Seamus Flanagan: ‘You have your family in the setup, you have your family at home. They intertwine’

Five in a row? 'You can bury your head in the sand and say that we're not going to speak about it, but you're going to hear it. It's the elephant in the room'

FAMILY SETUP: Limerick's Seamus Flanagan finds the perfect blend between family life and hurling family life. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

A minute before the half-time whistle Seamus Flanagan materialised near the Cork endline, trapped in a corner with no clear sight of the posts. He looked across the field and somehow saw Cian Lynch in a dot of space. The pass was perfect. A thrilling semi-final had its first goal.

Limerick went from two down to one up as they headed in for the break. That was Flanagan’s first senior outing in Croke Park. He hasn’t suffered defeat there as he missed out on the Kilkenny 2019 semi-final loss.

“I missed it, yeah,” Flanagan explains. “I think I lost to Kilkenny in a minor final as well. But in the senior ranks, I don't think I've lost in Croke Park.”

The forward is hoping it will continue to be a happy hunting ground this Sunday. His record may even prompt John Kiely to return him to the starting team after a hamstring injury ruled him out of the Munster final.

“It could be a good omen,” he says with a smile.

Before that 2018 fixture, John Kiely pumped crowd noise into Rathkeale during training sessions. As a group they came of age in that iconic stadium. Between All-Ireland semi-finals and finals in 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 and a league final in 2019, Flanagan has logged 11 HQ victories.

It is different, he accepts. Physically and emotionally.

“I suppose it's a wider pitch than anywhere else. I actually think it's the same width as Cusack Park in Ennis, but it's just the vastness of it. It's a huge bowl of a stadium and the sound it creates is unbelievable.

“When you go to Croke Park you have a little bit more room and the noise levels are a bit louder so the opposition trying to get communication across to each other is dampened down a small bit. Any kid worth his salt would love to be out in Croke Park so when you do get there, you just tend to want to turn it on and you get to the pitch of it fairly quickly. Otherwise, it'll only go one way.” 

He is speaking at the launch of the All-Ireland hurling series at the Michael Cusack Centre in Carran, Co. Clare. Representatives from various other counties are in attendance. Later that day his partner, Laurie, will post footage on social media of Flanagan returning home with a surprise present for his nine-year-old son.

“To Charlie. Keep up the hurling. Best wishes, Tony Kelly,” reads an ecstatic young fan.

Flanagan has a two-year-old and eight-month old twins as well: “I come in with my hurleys and I get thrown a nappy and a bottle. Daddy duty hits you in the face fairly quickly.” 

Don’t get it wrong. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I've a brilliant missus and she's so, I suppose, allowing and forgiving for when I've gone training at short notice, I might have a gym session or whatever.

“But I love it because that is my switch off. When I go home, it is my switch off from what is going on, I suppose, inside the four lines. But also my switch off from my home is inside the four lines as well, so it really works in tandem with each other.

“I love it like being able to get my family out in Croke Park after those big days and having pictures at the wall and my mum at home and all my family now have those pictures.

“That is something special, and that's what it's about, really, isn't it? We always speak about family, but it really is. You have your family in the setup, but you have your family at home and I think they intertwine really, really well. It is what you do it for.” 

Development is a never-ending process. A few years ago, his hurley maker was hit by the ash dieback. He switched to the Torpey and found a blend that works. He prefers the bamboo, but the light didn’t suit and the medium was too heavy. So he wrapped his size 34 stick with a band and found a perfect balance.

He worked as a radiographer in Limerick hospital for three years but earlier this year took a job with American telecommunications company Verizon. The balance between working from the office and house makes his hectic life that bit easier.

It is coming together. For him and the county. Sunday is another step towards a historic five-in-a-row. They won’t shy away from that.

“You can bury your head in the sand and say that we're not going to speak about it, but you're going to hear it. And then boys are talking about it amongst each other in small little groups and it is the elephant in the room.

“It's just not being spoken about as a group. It is there but it is not a defining factor for us. It's not something that we're looking at and saying, 'God, we can make history, we could be the only team to do five-in-a-row'.

“It's obviously something that the media and the fans are going to get hyped about. But for us it's really about a process. It's about what we did in the last game, how we can better ourselves for the next game, what we did well, what we didn't do well and pushing from there.”