After the 2018 Championship, the writing was on the wall for Seamus Hickey in more ways than one.
He was certain that Limerick were going to go on and dominate in the coming years after winning their first All-Ireland “ahead of schedule”.
But, although he was just 30, he was equally certain that he would have no further part to play in it.
The 2014 All Star started the first of Limerick’s eight Championship games that year, a win over Tipperary, but lost his place thereafter and was reduced to just two further appearances off the bench for the rest of the campaign.
“It was time to go for me,” he says candidly. “And it was family that was the right part of that decision.
“The effort and the focus and commitment that is required to be part of such a high functioning set-up as an amateur, and have a day job, a wife and family – if hurling was my living, and providing that living, as a family man, you could justify that commitment. But for me, it wasn’t justifiable.
“You have that cliché of fellas asking themselves every year, ‘Can I give the commitment required?’
“But that is a legitimate thing. If you can’t, you don’t meet the levels that you personally want to achieve. You don’t perform the way you want to.
“You’re at risk of not starting or not getting on the match day panel, or being dropped. And that’s an ending that is not on your own terms.
“So, for me, it was the right time. Very quickly it followed on, the level the boys were at, could I sustain in my 30s that level of physicality and athleticism that is the trademark of that Limerick team? The fact that I can’t, and I couldn’t, in the last number of years gave me a good deal of peace about it.”
Some of Limerick’s leading lights are now moving towards the age bracket that Hickey was in when he retired but there is no suggestion that they will call time for a few years yet. The single-biggest difference them and Hickey is that he started a family at a relatively young age by today’s standards and, more than anything else, that impacted his ability to maintain the same standards that he had held before.
“No doubt. The conversations I would have had with Joe O’Connor, the strength and conditioning expert, were, ‘How do I replace sleep? How do I turn four hours’ sleep a night into performance the next night at training, with twin boys and trying to be a supportive husband and trying to be functional in a real world job as an engineer?’
“I absolutely was driven and loved being part of a group and Limerick teams for years. To step away from that was tough. Because I knew they would go on and do great things. That was hard.
“But it was my family that told me that I had to step away. At 30 years, going on 31, I was relatively young but life had passed me by at that stage.”
He may be a few All-Ireland medals light for the fact that he prioritised family life but he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“My family was always number one. I got married at 25. There were no conversations about delaying anything. It was, ‘Let’s live life’. And I’ll try and fit it around my life.”
Hickey says his “only surprise” at watching Limerick in the intervening years is the All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Kilkenny in 2019. They haven’t lost a Championship game since.
“In 2018, I genuinely felt we achieved ahead of schedule. They were an ascending group of players. The under-21s, the All-Irelands that they won, they didn’t just win them, they dominated them.
“To me, that was telling, the physical stature of the players coming up. So you had physique, pace, skill – the trifecta that you can’t design, that either comes through in a generation or it doesn’t.
“Kilkenny came through in a generation. When you’re talking about the likes of Peter Barry, Martin Comerford – size, speed, skill. Henry Shefflin. If you had a prototype hurler, Limerick had seven or eight of them come along together.
“To me, the writing was on the wall.”
Limerick aren’t as far ahead of the chasing pack as they bid for four-in-a-row in 2023, Hickey believes, and the greater degree of difficulty that they endured en route to this year’s title in comparison to the previous two suggests that they’ve reached a certain plateau.
"If your plateau is multiple All-Ireland championships, then that's a fine plateau.
“If you are talking about supply level and talent I do think there is an excellent structure in Limerick for academies but the generation that has come in and is currently there in their mid to late 20s now, I don't think you replicate that.
“Kilkenny did not replicate that. Dublin football, you see with them now, you win as much as you can and then you try and sustain it beyond it with fresh blood that comes in but you will need that blood.
“Limerick aren't at the reblooding stage yet but I do think the core of that team is incredibly special.
“I would argue that they are still favourites but the gap, without question, has narrowed.”
