The word going around is that the lift in Gearoid Hegarty’s form this year is due to a drop in weight. Don’t believe a word of it, he insists.
Having won three All Stars successive All Stars up to 2023, Hurler of the Year in 2020 and been a dominant figure in each of the All-Ireland finals in that period also, 2024 was an underwhelming year by Hegarty’s standards.
Indeed, he was the only member of the Limerick starting team that completed the four-in-a-row last year not to receive an All Star nomination.
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Now, he’s striding into Croke Park for tomorrow’s All-Ireland semi-final against Cork, back in the conversation for Hurler of the Year following a fine Munster Championship showing, crowned by another man of the match display in the final against Clare.
But it’s nothing to do with his weight.
“Peter Casey must have given you a ring this morning to ask you to ask me that question, did he?!” laughs Hegarty. “Me and Peter always slag each other about that type of thing.
“No, I didn’t [lose weight]. I’m 30 in August, which is another story, I can’t believe I’m 30 in August, but I feel like I’ve a fair idea how to approach a season nowadays, whether it’s in pre-season, the League, the break between the League and Championship or the Championship. I do the same thing over and over.
“I didn’t necessarily go over cutting down… now, you’re not the first person to say that to me, a good few people have said that to me. It’s not something I went after, no.
“Look, it’s not a bad thing to have said to you but it’s amazing how the mind works. It’s a compliment but I’m always thinking to myself, ‘Jeez, was I in bad shape last year?’ That’s just the way it is.”
Hegarty says that he felt he was in a good spot coming into last year’s Championship, but a sending off in the opening game against Limerick put him on the back foot.
“Picked up two stupid yellow cards in the first game, got dropped for the second game against Clare and we lost and all of a sudden you’re staring down the gauntlet of maybe not getting or of Munster for the first time under John [Kiely] really, with a poor performance in the first game, lucky to get over Waterford and then losing to Clare.
“Just found it hard maybe for the rest of the Munster Championship to find a bit of form but, as the year went on, I felt like I was getting stronger and stronger in every game.
“From the Cork game on I was starting to find my form, I was only getting going maybe as the year was finishing. Obviously that’s not where you want to be. You want to be peaking well before I was peaking.”
So, if it’s not his weight, what actually has been the difference this year? Strangely enough, Hegarty attributes it in part to a dead leg which effectively wiped out his club season last autumn.
“It was two months exactly from the day I got the dead leg to the day we were beaten in the county quarter-final and so I missed basically the whole club season which was so disappointing because I’ve got loads of dead legs in the past but I never got one as bad as this.
“So, basically, what I’m saying is I came into pre-season with Limerick at the end of last year really fresh and mad for road because I had missed so much with my club which was obviously really disappointing.
“But I’ve been injury free all year and a brilliant pre-season, played a lot of League and you’re able to get into a bit of a rhythm, find a bit of form early on in the League and just kept going from there.”
Others haven’t been so fortunate. Limerick go into tomorrow’s game without Barry Nash while Sean Finn and Mike Casey have had injury issues too. At the other end of the field, Peter Casey’s year is over, while Darragh O’Donovan will only make his first appearance of the Championship this weekend and Seamus Flanagan is just back too.
Hegarty doesn’t feel that their resources have been stretched any more than in previous years, however.
"I don't think so. I wouldn't necessarily be of the viewpoint that this year was the hardest year we've had to deal with injuries.
“If you look over the last number of years, we lost Declan [Hannon] one year, Cian [Lynch] another year, Seán, Richie [English]... we've lost loads of legs. Every year we seem to lose a couple of important players. Injuries happen and they're a killer.
“Peter's injury was obviously a dark day. But as tough as it is on the guys who pick up bad injuries, they'll say themselves that you just get on with it and you move on. It opens the door for somebody else and you can see that's exactly what's happened again this year."
The mental strength to deal with those setbacks is a product of the work of Caroline Currid, their revered former sports psychologist who stepped back from the role last year.
"I think the biggest compliment I could pay her is to say that her absence hasn't been felt because of all the brilliant work that she had done with us over the years.
“Like, we're a completely different team now to the one that she came into back in 2017, 2018 or whenever it was. That's one thing they say about legacy - when a great manager leaves, the next manager should be able to come in and pick up from where they left off.
“I think it's something similar with Caroline. She did so much work with us over the years that she left us in a great place.”
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