Darragh Fitzgibbon of Cork in action against Fergal O'Connor of Limerick during the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 3 match between Cork and Limerick at SuperValu Páirc Ui Chaoimh in Cork. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
Beating this Limerick hurling team once in any given championship season is a serious achievement but to do it twice would be Herculean.
That’s the task facing the Cork hurlers who edged out the reigning champions in a dramatic Munster SHC clash on May 11 but now must somehow repeat the trick in Sunday’s All-Ireland SHC semi-final.
If they’re to pull it off then Rebels midfielder Darragh Fitzgibbon believes they’ll have to throw something new at Limerick because the same as last time just won’t suffice.
“Limerick are such a good side and are very good at adapting to what you're good at and what you're able to do so we know that if we bring the exact same thing to what we brought the last time it won't be good enough,” says Fitzgibbon.
“We have to bring more and we have to tweak a couple of things. We're well aware of that and the challenge that's coming and how difficult it will be and how good they are. We're working hard to make sure we bring that on Sunday.
“You look at their players from one to 15 and the guys who are coming in and they're all exceptional players. Their ability to adjust to the changes that you're trying to bring against them in games is very, very good.
“It's so hard against them that you need everything to go right for the full 70 minutes to have any chance against them. You can see over the last couple of years they've been asked every type of question and they've answered them. They're just an incredible side.”
The performance that Cork produced to beat Limerick two months ago was all the more impressive considering they’d lost their first two Munster SHC matches.
PwC GAA/GPA Player of the Month for May in hurling, Darragh Fitzgibbon of Cork, with his award at PwC offices in Cork. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile.
Not many fancied their chances of keeping their season alive by turning over a Limerick team that had won their first two matches of the provincial series, but Fitzgibbon and his team-mates never stopped backing themselves.
“We just had to keep believing in ourselves and keep trusting each other,” he says. “Players had to take a bit more responsibility for what we were doing on the field.
“Then there was also a sense of throwing caution to the wind as well. We had no choice, we had to win our last two games and we needed results to go our way too which we got.
“There was that sense of letting the shackles off and having a go.
“Everyone talked about the scenes after the Limerick game but I think that was just the Cork crowd giving an emotional response.
"As players we were well aware that we had another job to do and when we got back into the dressing-room straight away afterwards we were happy with what we did but we knew that we had to go again next week so there was no sense of us getting ahead of ourselves, we knew that we had a huge job again just like we knew that going in against Offaly and Dublin.
“When you get those wins it's a sign that what you're doing is working so it has given us a lot of confidence.”
Cork were heartbroken last year when a one-point defeat to Limerick in the final match of the Munster SHC ensured they failed to progress beyond the provincial campaign.
This year a two-point win over the same opponents gave them the momentum to get out of Munster.
Darragh Fitzgibbon of Cork celebrates a second half point during the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 3 match between Cork and Limerick at SuperValu Páirc Ui Chaoimh in Cork. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile.
Sport can come down to fine margins and watershed moments so it’ll be interesting to see what sort of animal a confident Cork team now with four championship wins in a row and a settled XV will be on Sunday.
“Last year with the new management we experienced just so many injuries,” says Fitzgibbon. “I had never been involved with a team that had so many injuries. There were 15 or 16 fellas injured at one point.
“That fed into the championship where we probably didn't know our best 15. There was a lot of chopping and changing and we couldn't really build that momentum. It was probably the same a small bit this year in the first two games.
“Last year we were missing players like Mark (Coleman), Alan (Connolly), Robbie (O'Flynn) and they were always going to add to it. And as well as players like that coming back in, you also had the players who were playing last year having to step up their game because the competition for places was incredible.
“That's been a real turning point to our season this year, the competition in training. In the 'A' versus 'B' games there's always changes here and there and it's upping fellas' games all over the place.”
With the young players from the All-Ireland U20 winning teams of 2020, 2021, and 2023 starting to now establish themselves in the senior grade, it’s easy to make the case that regardless of how Sunday’s game go Cork will be challenging for silverware for the foreseeable future.
Fitzgibbon is wary of that sort of talk. He wants his younger team-mates to seize the day now rather than think there will be other opportunities in the future.
“When you get to Croke Park for the first time and you don't win you might allow yourself to think that you'll build on it the following year and be back there again," he says. "But the point we're making to the younger lads is that you don't these opportunities every year and you have to take them when you get them.
"The last time we were in Croke Park was the All-Ireland Final of 2021. You'd probably be in the dressing-room after that game and saying, look, it was obviously a disappointing day but we can build on it and come again.
“But then three years pass before you get back to Croke Park so we're ensuring the young lads know that whatever role they have we all have to play to the best of our ability because you might get this opportunity again.
“We're in an All-Ireland semi-final and the level has to go up again. We're well aware we have to raise those levels because if we're at the same level we were for the last couple of weeks it won't be good enough.”
