‘Jeez, was I in bad shape last year?’ – Limerick’s Gearóid Hegarty raises his game after below-par 2023 campaign

After a sub-par 2023 campaign, at least by his lofty standards, Hegarty (right) roared back to form in the Munster Championship, the 2020 Hurler of the Year turning in a man-of-the-match performance in the final against Clare, bagging 1-2.

Hegarty was “quite happy” with his performances, but his natural aversion to notions stops him from going beyond that. “Something somebody told me a couple of 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.”

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Through much of 2023, he had to fall back on the latter part of that, Hegarty’s form not where he wanted it as the Limerick juggernaut chugged along to a fourth straight All-Ireland title. “I was delighted with how the league went and delighted going into [the] championship and I just got off to a bad start, a terrible start – picked up two stupid yellow cards in the first game, got dropped for the second game and we lost and all of a sudden, you’re staring down the gauntlet of maybe not getting out of Munster.

“I just found it hard for the rest of the Munster Championship to find a bit of form, but as the year went on, I felt like I was getting stronger and stronger in every game. From the Cork game on, I was starting to find my form. I was only getting going as the year was finishing.”

In the autumn, the St Patrick’s clubman got a “really nasty injury” – a dead leg that caused him to miss most of the club championship. Still, the net result was Hegarty went into his pre-season with Limerick “really fresh and mad for road”. He’s had a clean run with injuries this season and it’s showing. “I played a lot of league and you’re able to get into a bit of a rhythm, find a bit of form early on and just kept going from there.”

Several people have suggested he looks to have lost weight this year, though if that’s true, it wasn’t by design. “It’s not a bad thing to have said to you, but it’s amazing how the mind works,” he says. “It’s a compliment, but I’m always thinking to myself, ‘Jeez, was I in bad shape last year?’”

Limerick have had a four-week break since the Munster final and Hegarty believes in the modern game that’s an advantage. “Obviously, there are a couple of risks associated with the break because we won’t have [had] a game. But I’d take this route 100 times out of 100.”

The doubts that lingered over Limerick’s form early in the season have dissipated, and while things have changed this year, with sports psychologist Caroline Currid no longer part of their set-up, Hegarty knows her effect is felt still as they head down the home straight of the championship.

“The biggest compliment I could pay her is to say that her absence hasn’t been felt because of all the brilliant work she had done with us over the years,” he says. “Joe O’Connor has come back in with us and was our strength and conditioning coach in 2018. He has kind of taken on the mantle now in terms of the psychology stuff and everything is going pretty well so far.”

Limerick may be four-point favourites over Cork with the bookies, but the memories of that Páirc Uí Chaoimh classic in May are still fresh for the men in green.

“We have been found out in a couple of group games over the last number of years, and when you’re slightly off, you’ll be punished by the best teams,” says Hegarty. “That’s what happened this year down in Cork. We didn’t play well, they were better than us on the day and deserved to win. You always have to be ready. You have to be at your best. If you’re not at your best, you’ll be beaten – simple as.”

Gearóid Hegarty was speaking as an ambassador for Bord Gáis Energy​