Declan Hannon: Limerick hurlers 'trying to improve our performances in this league'

HE’S captained the ship for four of Limerick’s magical All-Ireland wins, hoisting the Liam MacCarthy Cup proudly over his head, reminiscent of Simba’s presentation in Disney’s The Lion King.

Yet for Declan Hannon, even after celebrating his 30th birthday, there appear to be no signs of Limerick’s skipper slowing down.

Limerick fans everywhere are living in the light of glory that is the most successful hurling team to come out of the Treaty county

All that appears to be on every supporter’s mind seems to be whether Limerick can win four in-a-row.

For some, you’d imagine this thought would cause a lot of pressure but overthinking has no place in Hannon’s head.

“For me, overthinking things is not an option,” Declan said.

All that seems to be on Declan’s mind as his 13th senior hurling season with Limerick approaches is focusing on the upcoming Allianz League.

It took Limerick quite a while to warm up to the league last year and in the end, they only came away with three points but Declan is determined to change that statistic this time around.

“It wasn’t our plan to give the performances we did throughout the league, I suppose we were training really hard and trying to bring that onto the match day field. It wasn’t happening for us early on. For us, it’s all about trying to give a performance each day out. We’ll be going hell for leather training again and trying to get to the first round of the league in the best shape we can.”

“We want to win every game we play and at the very least give a performance because we didn’t perform at all in a lot of the games. We were well beaten and the teams that beat us deserved those wins as well… We’ll be trying to improve our performances in this league, that’s for sure,” Declan added.

Last season, even though it paid off with an All-Ireland win, was one of the toughest.

“With the round-robin being back there were a lot more games. It was so physically demanding and mentally demanding. It’s hard to be at the top of your game for all those matches, especially when it’s coming down to the last two or three minutes,” he said.

“It was probably the toughest. 2020 was quite hard as well with Covid, there was so much going on outside of training, trying to mind yourself and your families, that was quite tough as well.”