PREVIEW | UL Freshers look to add All-Ireland Championship title to League honours

The University have already won the League title as well the Fitzgibbon Cup and Intermediate All-Ireland titles this season.

The University of Limerick are one hour away from retaining their All-Ireland Freshers Hurling Championship title this evening as they take on the University of Galway in the final in Dangan. It has been a fruitful season already for the Limerick college who retained their Fitzgibbon Cup title against NUIG last month.

Two of their starting side for the Fitzgibbon Cup, Adam English and Colin Coughlan were a part of the all-conquering freshers side that won league and All-Ireland honours in 2022, something this year’s class will be hoping to repeat in this evening’s final that will be streamed live.

This year’s panel are just one game away from emulating that team after they won the League title against DCU in December. Keith Smyth grabbed the only goal of the game in the 1-21 to 0-13 victory in Clonad.

There were three Limerick starters on the side that evening in Conor Hanley Clarke (Kilmallock), Evan O’Leary (Ahane) and Liam Dennehy (Glenroe). Killian Quaid (Murroe Boher), John Fitzgerald (Na Piarsaigh), Mark Riordan (Castletown Ballyagran), PJ Hogan (Cappamore) and Rian O’Byrne (Crecora Manister) were among the substitutes.

Hanley Clarke, O’Leary and Dennehy are all named from the start for this evening’s contest and are joined by fellow Limerick natives Joe Fitzgerald (Monaleen) who won an All-Ireland Intermediate title with his club earlier this year and Blackrock’s Sean O’Neill.

Interestingly, David Kennedy is named among the substitutes after scoring 2-6 for the second side as they claimed the Freshers 2 All-Ireland title last week. Kennedy was at corner forward for Ardscoil Rís in their Croke Cup win last March with Evan O’Leary also starting on that team. Gavin Rowesome (Ahane ) has also been added to the first side after his part in the Freshers 2 win.

The Limerick college have Patsy Coffeey (Cappamore) and Dave Clohessy (Fedamore) in the backroom team alongside Joe McGrath, Dave Foley (both Clare) and James McGrath (Tipperary)

UL qualified for the final with an epic 3-14 to 1-19 win over DCU in the semi-final last Wednesday evening. Castletown Ballyagran’s Mark Riordan popped up with a crucial goal late on to secure the victory for Limerick college where Fitzgerald and Dennehy also found the target. Smyth top scored for the side with 2-8.

The defending champions have had to battle to get to the final with three of their four wins by virtue of one-point margins. In the opening round, they bested TUS MidWest 0-17 to 1-13 before beating tonight’s opponents 2-22 to 1-24. Mary I got the better of their neighbours in the second round but UL qualified for the quarters where they beat SETU Waterford 5-17 to 2-16 in their most impressive performance.

The University of Galway beat both Mary I and TUS MidWest to qualify directly for the semi-finals where they saw off UCC by five points last Thursday.

For UL, this will be a sixth successive Freshers 1 final as they bid for a third title in that timeframe. Incredibly, three of those contests came against DCU with their 2020 clash never played due to the Covid pandemic. The Dublin college got the upper hand in successive years in 2017 and ’18 before UL bested neighbours LIT in 2019. Last year, the Limerick college finally got one over DCU with the 12-point victory.

Throw-in in Dangan is at 7pm with the game live on the Higher Education GAA YouTube Channel.

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