THE STATISTIC WAS thrown at Gearoid Hegarty and he was left momentarily startled.
He and his brilliant band of Limerick hurling team-mates only had five points on the board with half an hour gone in Sunday’s All-Ireland final.
Then they exploded to life, raising 25 white flags from there to the final whistle, sealing four-in-a-row and maintaining this team’s awesome run.
“Wow, I didn’t know that now, that’s interesting. Conditions were tough. Like, it wasn’t that slippy or rainy, but there was a massive wind out there, I don’t know if you could pick that up on the TV or in the stands, but there was a very strong wind and it was hard to play against it in the first half.
“They’re such an honest team, Kilkenny. Any time you come up against Kilkenny you just will not get anything easy,
“They were well set up in the first half. They’re a really good team. We have massive respect for Kilkenny. They know that, I hope.
“We knew we were going to have a purple patch and when we got it we knew we had to make it pay, and we did. I can’t wait to watch it back because it was incredible to be out there during that purple patch. I don’t know how long it lasted, I don’t know how many points we scored in a row but it felt like we were just scoring at will at times.”
Limerick’s mentality is cast-iron. They didn’t waver even when that first half was not unfolding as they would have liked.
Where does that resilience come from?
“Good question, yeah. I just honestly think inside that dressing-room you have some of the most competitive people I’ve ever come across in my life.
“I’d like to say that I’m an extremely competitive person and I even struggle at times when I’m not with those lads in other settings, if I’m playing golf or just doing anything, and other people don’t match my competitiveness.
“I just think we hate losing. No matter what situation we’re in – like we were 10 points down in a Munster final a couple of years ago – we don’t panic, we never feel like we’re beaten.”
If four was the number most commentators focused on for the series of successive All-Ireland title wins, for Hegarty it was a target of five that was in his head.
“Personally I don’t place much importance on winning four-in-a-row, I just wanted a fifth All-Ireland medal.
“That was all that was on my mind. Maybe in time when I look back I’ll say, ‘yeah, okay, what an unbelievable achievement to win four in a row’ and of course it is an unbelievable achievement, but all I wanted today was to get another All-Ireland medal because it’s so, so hard to win.
“The year we’ve had has been so difficult. Constantly, we were being written off all over the country and that feels like such a long time ago but we’re the last ones standing.
“I went up to the (Hogan) Stand a while ago to get up to my parents, they were way up in the back of the lower Hogan, and Hammy Dawson who would be an absolute stalwart of St Patrick’s GAA was roaring in about five in a row.
“And I just said to him, ‘Forget about next year, just enjoy what we’ve done today’.
“Because it is so, so hard to beat Kilkenny in an All-Ireland final. We did it last year, we did it this year. We have to enjoy it and by God will we enjoy it.”
