Darragh O'Donovan proud of Limerick's incredible spirit

By Paul Keane

On the day that a special group of Limerick players franked their hurling greatness, Ryan Fox, the son of a New Zealand rugby legend won golf's Open Championship.

It was fitting because, from Darragh O'Donovan's perspective as a spectator for much of Sunday's MacCarthy Cup final, when Limerick claimed their sixth All-Ireland SHC title in nine seasons, it was a display of such power and aggression that anyone from the home of rugby would have been proud of.

"The work they put in, the tackles, it was ferocious," said O'Donovan. "It was like watching the All Blacks in their prime."

That O'Donovan ended up watching much of Limerick's win wasn't by design.

The six-time All-Ireland SHC medal winner came on 63 minutes into the 1-29 to 1-18 win, acknowledging that his performance against Clare in the semi-final hadn't been good enough and had cost him his place.

"I had a feeling it was coming," shrugged the Doon man of his omission for the final. "In this team, it's such a competitive environment. You can't afford to have one poor performance. I had a strong Munster championship campaign but a very poor game against Clare. And I knew after that.

"Coming home on the train that evening, I said, 'I've lost my place now for the All-Ireland final'. And that's the way it has to be.

"I'd be saying the same thing if I was in the fella's boots behind me. I'd be saying, 'I want to get in here, that fella didn't play well'.

"John (Kiely) said to me on Tuesday before training, 'Look, you're not going to be in the team for Sunday'. And I said, 'Do what you need to do for the team, do what's best for Limerick'. At the end of the day, I had my opportunity and I lost out on it. Someone else comes in and does the job. He got the call right anyway, didn't he?"

Kiely went with an Adam English-Cian Lynch midfield axis and the duo excelled. It was a coming-of-age performance from English, a Doon clubmate of O'Donovan's.

"Doon is a very small club," he said. "I can remember at U-8 or U-10 seeing Adam below in the field and this fella was just red hot. I remember someone asking me what were you looking forward to most in our club. And I said I couldn't wait for him to become a senior player.

"I said that was the player we always needed, we needed a kind of maestro. And I always say to our lads back in the club, 'We carry the piano - Adam will play it'.

"And he will, he'll do that for us. Jeez, he will go on to do great things. I always say to him to believe in yourself even more because he could be one of the greatest ever players, if he wants to be. And I think he does have that drive and determination to be that.

"He reminds me so much of Tony Kelly, off-the-shoulder running, speed. His desire and determination to make tackles, to make turnovers. It's just incredible. What a reaction to being left out of the team for the Munster final. His last two games, he's been outstanding, absolutely outstanding."

O'Donovan was speaking from Limerick's All-Ireland final hotel base in south Dublin before returning home for the after party. It was an opportunity for a few quiet moments of reflection.

He looked back on the last two years, in particular, when Limerick came up short to Cork (2024) and Dublin (2025) at the All-Ireland semi-final and quarter-final stages.

"I think it was two years of hurt," said O'Donovan. "Before that Dublin game last year, there was the Munster final (loss), and it was like a bomb exploded. Mentally, it drained us.

"Then you're going back in the middle of November, no one sees that stuff. The running, all the gym work, there's no hurleys."

O'Donovan's feeling is that younger players in the group, like English, Aidan O'Connor, Cathal O'Neill, Colin Coughlan, Fintan Fitzgerald and Shane O'Brien - all six featured in February's Electric Ireland Fitzgibbon Cup final - were desperate to push on with Limerick this year.

"This is their team now," he said. "They're driving this now, which is great."

So, far from feeling like this is a tired team, or a group that has won enough, O'Donovan is hopeful that there could be even more to come from a Limerick group that swept the boards in 2026, winning all four competitions that they entered.

"There's never enough, like, is there? Much wants more," said the two-time All-Star. "We're all greedy."

Presuming he returns in 2027, O'Donovan will hope for a clean bill of health, to help Limerick go again. He's been through the ringer in the last two years or so.

"At the beginning of 2024, I picked up a calf injury and it continued for two years," he said. "I saw everyone and anyone - doctors, specialists, the whole lot. I just couldn't get the better of it."

He eventually got on top of it last winter, after undertaking a gruelling rehabilitation programme but then, after his third start in the Allianz League, 'picked up a very bad injury in my shoulder'.

All the while, he kept his eyes on the big prize and days like these.

"At the end of the day, people say, 'You're into enjoying it and having the craic'," said O'Donovan. "But there's no craic in losing. We lost for the last two years and there was absolutely zero craic in it. There's zero enjoyment in it, there's zero memories in it.

"It's about winning, it's about having medals in your pocket. It's like Argentina - they're not going to say that the 2026 World Cup was great. It wasn't. It's only great when you come home with the silverware."