Gearoid Hegarty: 'I'm always a huge believer that the best way to go is the shortest route'

GEAROID Hegarty hasn't done anything different this year compared to previous years playing for Limerick.

“Any year you win the Munster championship, you’re happy regardless of how I went myself. The most important thing is we have won another Munster championship. The Munster championship is talked about as the greatest competition – I think it’s talked about as the greatest competition between hurling and football in any of the provinces along with the Ulster football championship.

“To win another Munster championship is massive and all the benefits that it brings is obviously brilliant. But in terms of my performances I was quite happy, quite satisfied with how it’s gone so far.

“Something somebody told me a couple years ago has always stuck with me, that you never play as well as you think you played and you never play as badly as you think you played. It’s something in between.

“I’m a big man to reflect, I always reflect on the games that I play and I’d be pretty happy with how it’s gone so far, but there is always room for improvement. Always.

“I’m always looking to improve no matter how badly or how well I’ve played, I’m always looking to go to the next day and play better than I did the last day. It’s that consistency that I’m always striving for.”

Hegarty scored 1-12 throughout the Munster championship and won two Man of the Match awards against Clare in the round-robin series and in the Munster final.

“ I’m 30 in August, which is another story, I can’t believe I’m 30 in August, but I feel like I’ve a fair idea how to approach a season nowadays whether it’s in pre-season, the Allianz League, the break between the league and championship or the championship.

“I do the same thing over and over. I didn’t necessarily go over cutting down (losing weight) now, you’re not the first person to say that to me, a good few people have said that to me. It’s not something I went after, no. Look, it’s not a bad thing to have said to you but it’s amazing how the mind works. It’s a compliment but I’m always thinking to myself, ‘Jeez, was I in bad shape last year?’ That’s just the way it is.”

The four-week break from the Munster final until the All-Ireland semi-final is something which has been welcomed by players and management.

“I wouldn't say it's exactly the same. In fairness to the management team, they always have a couple of tweaks just to keep things fresh. It's funny because the four-week break, which was six weeks back in the day, used to be seen as a massive negative.

“But I think the view on that has definitely changed a good bit with all the benefits now that the four-week break actually brings in terms of being able to take a break, give lads a chance to get back from any niggles or knocks that they have, so on and so forth. Look, we've dealt with it over the last number of years. I'm always a huge believer that the best way to go is the shortest route.

“It's the least risk and the more of a break you get, the more rest you get, the fresher you are going into a game.

“Obviously there are a couple of risks associated with the break because we won't have a game, whereas whoever we do play in the semi-final will have played since our last game. But I'd take this route 100 times out of 100”

In the last five years once Limerick have arrived in Croke Park, John Kiely's side has played some of their best hurling in that venue.

“I think we've done it quite well over the last number of years where we've been getting better from game to game. That's the challenge again in Croker on July 7.

“We were happy with how the Munster final and the Munster Championship went. But for myself individually and for the team as a collective, we're always trying to get better and always looking to be better than the last day. It'll be the same again the next day.”

The most notable absentee from the Limerick senior management team has been Caroline Currid. The sport psychologist departed their set-up ion 2023. Secondary school teacher Hegarty doesn't feel they have felt her loss from the team with the work the Sligo native did in previous years.

“I think the biggest compliment I could pay her is to say that her absence hasn't been felt because of all the brilliant work that she had done with us over the years. Like, we're a completely different team now to the one that she came into back in 2017, 2018 or whenever it was.”