Cathal O'Neill puts Limerick's hunger down to the strength and depth in the squad

CATHAL O’Neill said the strength and depth of the Limerick senior hurling squad is what is keeping the players hungry for success this year.

“If you’re not hungry the next lad is going to take your place, you’ve no choice. Limerick, as a whole, we haven’t won a whole lot over the years. We just want to win as much as we can while we can.”

Seamus Flanagan and Sean Finn missed Sunday’s Munster final and the impressive win is testament to the Shannonsiders depth. 

“It just shows how hard we train and how much trust the management team has in everyone,” O'Neill said.

"When boys go down, it’s next man up and it's as simple as that. They do their job and everyone tries to do their job to the best of their ability. Thankfully, it paid off again today.”

O’Neill has been part of the Limerick senior hurling panel since 2021 and the centre half-forward has really cemented his place in the starting XV this year. The Crecora-Manister clubman spoke after the game about how much a Munster title means as a player on the starting XV.

“You're part of the team, you’re contributing. It means a hell of a lot. There’s 36 lads in there, we train so hard every night and it means everything to us."

“It’s really hard because there are a core group of players from 2015, 2017 and 2018 and us young lads as well. You’re trying to make your stamp on the team. Everyone wants to play. It’s really tough, but I suppose every night at training you’ve to got to put your hand up and hopefully that the management team put the trust in you.”

Limerick defeated Clare 1-26 to 1-20 in the Munster final and O’Neill believes it was one of his team's best performances this year.

"When the lines are drawn after 2023, it’s a new chapter and a new year. We just want to win silverware this year and that’s our main focus. We want to win match by match, get to finals and win finals. That’s our main focus every day we go out on the training pitch to get better and I think we got better again today and it was probably one of our best performances of the year.”

The achievement of winning six provincial titles in-a-row isn’t something the players thought about in the lead-up to the game, revealed the highly-rated O’Neill.

"Coming into today [Sunday], you wouldn’t be thinking that. You’re playing Clare, we have to perform really well and hopefully we get over the line and we did, thank God.”

Clare got a goal from Peter Duggan right on the stroke of half-time to have the sides level, 1-10 to 0-13, at the break. After the interval, Limerick scored the first four points on the resumption of play which was a momentum turning point.

“There was a stiff enough breeze. The message was that the breeze won’t win you any game. We got to keep playing like we’re playing."

“We were getting a lot of ball inside into the full-forward line and keep doing that, the boys were doing really well inside. The message was just to plough on. We got on top of their puck-out which was a huge platform and drove on from there.”

The goal from Gearoid Hegarty on 45 minutes, from a sweetly struckground shot, was a huge score which put John Kiely’s side 1-18 to 1-12 ahead.

“It came at a nice time. It put us five or six up. At that stage then, it's win the next ball and keep winning the puckout and drive on again. He’s [Gearoid] a brilliant leader in our group. He’s always driving standards and you can see it in his performances this year,” said O’Neill.

History-making Limerick now have a four week break until their All-Ireland SHC semi-final at Croke Park on Sunday, July 7.