John West Féile Ambassador and Limerick hurler Seán Finn in attendance during the John West Féile 2022 Launch at Croke Park in Dublin.
By John Harrington
If you’ve seen Sean Finn play, you’ll know the cool as cucumber Limerick corner-back isn’t the type to panic under pressure.
No surprise then to hear the sticky defender is nonplussed about a patchy Allianz League campaign that saw them win just one of five matches.
As he points out, they won just two of five matches in the 2021 League and still won the Championship very impressively, so no reason to believe they’re not capable of repeating the same trick this year as they prepare for their Munster SHC first round clash with Cork on Sunday.
“I can see that we progressively improved throughout last year,” said Finn at the launch of the John West Féile.
“At the start of the league last year we were lucky to draw with Tipperary. If we didn’t draw that game we would have had three losses on the go as well. but we were progressively improving. A lot better then in each championship game.
"When you compare that then to the league campaign this year, we played two good games at the start of the league but the Cork game was the outlier there which we were quite disappointed with.
"Then, look, we brought it up again and we were decent against Clare and we were strong against Offaly. It’s up to us now to continue that upward trend and be that bit better when we play Cork and hopefully it’ll be an opportunity to progress that into the Championship.
“I suppose the outlier there is the Cork performance this year. When you compare it to last year, it was a significant dip in performance that day. It was probably a false reflection of how our year was going. Hopefully we get an opportunity to get that trend going again this year.”
If you were a Limerick fan, that League defeat to Cork was a worrying one for a couple of reasons.
The sight of John Kiely’s team being comprehensively outfought was a very unfamiliar one that raised questions about whether they remain as voraciously hungry for success as ever.
The nature of the defeat also raised questions about the strength in depth of their panel.
Kiely started seven players that didn’t start last year’s All-Ireland Final win over Cork but ended up substituting five of them, and three of those were at half-time.
Patrick Horgan of Cork in action against Sean Finn of Limerick during the 2022 Allianz Hurling League Division 1 Group A match between Limerick and Cork at TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick.
Finn doesn’t agree with the theory that the defeat to Cork highlighted how much Limerick are still very dependent on the old reliables.
“I think the strength and depth is…the players are still there that have been there the last couple of years,” he says. “We’ve used the league in a good way to bring players into the team. Okay, you might have your core players that might be there.
“That Cork game, we were good in patches but below average in a lot of aspects of our game. Cork came down with a ferocious intensity that we failed to match. I think that was the big difference. They were a lot more up for that game and as a result we were punished.”
You can tell that Finn is looking forward to making amends for that League defeat to Cork when the teams meet in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday.
A bubbly character by nature, he’s the type to embrace the challenge of performing at the highest level rather than feel in any way pressurised about it.
“I kind of learned a lot as my career went on to enjoy it a bit more,” he said.
“I often referred to games, going into All-Ireland finals, you might look at a person walking into the stadium with their friends and you’d love to be them but they’d be looking into the bus and they’d love to be you.
“Sometimes I suppose I’ve learned to maybe take a step back and just enjoy the occasion. You’ve dreamt of these things, I’ve dreamt of playing with Limerick so it’s important that I enjoy it.
“I think the enjoyment part of it is something that I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of years because at the beginning I was focused on my nerves and anxiety and pressure and forget to enjoy it so that was a big learning curve.
“I think you have to enjoy it because if you enjoy what you’re doing you continue to go back and continue to go training. If you’re doing it because you want to win, the pressure can build up on you and you might start looking at results as why you’re doing this and if you’re losing that becomes negative.
“If you’re enjoying it, it encourages you to come back.”
