Doon's Adam English: 'We weren't coming out of here without a win'

Doon claimed a first ever Limerick senior hurling title with a superb defeat of Na Piarsaigh’s.

Sun, 27 Oct, 2024 - 16:12

Brendan O'Brien

Everyone knew their recent history. How Doon had tilted at windmills in Limerick for most of the past decade. This was their eighth straight year in a county senior hurling semi-final. Their third decider since 2018, all of them against Na Piarsaigh.

But there was a pain and want rooted deeper than all that. In the final defeats back in 1989 and 2000. When captain Darragh O’Donovan lifted the cup above his head deep and deep into the Sunday evening gloom he referenced the club’s founding in 1888.

That’s 136 years waiting for this one deliverance.

“This day has been coming,” said Limerick's five-time All-Ireland winner after they edged an imperfect but perfectly thrilling decider against their city opponents. “Nobody said it was going to be easy, and by god it wasn’t.”

O’Donovan hit all the right notes in a deeply respectful speech. He lauded a Na Piarsaigh team that he labelled the “the greatest club hurling team this county has ever seen” and referenced Peter Casey’s return to the field for the first time since a broken ankle in April.

There was the statement too that Limerick’s county team would not have achieved everything it has under John Kiely in recent years without a club championship where these two teams, Kilmallock and Patrickswell have all pushed each other and more of late.

All of which only adds lustre to Doon’s historic breakthrough.

“Oh my god, unbelievable, without a doubt,” said Adam English after claiming 11 of his team’s 16 points on the day. “The best ever. I can’t put it into words. What we did out there was just incredible.”

English scored from open play, from frees and from a ‘65’ but he wouldn’t be led down that path, Everything he said was an embrace of the collective and how they absorbed those two quickfire Na Piarsaigh goals in the first-half and a fightback in the second.

Doon had come close to the Promised Land in the past. They could have been spooked by the sight of the finish line here against a team that had the whip hand on them so many times before, but they knuckled down to the business at hand and found a way to get there first.

“A Doon team in previous years, after those two sucker punch goals went in, would have dropped the heads,” said English. “There’s something different about this team this year, we just drove on. We weren’t coming out of here without a win. That was it.”