“We’re just enjoying it all” | Declan Hannon on returning to training, opportunities and “positive” split season

The All-Ireland champions kick off their League campiagn this weekend against Cork in Pairc Ui Chaoimh.

Limerick return to League action this Sunday with many of the All-Ireland three-in-a-row winning squad expected to make a first appearance of the season.

John Kiely’s men had a pair of Munster Hurling League outings, losing to Cork by a solitary point before a big win over Kerry.

The Galbally native used just three of the side that featured in last year’s All-Ireland final with Darragh O’Donovan, David Reidy and Dan Morrissey starting both games. Tom Morrissey was among the XV for the Cork clash.

But elsewhere, it was all change for Limerick who travel Leeside once more this weekend to take on the Rebels.

One of the men that Kiely is likely to call upon is captain Declan Hannon who made history last August when climbing the steps of the Hogan Stand.

It will be a 13th season for the Adare native who has been an integral part of the Limerick set up since his debut as a teenager in 2011.

At the announcement of eir’s sponsorship of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship last November, ambassador Hannon spoke of his enjoyment at training as the All-Ireland champions prepared for the coming season

“I love going back training with the lads and we’ve a really really good group at the minute, you know a lot of honest guys there who are willing to do their best for Limerick and trying to represent their friends and families and their county in the best way they can and we’re just enjoying it all.

In terms of not looking forward to a year, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be looking forward to a year and people might be talking about you’re going stale or something like that but it’s just that enjoyment side of things and seeing how far you can go, you know. People talk about ceilings and stuff like that but you can always try and go above that ceiling as well and it’s great that we have the opportunity to do that and we’ll make the most of it.”

There was little rest for Hannon and co following their intercounty exploits last year with the Limerick Senior Hurling Championship kicking off just a fortnight following the final win over Kilkenny.

Unfortunately for the Adare man, they were relegated to Group 2 of the Limerick SHC following a winless campaign.

Nonetheless, the Limerick captain spoke of the impact of the split season on players as he described it as a “positive.”

“I enjoy the spilt season, I think it’s great from a club player’s point of view. You have a structure there in place that you know exactly the dates that you’re going to be playing club championship, management teams can plan for that, the players can plan around that if they want to go on a holiday or whatever’s going on so they can plan around those dates whereas before it was kind of very hit and miss we weren’t overly sure what was going on.

“So it’s definitely a positive, the split season,”

In the meantime, the Limerick hurlers embarked on thier All-Ireland winning holiday but with the side back for a number of weeks at this stage, Saturday will begin their quest once more for further history as they seek to equal and better and number of long standing records.

Few would back against Hannon and Limerick from achieving just that.

Limerick face Cork in the first round of the Allianz National Hurling League this Saturday at 7pm in Pairc Ui Chaoimh.