22 August 2021; Limerick players, from left, Barry Hennessy and his daughter Hope, Graeme Mulcahy and daughter Róise, selector Paul Kinnerk and his daughter Enya and Nickie Quaid and his son Dáithí after the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Cork and Limerick in Croke Park, Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
"Every underage coach was in there. Paul was in there, I was in there. I'd say their U21 management was there as well," said Daly.
"Paul asked us to come up with a typical session that we'd do for the minor hurlers. John Mulqueen took the PowerPoint. It was an excellent presentation from Mul. Kinnerk just lifted his head at the end of it, he'd been writing, writing, writing, and he said, 'Thanks, Mul, I'm after getting three new things I'm going to be using tomorrow night'.
"Everyone in the room felt straight away, 'This guy is the same as ourselves. He's willing to learn'. He shared loads of stuff with us, without sharing everything, I'd say.
"You'd have often heard Brian Cody talking at various conferences and he'd be talking about the great spirit they had in Kilkenny. I'd be coming home saying, 'All I have to do is create a spirit' but it wasn't that simple.
"I heard Mickey Harte giving a talk one time as well at a coaches' conference. I was lapping up all this stuff around the early 2000s. Mickey was incredibly detailed in what he gave away. It was excellent. You couldn't do enough of that if you're young and an aspiring coach."
15 October 2016; Paul Kinnerk of Monaleen during the Limerick County Senior Club Football Championship Final match between Monaleen and Dromcollogher-Broadford match at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Daly explained that one particular practice he learned from Kinnerk was that "he'd never watch the match as we watch it on TV".
"He'll only watch the high behind camera [angle]," said Daly.
"He will never watch a match straight on. They'll set up their own high behind from one end and he'll get the RTÉ one if they're covering it. Otherwise, they'll do their own two high behinds.
"It's to highlight movement, and who didn't make the runs, and who did make the runs but didn't get the ball."
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