Hegarty: Win incredibly hard but incredibly satisfying
Limerick's Gearóid Hegarty has said their 2026 season, which culminated in an impressive demolition of Galway in the All-Ireland final was "incredibly hard but incredibly satisfying".
John Kiely's side ran out comfortable 1-18 to 1-29 winners against a Tribes side that never properly got going.
"It's been so hard. It's been so tough," Hegarty told The Sunday Game of Limerick's 2026 campaign. "I always speak about the Munster championship. Trying to get out of Munster every single year, it's two different competitions. It's so tough.
"So that's kind of the first objective, to get out of Munster and then you get up to the All-Ireland series, trying to get up into this stadium and you're coming up against teams that have momentum behind them obviously having won a good few games to get here.
"So it's been unbelievably tough but unbelievably satisfying after 2024 and 2025. I'm not afraid to say we got used to coming up here every year and going back down the road with the Cup and it was a tough couple of years.
"I know we waited 45 years before 2018, but when you get used to something it does make it hard then when you're used to coming up here on All-Ireland semi-final and All-Ireland final day. So it's immensely satisfying to get back to Croke Park and to get back to contesting these finals and obviously today went well for us."
After two difficult seasons, the St Patrick's clubman said that there was no doubt within the side that they would return to the pinnacle of hurling.
"We never doubted ourselves in terms of that we had the ability to get back here. Maybe because we showed such consistency over the years," he said.
"We had two bad performances in 2024 and 2025 but like even so we only lost by a point or two on both days. I always speak about it. People are sick of me speaking about it but the margins are just so small. If you're a tiny bit off, out here especially, you will be exposed.
"We were a good bit off on both days and when you are you just won't get over the line simple as that."
Limerick full-back Mike Casey hailed the ravenous nature of Limerick's tackling as Galway failed to get joy from balls played into their attacking unit.
Former Treaty star Shane Dowling, while not wanting to over use the cliché of work-rate and turnovers, felt it was just that that set the Treaty apart in their latest All-Ireland triumph.
"We put a lot of emphasis on our front eight making sure that they got the tackles," the full-back said.
"We looked back at other games and saw that a lot of lads would follow out; we weren't going to do that. They have a couple of big target back inside that they were going to hit if they were left with all that space - and they were going to do damage.
"So it was important that our front eight got those tackles in."
