Cathal O’Neill done looking back as Limerick eye better and stronger '26
Cathal O'Neill of Limerick in action against Brian Hayes of Dublin during the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship quarter-final match between Dublin and Limerick at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Daire Brennan/Sportsfile
Rewind to the 64th minute of the 2023 All-Ireland final. Then 21-year-old Cathal O’Neill somehow managed to bypass the attention of both Cian Kenny and TJ Reid, while straddling the Cusack Stand sideline, en route to delivering his opening score off the bench.
Limerick’s bench contributed 0-10 during the successful four-in-a-row campaign. O’Neill was responsible for half the 0-10 total, and this despite starting almost as many games as he was subbed on in.
The individual and collective graph were traveling in tandem. They knew only one direction - north.
The individual target for 2024 was consistent first-team involvement, the collective goal being five-in-a-row. Only one was achieved.
Move on again to 2025. The individual and collective graph back moving in tandem. The direction, mind, was not what either wanted.
For the first time since 2017, Limerick failed to deliver a piece of championship silverware. As for O’Neill, he started just one of the county's six championship outings.
“I suppose it was a very stop-start season for myself personally,” the half-forward began.
“I tore my hamstring this time of the year last year. A bad enough tear, so I was kind of just chasing my tail really from that. And it kind of went again during the league, so it was stop-start, but hoping to have a clean bill of health this year.”
O’Neill was one of two firefighting subs introduced at half-time in the county’s shock All-Ireland quarter-final exit. Dublin’s reduced personnel had proven no impediment, the outsiders ahead by 0-15 to 0-12 come the interval.
O’Neill reflects on a surreal Saturday afternoon in Croker and the factors that may have fed into a demise nobody saw coming.
“A number of things maybe. Look, Dublin were brilliant on the day as well, you can't take that away from them. And maybe we were sub-par, so probably just a combination of everything, maybe the Munster final took it out of us too.
“In the Munster final, we were always aware that we could lose the game. Cork are a really good team, so I suppose to lose in the manner that we did, after the length of time that it went on for, it was just maybe mentally draining. But look, you can't take that away from Dublin, they were super on the day, and they took their chances.”
And what of the red card ripple effect? Did Chris Crummey’s 15th-minute dismissal somehow work against Limerick?
“It's hard to know when looking back. Maybe when a man gets sent off, maybe you can relax. I don't know, but sometimes it galvanises that 14-man team, so maybe it did have some sort of factor.
“It was a funny old year. We're all bitterly disappointed with how it ended. But that's sport.
“It's not going to go your way every day. You just have to bounce back and come back stronger. You've no other choice.
“We just have to turn the chapter now and go again this year and try to be bigger, better and stronger.”
They attack 2026 minus long-time captain Declan Hannon and long-time inside forward Seamus Flanagan. Not everyone left by choice.
“It does and it doesn't, it's just the way it is,” replied O’Neill when asked if there was a difference in the dressing-room now that two of the group’s more experienced personnel were no longer present.
“The last few years, we have been losing bodies as it was, and new fellas are always being introduced. So, it's kind of just that cyclical nature of sport and of life that everything's going to evolve. So no, the environment is really good in there at the moment.”
The final year Irish and PE student at UL wouldn’t be drawn into All-Ireland talk. Munster is their everything right now. They’ve never not finished in the top three in the provincial round-robin.
Last year went anything but to plan. Perspective, though, can still be mined amidst the disappointment. The Dublin disaster put to one side, neither of the All-Ireland finalists bettered the Treaty after 70 or 90 minutes of fare in Munster.
“We weren't that far off, and we've had years where the bounce of the ball has gone our way and maybe we were doing something wrong as well. You can look at it that way as well, so we were never that far away,” he surmised.
“Obviously, we need to change things and get better basically. But you can't go down the rabbit hole of looking at things like that, we weren't that far away either, so it's just about getting better and looking forward to 2026 and trying to build upon each day we go out.”
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