William O'Donoghue: Limerick hurling final is 'the day that everyone still wants to be in'
ELEVEN years ago Na Piarsaigh announced their arrival on the Limerick club hurling scene with a breakthrough county senior hurling title victory.
The Caherdavin men have since added another five further Limerick SHC titles since, four Munster club and an All-Ireland title.
A couple of weeks after Kieran Bermingham captained the Light Blues to their maiden Daly Cup title, Na Piarsaigh won a county minor hurling title.
That U18 side captained by Shane Dowling will provide six members of Sunday’s starting team against Kilmallock – William O’Donoghue, Mike Casey, David Dempsey, Mike Foley, Ronan Lynch and Evan Condon.
More from that minor side will be part of the Na Piarsaigh intermediate panel that faces Croagh-Kilfinny in the Limerick IHC final next month.
“It’s brilliant now but if we come away empty handed and the intermediates come away empty handed, there will nearly be a review! We’d be asking a lot of questions and looking internally but for the minute it’s positive and going the right direction and we have a lot of people playing adult hurling in Na Piarsaigh and all those people want to do the best that they can for Na Piarsaigh so that can only be a good thing,” said William O’Donoghue when talking of the club’s quest for a club hurling championship double.
“Where that takes us in the next few weeks I don’t know, but hopefully it will give us every chance of trying to perform on the day on the pitch.”
Across the County SHC and IHC, Na Piarsaigh have played 12 games and remain undefeated.
“At the start of any year it’s the end objective - we would be breaking it down into the group stages and stuff but at the start of the year that’s the day that everyone still wants to be in and in with a fighting chance to try and go and achieve a county championship victory. We happened to get there this year so that’s a positive because we weren’t there last year so it’s a positive step,” said the inter-county star.
The Limerick SHC group phase saw the Light Blues return four wins and a final round draw with Ahane.
“We were just trying to put in decent performances and to get better as the competition goes on - there is no cup given out in the first two rounds or any those preliminary fixtures, it’s just about trying to get through them and trying to play as decent a brand of hurling as you can and gather momentum.”
Na Piarsaigh met newcomers South Liberties in the semi final.
“Last year the two teams that came through the quarter finals got to the county final - we were well aware of the advantage of having a quarter final and those championship minutes under your belt. We knew South Liberties were coming off the back of a really good win against Patrickswell and it was obviously going to fill them with a lot of confidence. We knew we needed to be at our best to try and win the game. In fairness we had a lot of wides in the first half so it didn’t look like we had paid much heed to it but we were still working the ball well and still trying to do the right things - it just wasn’t happening for us but we stuck at it and ground out a semi final win and that’s what they are for, for winning,” outlined O’Donoghue.
Next up familiar foes in Kilmallock.
“Obviously we have come across Kilmallock a lot and that’s the nature of it when you have been sharing the spoils for the last few years and with the format we have you are going to bump into everyone every year. We are no strangers to one another and I am sure it will be a really good game,” said the Na Piarsaigh captain.
“There is probably no pairing that could make up a Limerick senior final at the minute that wouldn’t be an attractive fixture. Look at the way the quarter finals went and the two teams coming from 1B; one team won and the other one ran Doon to a point and in the semi finals the Doon and Kilmallock game was incredibly tight and ours was a lot closer than it looked - you could have any one of potentially six or eight teams in a county final and it would make for a mouth-watering contest,” said O’Donoghue.