By John Harrington
WhatsApp message groups will be pinging all over the country when UL play NUI Galway in Saturday’s Electric Ireland Fitzgibbon Cup Final.
Third Level Colleges GAA has a unique way of forming brotherhoods among hurlers and footballers and you can be sure that former players from both universities will be in constant contact before, during, and after the match as they reminisce about past glories and run the rule over the current crop.
Those who were lucky enough to win a Fitzgibbon Cup medal themselves in their own day will always be able to draw on a deep well of satisfaction from that achievement.
Former Limerick defender, Seamus Hickey, was part of a star-studded UL team that triumphed in 2011, and it remains one of the greatest days of his hurling career.
“It was probably only topped by winning the Munster and All-Ireland with Limerick,” Hickey told GAA.ie
“When I went to my first-year Engineering orientation day in UL I just went straight looking for the GAA office because I wanted to know when the Fitzgibbon trials were on.
“That's the nature of the appetite for it when I was in UL. I was so fortunate that I got to play with absolutely incredible players, so many of whom I would have played against on the inter-county scene.
“Brendan Bugler was one of the first people I met on the campus in UL and I couldn't get over how welcoming and friendly he was. As it turned out he was one of the chief obstacles to the Limerick teams I played on for the next seven or eight years, an All-Star wing-back.
“There were so many players in UL I was very fortunate and privileged to play with. Players like David Burke from Galway, Kieran Joyce from Kilkenny, Paul Kelly from Tipperary, the list goes on and on and on.
“I loved that experience of playing with players from different counties and I really enjoyed the competition itself. The Fitzgibbon I lost in 2009 was one of the sorest things I'll ever remember and it probably made 2011 that bit sweeter when we had a really, really strong team.
“We just found this group of players and we were very, very fortunate in the end to beat a very good LIT team in the Final. It was the fulfilment of nearly five years of trying and it was an aim for all of us in that GAA club in UL.
“It's just a very, very special competition and to see how UL have done in the years since has been brilliant because there wasn't exactly a great wealth of tradition when I was going to UL and we were really trying to re-establish UL as a strong hurling college. Since then they've been extremely strong.”
Back when Hickey hurled in the Fitzgibbon Cup with UL he was the only Limerick hurler on the team and there weren’t too many players from the Treaty County featuring for other institutions.
Quite a contrast then to the current hurling landscape where an impressive total of 29 Limerick hurlers were registered for Fitzgibbon Cup duty this year.
“It's great,” says Hickey. “There was a period of time when Limerick hurlers weren't appearing in the Fitzgibbon. I was the only Limerick player on the UL team for three or four years.
“It's one of those things where I'd liken it to the development of Limerick underage where you had Limerick schools doing well in the Harty Cup, our minor teams doing better, then we had our players playing Fitzgibbon across the different institutions.
“Then we had strong All-Ireland winning U-21 teams who were all playing Fitzgibbon hurling too. It just gave them a platform to play against top-class inter-county players whilst still setting a level for where they could shine. Sometimes it doesn't work out in the inter-county set-up because you just don't have that platform to perform in a leadership capacity to basically make the most of your abilities whereas the Fitzgibbon gives you that.
“I can think of any number of different examples of people who might not have had the greatest pedigree before going to University and lighting up the Fitzgibbon. Aaron Gillane comes to mind.
“A guy who really was on the periphery of the panel one year, was player of the year in the Fitzgibbon in February and then was starting in the Limerick senior hurling team by May. That's just one example of a guy who can really make the best of the opportunities that the Fitzgibbon gives you.”
The huge number of Limerick hurlers involved in this year’s Fitzgibbon Cup is just one of many barometers of the rude health of hurling in the Treaty County right now.
It will be regarded as a surprise if they don’t win a fourth All-Ireland title in five years in 2022. Such riches and expectation were unimaginable in the early years of Hickey’s own inter-county career.
“I cannot tell you the stark difference there is between the confidence that's in Limerick hurling now compared to how it was 15 years ago,” he says. “It's night and day.
“I remember around 10 years ago thinking it's not going to happen. We're just not there and I don't see how we're going to get there. I remember hearing about a five-year-plan for underage hurling in Limerick in around 2009 or 2010 and not really fully understanding what it was and who was involved and what was expected from it.
“Really what it was a group of Limerick people who were willing to pour in time and commitment and resources to a very structured and well thought out framework for bringing young men through the hurling underage groups and playing a style of hurling that would translate to the senior game. It was really a lot of time in the making but then when the fruits started to come when Ard Scoil Ris started winning Harty Cups an the Limerick minors started winning Munsters, and the U-21s started winning All-Irelands, you're realising this didn't just happen by accident.
“This is the fruit of a seed that was planted when no-one was looking. The difference between now and back then, it's just such a wonderful time now to be from Limerick. And for me to know and to have played with some many of these special players, it's a really special time to be from Limerick.
“Comparing the current team with some of the greatest teams to have played the game, and that's what happening now and it's justified. Trying to compare that to going out in qualifiers in 2011 or 2012, it's just night and day and it probably makes it sweeter for me knowing that it wasn't always like this.”
A host of very talented hurlers from across the country will be involved in Saturday’s Fitzgibbon Cup Final, but none so special as Limerick star Cian Lynch.
He’s been typically outstanding for NUI Galway during this campaign, and the magic dust he’ll likely sprinkle on Saturday’s Final will be worth the price of admission alone.
“Cian is a special individual,” says Hickey. “If you just leave hurling aside, Cian is an incredible individual. He's a breath of fresh air to be around in many, many different ways. He doesn't typically march to the beat that anyone else sets.
“For a guy like him even just going back and doing his Masters in Education to be a teacher, it's a decision that he made to pursue and it's cool that he gets to be in the Fitzgibbon Cup Final.
“He's an incredible talent. There's a couple of players around the game that you would have heard about from a very young age. I would have heard about Joe Canning cutting sidelines over the bar when he was in U-14 inter-county competitions and Cian Llynch is the same kind of guy.
“You were hearing whispers of a guy coming out of Limerick that was able to flick the ball off the ground at 11 years of age. Players like that come along every now and again. Richie Power was similar enough in Kilkenny when he was coming through.
“Players just come through that are special players. And Cian is a special player. There really isn't a science for what he can do to get the ball off the ground into this hand. It's an incredible gift between the hand-eye coordination and that capacity and confidence to try it.
“When I think of the really, truly special players I played with, and there were a lot of them towards the end, the likes of Andrew O'Shaughnessy, Ollie Moran, these really, really high-class top performers come to mind. And Cian is probably the greatest."
Saturday, February 19
Electric Ireland Fitzgibbon Cup Final
UL v NUI Galway, Carlow IT, 3.15pm