'I never worry about who we're going to play': No semi-final preference for Limerick, insists Hegarty

It could be a rematch with Munster rivals Cork in the last-four. 

IN FORM: Bord Gáis Energy hurling ambassador Gearóid Hegarty. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Gearóid Hegarty says he has no preference for facing Cork in next month's All-Ireland semi-final despite Limerick coming out the wrong side of the counties' Munster clash last month.

A July 7 rematch in Croke Park will happen if Pat Ryan’s side as well as Clare win their respective quarter-finals on Saturday.

But Hegarty won’t be paying much attention to who emerges from the matches in Thurles. “I never worry about who we're going to play, who you'd like to play or who you want to play.

“When you start thinking about things like this, you're taking your eye off what really matters and the only thing that matters – I know it's a cliché – but looking after ourselves. Making sure I'm turning up to training, ready to give my all.

“Preparation is so important. If I get on that train to Dublin on July 7, knowing that I have trained as hard as I can over the last couple weeks and prepared as best as I can, to give my all for the team, then that's all you can do.

“We never, and I'm sure you've heard it from other players, maybe from John (Kiely) in the past, it's a sign of respect more than anything, we never, ever are concerned about who we're playing.

“We know every day we go out we’re going to be tested to the utmost, you know what I mean? And we just want to prepare to the best of our abilities and make sure that we're 100% ready to go to battle and see what happens after that. So we always just focus on ourselves.” 

Hegarty is in hurler of the year form at the moment after a 2023 season when he wasn’t nominated for an All-Star. He didn’t feel he deserved to be included in the long-list last year.

“I don’t think I deserved a nomination last year so I didn’t feel angst about it, I didn’t feel left out or anything along those lines. I felt that I didn’t deserve one. I would have actually nearly been embarrassed if I had got one last year. It was more so determination to try and back to somewhere closer to my best for my own self, for my family and my friends was more important to me than external things.

“The All-Stars are brilliant and everything but they are subjective at the end of the day. I wanted to get to back to me enjoying my hurling and playing well and looking forward to the road that we have ahead of us over the next couple of weeks leading into July 7.” 

Hegarty laughed off the attention devoted to Declan Hannon’s misspeak in his Mick Mackey Cup acceptance speech in Thurles earlier this month when he mentioned there being 53 people in Limerick’s backroom team.

“Look, it’s a mountain out of a molehill if ever there was. It’s obvious that we have a lot of players (37) in the panel. I just think people run with everything nowadays. They want to make a controversy out of the smallest things. I didn’t pay any attention to it for a couple of days until somebody said it to me.” 

*Gearóid Hegarty was launching Bord Gáis Energy’s offer of 33% off residential electricity plans for new customers for the next 12 months when you switch before June 30. Visit www.bordgaisenergy.ie for more details.