Heading up to Croke Park for our now almost annual like semi-final joust with the Cats means it’s a familiar road for coach Shane Hassett but the Drom & Inch clubman feels that’s where the familiarity will end and the previous meetings will count for little once the ball is thrown in.
“It’s All-Ireland semi-final weekend and that invariably means the best four teams in the country are playing. It’s all about quality at this stage. Have we the necessary quality to progress to the final? Of course we do but we will have to deliver our best display of the year to do so. It’s the same for all the teams involved.
“Do Kilkenny have the quality to get to a third final in a row? Of course they do and both Cork and Limerick will feel the same. Every team knows they’ll have to perform at their optimum because anything less will simply not be good enough. We also know that its going to be an almighty battle for us as it’s always a battle when facing Kilkenny. Any team that the Cats send out on the field are never far off winning an All-Ireland if we’re being honest and they will always bring a certain level of physicality to proceedings and we will have to match them at every level. We will need to match their intensity levels and their work rate but that’s the same for when you play any team at this level. You know you just have to perform.”
Shane also feels that there’s very little to take from the previous semi final meetings as this game will take on a life of its own.
“Those previous semi-final games have to be taken as stand alone games in my view. In the first year (2022) we lost John Conlon before the game and we couldn’t cope.
“We were after having been part of an epic Munster final with extra-time and we were shattered. Looking back on it we were lucky to get over Wexford and we just never performed at all against Kilkenny.
“We learned from that and have been constantly trying to strengthen the panel. Last year we felt we left the Munster final behind us and were hurting coming into the semi-final.
“We felt we were in really good shape compared to the previous year but we just came up short especially late on with Eoin Murphy producing that save to deny Peter a goal. This year’s panel has plenty of new faces who wouldn’t have been part of the squad two years ago.
“We are also as a group coming into this semi-final on the back of what we would feel was our poorest performance in the three Munster finals so it’s a new scenario altogether. What does remain the same is that it will take a quality performance to beat a quality team and that’s where our focus is. It’s all about delivering our best performance of the year.”
That quality performance might be enough to see the Banner march behind the band on hurling’s biggest day and have another crack at Limerick potentially but it’s never about Limerick for the Tipperary man.
“It’s not about getting another crack at Limerick and never has been over the last few years. It’s about us as a group improving and taking the next step and that step happens to be getting to the final. That’s the prize on offer and what a prize it is.
“To represent your county on  All-Ireland final day is what all the hard work is for. Everyone wants to be involved on the biggest days and nothing is bigger in our sport than the All-Ireland final. We just need to deliver the quality now. We know we’ve a really strong hard working panel and it’s often been said that you’re only as good as your panel. Well everyone of the players on the entire panel have worked so hard all year.
“All the sacrifices they make so they can play are amazing. They’re all great lads and we’ve a huge pool of players with match day squads always changing yet everyone is always behind each other and driving each other on. We just need to drive on again at the weekend now.”