BIGGER THE BETTER IN DAD’S EYES
IF Gearoid Hegarty has had to deal with certain charges being levelled at him, then going to ground when the stakes are highest isn’t one of them.
His 1-5 in the recent win over Kilkenny brought his tally for the last three All-ireland finals to 3-14 (0-7 v Waterford in
2020 and 2-2 v Cork last year), making him top scorer from play each time.
“As a young fella, we’d always used to
be down the field in St Patrick’s and my father would be telling me it’s so important to perform on the big day and the big day is where it counts,” he recalls.
“He had it always drilled into me that it’s so important to perform on the big day and everything that goes with it.
“There are a lot of shenanigans that goes with it, there is a bit of a circus that goes with the All-ireland final especially.
“I didn’t realise until I saw (the morning after the game) that I was top scorer from play in the last three finals, which is a cool, little thing. That’s a lovely thing to be said about you.”
It did come on the back of an underwhelming showing in the semi-final win over Galway, a game in which Hegarty was called ashore, though he wasn’t the only Limerick player whose standards dropped that day.
“We went back training on the Tuesday night and we were actually quite down. It felt like we nearly lost, which is mad when you think about it.
“Personally, it wasn’t my best day in terms of getting the most out of myself.
“But David Reidy is one of my best friends on the panel and I was so grateful for what he did that day because I was thinking if we were to be beaten in the semi-final having given that performance that I did, it’s a long few months before you go back into next year.
“I was delighted that, ‘Ok, it didn’t go for you that day, but you’ve another chance in 12 days’ time’.
“It was a great place to be in, to be so disappointed after the semi-final even though we had won.”