BIG TIME HURLING winners in Croke Park, fans watching the best golfers in the world playing in Adare.
The Limerick hurlers clinched their third successive All-Ireland final place, edging out Galway in a brilliant contest in last Sunday’s semi-final, as they stay on course to land the Liam MacCarthy Cup for the fourth time in five years.
For captain Declan Hannon the chance to watch others star in the sporting spotlight in his native Adare on Monday at the JP McManus Pro-Am was a different way to recover after a high-octane hurling tie.
“They were a great (couple of days), sure it’s fabulous out there. JP and Noreen (McManus) put on an unbelievable event. The calibre of golfers there was amazing and to have it on our doorstep, you couldn’t wish for anything better after Sunday winning the game and then being able to walk around and watch some of the best golfers in the world. It was pretty nice.
“We met a lot of them. We met Scottie Scheffler and Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and (Rory) McIlroy and Lowry. Sure we might never see them again. We did our best to try to get a few photos with them anyway.
“I walked around with my Mam and Dad for the majority of the day Monday, they’d a great time, they loved it. There was a great atmosphere around the place, everyone’s in good form. Obviously Sunday helped, I don’t know if the form would have been hectic now Monday walking around the place if you’d lost on Sunday.”
Limerick boss John Kiely spent some time on Monday morning on the course at Adare Manor as he begins to gear up for Sunday week’s All-Ireland hurling final.
“I was there Monday morning for a couple of hours. It was a phenomenal event and super to see something like that happen here in Limerick and for JP and Noreen to make it happen is incredible.
“All those charities that are going to be benefit from the funds that were raised there is going to be a game-changer for places like Milford Care Centre, for Cuan Mhuire, a load of special schools around the city and county, it’s going to make a huge impact on thousands of people’s lives. It’s something that we’re delighted to support. We’re delighted to see it go so well for JP and Noreen as well. I didn’t delay very long. I went away out of it.”
Back to hurling matters and Kiely has reported positive news on the injury front in the Limerick squad ahead of the game. Cian Lynch and Peter Casey both made their comebacks to action in the second half last Sunday.
“We’ve a pretty much clean bill of health, really. All good – hopefully it’ll stay that way for the next ten days. It is (the first time all year), the week before the last game was the first time we had everybody, really, on board.
“We were delighted to see them (Cian and Peter) come through, that’s the whole idea – we wouldn’t have played them bar we were confident. He (Cian) had already done a nice bit of work so we were confident he would come through.
“He missed ten weeks in the season – the rest of the guys have been pushing on with three sessions a week and five championship matches in the interim, so the team has moved on. He’s under no illusions about his need to win his place back on the team.
“We have three sessions to get through now and that’s going to reveal a group of players we feel are ready to start on the day. We chose maybe not to play him until that period of time, that’s not to say he couldn’t have come on before that. If we went to extra time would I have taken him off? No, absolutely not, he’d have continued on. He was fit, fit to play, and that’s how we chose to use him on the day.”
