Na Piarsaigh star Boylan glad to end 'nightmare' season on winning note

The Limerick heavyweights dethroned Doon on Sunday.

LOCAL HERO: Conor Boylan of Na Piarsaigh celebrates with a supporter after the Limerick County Senior Club Hurling Championship final . Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

The dark cloud that loomed over Conor Boylan’s 2025 season had a silver lining as he made a massive impact in Na Piarsaigh regaining the Limerick senior hurling championship on Sunday.

A four-time All-Ireland winning panellist with Limerick, Boylan put behind him months of frustration with a foot injury to score 1-1 coming off the bench including a goal that ultimately forced extra-time when the game appeared to have swung in Doon’s favour.

Seeing his brother Jerome lift the John Daly Cup was reward for the struggle he had endured to play some part in the final having otherwise missed out of the rest of the championship.

“Ah, it's been a nightmare from start to finish,” he admitted. “I would have stepped away from Limerick last year and really wanted to give the club back something special.

“Then, I got a horrific foot break, through my own stupidity cycling a bike and just couldn't get it right, couldn't get it right. I'd a brilliant physio and S&C with Shane Malone and Lukasz [Kirszenstein].

“We just said we'd give it one last crack and last Sunday was the first bit of training that I tried to do and I picked up a hamstring injury and I thought it wasn't going to be possible but through the work of the physios, S&Cs and my own dad [Dr Dave Boylan], it's just magical.” 

Boylan had made some telling contributions off the bench for Limerick before he chose to step away but he is brutally honest about what he offers. 

“Anyone that knows me knows that hurling skill is probably not my strong point, physicality and a bit of work-rate is. There was no real skill involved in it, it was just working hard and luckily, the balls broke my way.

“The boys did an unbelievable job of getting the ball in because we were struggling with in the first half, Jack Ryan especially was cutting out a mountain of ball. They started delivering the ball in deeper and it actually worked in our favour. We started to get a bit of joy out of it.” 

For Boylan, it was “by far and away the sweetest one we've ever had, without doubt. With the year that I had personally and with Jerome being captain and all (the injuries) that he's gone through, I'm emotional even thinking about it.” 

Mike Casey was feeling something similar after turning the tables on Doon following last year’s final defeat to them. “Look, it hurt last year an awful lot, a one-point loss is never easy to take. So, yeah, that's definitely a sweet one after extra-time.

“Last year we were going for three-in-a-row and maybe we were found wanting, you don't know. But this year we knew we were going to try and leave no stone unturned.” 

Attention will shortly turn to facing Sunday week’s Munster quarter-final with Ballygunner, another team who got the better of Na Piarsaigh when they met in the 2023 Munster semi-final. 

“There's always going to be learnings and it wasn’t a complete performance by any stretch,” Casey said of the win over Doon. “So we'll go back and we'll analyse this now on Tuesday or Wednesday.”