GAA
South Liberties edged out Ballybrown on Saturday to seal their place in the SHC quarter-final.
A victory for South Liberties against Ballybrown was enough to earn a place in the knockout stages of the SHC, as Mungret and Blackrock played out a stalemate in the final round of the championship.
The result put South Liberties into second place on six points, level with their opponents Ballybrown but the side went through on head-to-head and qualified for their third successive quarter-final.
It was a topsy-turvy campaign for the side who were on the right side of two one-point wins and the losing side of another as they looked unlikely to make it out of their group come the final round.
Luckily, other fixtures played into their favour and South Liberties’ also played their part as Barry Nash expressed his delight over the outcome and credited his team-mates for their performances.
“It was magic, a magic feeling there with the club.
“We came in today with the result not in our hands, we needed to win today but it was up to other results to get through and our boys just pulled together and we gave a brilliant performance today and just thankfully, the results went our way and we’re into another quarter-final.”
After Monday’s draw, the side learned they will face Patrickswell in the quarter-final, who finished fourth in group one after beating Adare on the final day.
South Liberties have been unsuccessful in their last two quarter-final outings and will be hoping for better luck against last year’s finalists in a fixture that hasn’t been played in the SHC since 2019.
On that occasion, Patrickswell proved too strong with a 1-26 to 1-13 victory but Nash is confident of his side’s ability and believes they can provide a stern test.
“We showed it last year, ourselves and Adare, we both put up huge quarter-final performances and we gave it a fair rattle. Look, we fell short on the day to the ultimate county champions, which gives us great confidence going into this year.”
“We’d a couple of poor games, we’re kind of building on from the first game forward so look, we’ll go in and we’ll give it a rattle, we’ve nothing to lose, we’re after getting through to a quarter final that we didn’t think we’d get.
South Liberties will face Patrickswell at 2pm on Sunday October 9th in the quarter-final of the Bon Secours Limerick Senior Hurling Championship.