#HurlingToTheCore ambassador Gearóid Hegarty, pictured alongside the Twomey Family from Ahane GAA, who star in this year’s second series of Bord Gáis Energy’s GAAGAABox, which features the most passionate hurling fans across the country filmed in their front-rooms as they experience the agony and ecstasy of following their counties’ fortunes from home. You can watch GAAGAABox on Bord Gáis Energy’s #HurlingToTheCore YouTube channel throughout the Senior Hurling Championship.
By John Harrington
One moment in particular summed up how out of sorts Limerick were in the first half of the Munster Hurling Final against Tipperary.
Gearoid Hegarty picked the sliotar up in space around 60 yards out from goal and you assumed a white flag would be raised a couple of seconds later.
Instead, we witnessed the very rare sight of one of the purest strikers in the game mis-hitting a shot that was collected and cleared by Tipperary goalkeeper, Barry Hogan.
It was the sort of moment that might rattle a less mentally strong player, but not Hegarty. He was visibly annoyed with himself for a moment, but he would go on from there to become one of the dominant personalities of the match.
That’s not something that might have come as easily to him in the past, but he’s reaping the rewards of investing a lot of time and effort into the psychological side of the game.
“I just love the psychology of sport in general and there is a lot of things you can take from golf,” says Hegarty.
“One being, actually, now that I think of it is that any time Tiger Woods used to hit a bad shot he'd used be annoyed for a couple of seconds but he'd always then pick a point in the fairway 15 yards ahead of himself and by the time he'd get to that point the shot he just hit is gone, he's already focused on the next shot. That's something that you can bring into hurling.
“As you referenced, I hit an awful shot in the first half of the Munster Final off my left side. Once upon a time that would have driven me crazy and I would have been thinking about that for possibly the rest of the game.
“But, why would you do that when you think about it? And, again, this all comes from experience. This comes with learning from instances in the past that you've done badly on.
“That shot that I took after 15 minutes was a terrible shot, but it has no influence on the rest of the game if you don't let it get into your head. If you do, it will drive you crazy and it will be in your head. But if you can just forget about it and keep getting on the next ball and keep trying to make tackles, well then you can go ahead and still have plenty of time to influence the game.
“So like Tiger hitting a bad shot, you just pick a point and it's gone. By the time I ran back out to my position in that match I had already forgotten about that bad shot. And I haven't even thought about it until you berought it back up.
“They're the things you have to learn and that comes from experience.”
Gearoid Hegarty of Limerick celebrates after the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Final between Limerick and Tipperary at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork.
Limerick wouldn’t have recovered from that 10-point half-time deficit as impressively as they did in the Munster Final were they not such a mentally strong collective.
Rather than have their confidence drained by the position they found themselves in, their belief that they would find a way to win the match never wavered.
They achieved the sort of perfect state of flow in the third quarter of the match that all sportspeople dream about, and Hegarty allowed himself to enjoy it in the moment.
“It's absolutely brilliant,” he says. “That's why you do all the hard training. That's why we go to Rathkeale on November and December nights in the freezing cold rain doing all that hard slog.
“I remember when I came on the panel originally Wayne McNamara was a very influential figure on the team and I used to drive to training with him.
"He used always talk about championship hurling being a drug. Once you experience a win in championship or once you experienc the full heat of Championship and the full battle, it is something you can never forget and something you always want more of.
"As bad as the first half felt when they were just running all over us and we just couldn't get anything going, that second half was something that will live with me forever.”
Enjoying the occasion is something that now comes easily to him.
The stakes will be high in Saturday’s All-Ireland SHC semi-final against Waterford, but Hegarty has learned to embrace the pressure rather than be unnerved by it.
"These are the days of our lives,” he says. “I am 26 and 27 in two weeks’ time and I won’t be at this forever.
"For a long, long time Limerick hasn’t been at the top table in hurling, where they are consistently able to challenge for Munster titles, consistently able to get to Croke Park, consistently able to challenge for All-Ireland titles and it may not last forever and it definitely won’t last forever for me, so we just have to enjoy it.”
