No need for tuned-in Limerick to build up Munster final occasion, says Will O'Donoghue

The Treaty face a provincial decider in Cork on Sunday. 

DUE SOUTH: Rivalries come and go, says Limerick's Will O'Donoghue.  

It’s put to William O’Donoghue that Limerick don’t need to gee themselves up for this Munster final.

The previous one virtually ended their 2025 season. Mick Mackey is on holiday. What’s more, Cork topped up on their misery in their latest provincial meeting in April.

And he agrees. If Limerick must cajole themselves, then they are not in a great place. But he prefers the helicopter view. It’s a Munster final. It’s a chance to win a seventh medal. Rivalries come, rivalries go.

“Rivalry sells,” says O’Donoghue. “For you (media) guys, for the GAA, it sells. You look at the football, everyone was talking about Kerry and Donegal and the reason they were talking about it was they nearly knew what was coming on the back of the league final.

“So in the same breath, that's kind of what's been spoken about this match. Not that it's been a fabricated rivalry, but it's nothing new to us in the sense we played Clare in three Munster finals.

“There's always rivalries, there's always several teams who, if they meet on a big occasion, it's drummed up and it's built as a big rivalry. But I think no matter who we would have been playing in a Munster final, because you play everyone so often, there's going to be an edge there.

“The supporters are probably sick of each other or whatever it might be. I think it probably crosses over between all teams in Munster because like that you play each other so often.

“Yes, there will be an edge from a media perspective, but whoever it would have been that we'd be playing, I think we would be approaching it the exact same way.” 

O’Donoghue has spoken already this year about 2025 being a seriously dissatisfying year for Limerick after Dublin sent them packing from the championship. They don’t need reminding of that either.

“I can't say we had a big epiphany after losing that or looking back on it or we have a slogan on the wall since then that's trying to make us win games. That's not the case.” For a highly motivated group such as theirs, they know it wasn’t good enough.

“There's no point in us saying that we're great fellas and that's why we haven't been complacent. I mean, it's the environment we're in, it's the people we have around us. It's a very competitive space, it's a competitive place.

“And I guess we probably don't put too much weight on outside validation. I think that's probably the big one there. We're accountable to each other in the group, we're a really close group.” 

Sunday marks John Kiely’s 17th final as senior manager and he has yet to experience a defeat in normal or extra-time. That sort of longevity is founded in authenticity, says his vice-captain O’Donoghue.

“I think John is very unapologetic about who John is and what he values and who he is as a person. He's been an incredible leader for us. I think it's fair to say he truly cares about us as people as well. Far beyond hurling, he probably thinks about us more than anyone else thinks about us.

“John probably embodies everything that we try to as a group. He's incredibly humble, he's very respectful. John is one of the good guys to be fair. Like I said, it's easy for people to buy in, it's easy for people to want to be in the set-up when that's who's driving the bus.” 

He does bark at the passengers but only on occasions. “Yes, there are times that our performance isn't where it needs to be at, and it's given to us straight between the two eyes. But I guess John never tries to play on that emotional side or create a narrative that isn't there to try and provoke a response from us.

“I think something like that would probably be short-lived in terms of how long you could sustain that. John's been here 10 years, if he was just constantly trying to get you up all the time, it probably wouldn't have held.” 

O’Donoghue shares Kiely’s methodical way of assessing things. He knows people throw their eyes to heaven when they hear or read about “the process” but it is the mast to tie oneself to when the waves of emotion come crashing.

“I know they're boring words,” says O’Donoghue. “I see interviews there and it's almost like you don't get much and someone just reverts to the process and almost shuts it down.

“But I think it's not easy to stick to a process, it's not easy to hit targets. They're very hard done and I think they're a guiding light for performance.

“At the end of the day, you're out there and there could be 60,000 people around you. So, I think when I would mention them, what I mean is you come back to them and it allows you to process your thoughts if you do something wrong. If you're doing something good that you're not getting ahead of yourself, you're just trying to affect what you can affect.

“So, I think when some of our lads talk about them, I think they more mean it's a grounding thing and something to focus on, rather than if you went out in a Munster final and started looking around and started realising everything that was going on. I think the emotional side of it would probably take over.”