By John Harrington

Tipped by many to be crowned Hurler of the Year for his exploits with Limerick, Aaron Gillane has been no less impressive on the club front for Patrickswell since the inter-county season ended.

He’s scored 4-24 in six matches and is a big reason why they’ll face reigning champions Na Piarsaigh in Saturday’s Bon Secours Hospital Limerick SHC Final.

Patrickswell manager, Eamonn Kelly, has had a ring-side view of Gillane in action, and lauds his captain’s attitude as well as ability.

“He's incredible,” says Kelly of Gillane. “Inter-county hurling is obviously tough, but the Limerick club championship is seriously challenging too and Aaron is probably double-marked in every game he plays.

“He's as good as I've seen. When he's on form, he's just very, very difficult to stop. He trains so hard to get himself into the shape that he's in. He's put in an awful lot of work this year. He's the captain of the club and he's an absolute role-model for all the other players.

He's obviously a score-getter, but the work he puts in off the ball is also second to none. He leads from the front and it's the same with our other two county lads, Cian (Lynch) and Diarmuid (Byrnes)

“The three of them are incredible role-models. We've four or five lads there in their first year in the panel and they're the first fellas that they'll take with them going out to training to try to bring them along and encourage them. They really are a credit to Patrickswell and their families.”

When Patrickswell and Na Piarsaigh met in the first round of the championship it was The ‘Well who came out on top by two points after a tremendous contest, but Kelly doesn’t think that game counts for much 12 weeks down the line.

“They were missing David Dempsey who's probably been the best club hurler in Limerick this year," he says. "There's talks too that William O'Donoghue could be back for the final, so if the two of them are in the fold that's a massive addition for them.

“It's an unbelievably competitive championship, just a very high standard, any team can beat any other team on any given day.

“We were beaten in the group phase by Kilmallock and then turned it around and reversed the result in the county semi-final.

“We beat Na Piarsaigh in the group phase but you can be sure they'll believe they can reverse that result in the county final now. That's just the sort of championship it is.

“We're just trying to focus on getting everyone performing to their maximum. We want to get a bit more consistency into our hurling because we've been a bit hit and miss this year. We had a great outing in the first round when we beat Na Piarsaigh, but then were beaten by Doon the following week which brings you back down to earth with a bang.

“It's been a bit of a roller-coaster of a championship, up and down, and now it's just about getting the best performance we can on Saturday.

“They have stars all over the field. But we just have to out-work them and take the chances that we create. We did that against Kilmallock, we had only four wides in the whole game. That's the standard we need to get to again but it's going to be very difficult.”

It could be a very memorable weekend for Kelly because on Sunday his home club, Kiladangan, play Thurles Sarsfields in the Tipperary SHC Final replay.

Kelly is hopeful a special generation of players can cement their legacy by winning a second county title having also lost three finals in the last seven years.

“They're a super group but we probably really need to win this one,” he says. “We don't want to be looking back in years to come and saying we were a great team and got to a lot of finals but only won one. It would be great to back it up with another one.”