ALL-IRELAND CLUB CHAMPION and Limerick full-forward Shane Dowling will discover on Tuesday if he’ll be fit to line out for Na Piarsaigh in their Munster club championship semi-final clash with Cork’s Blackrock on 5 November.
The 24-year-old former All-Star remains cautiously optimistic; the only certainty as far as he’s concerned is that it’s not a cruciate ligament injury as had been first feared.
“Unfortunately for ye, the results are tomorrow,” Dowling told the media on Monday, while in attendance at AIB’s launch of the 2017/18 Camogie and Club Championships.
Both Na Piarsaigh and their talisman face an anxious wait, but they couldn’t have been accused of dallying during their county final on 15 October, as the north city club wrestled back the Limerick hurling crown from 2015 All-Ireland finalists Kilmallock at the Gaelic Grounds.
It was a rather straightforward day at the office in spite of a mere five-point margin; only two late consolation strikes by Mulcahy brothers Jake and Graeme put any semblance of gloss on the scoreline for Kilmallock, but Piarsaigh had led 1-21 to 0-11 with as few as eight minutes remaining.
“It was the first time in Limerick that we put in a performance where we can say we played to our potential”, says a delighted Dowling, “because we haven’t done that in Limerick in a long time, for whatever reason.
“To produce it on county final day was very special. From the very start – if you take the last seven minutes out for whatever reason, I haven’t studied it, I’m sure the management have – it was fairly good for us the whole way through. If we can bring those performances going forward then we can do no more than that.
We hit form at the right time. Our efficiency was something that we would have worked on a lot. Our scoring efficiency for the championship was very poor and even the amount of frees we were giving away was borderline embarrassing.
“So from stuff that we worked on, that day we didn’t give away a whole lot of frees – very few in the second half – and our scoring efficiency was very high as well, so we just hit good timing on the right day.”
Dowling himself was in fine fettle from the floor two Sundays ago, all five of his scores arriving from first-half frees prior to his withdrawal with that pesky knee injury.
His accuracy from the dead ball is not born of countless, mind-numbing evenings spent ripping the sliotar over the black spot to the point of automation, however – or at least he doesn’t do too much of that lately. Dowling instead found his free-taking rhythm and routine years ago, and keeps that ticking over by hitting only a few dead balls during the week.
We’re playing Blackrock in two weeks’ time. Say for me, going down to Na Piarsaigh hitting frees on a Thursday night with no-one there, no cameras, and to compare that to going down to a completely different venue, with a big crowd, and on TG4, there’s no comparison.
“I’d more practice my technique and my visualisation than I do the frees. As I said, if you’re playing a match in front of 5,000, live on television, it just doesn’t compare to hitting frees on your own in a different venue.
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“The week of the match, I’d just hit a couple to make sure my striking is intact, but as I said, there’s no point in hitting 100 frees because it’s different circumstances for different days.
“It’s weird. Growing up, I would have looked at Niall Gilligan and Alan Markham, both from Clare. As a left-sided free-taker, I always found it difficult to get my own technique, so it took me a long time to get the technique that I have, and one that I’m happy with.
“A lot of practice went into that, down in Na Piarsaigh on my own, but I have that technique now for a number of years and I suppose it’s just all about backing that every time.”
His visualisation process is slightly more secretive.
“No, I wouldn’t pick things out for visualisation. There’s different venues. I mean, some days there might be a treehouse behind the goals and you want to hit it into the treehouse, but other days there’s nothing behind the goals.
“I have my own little secret, with my own teammates for what I do in that regard, so I’ll keep that between us,” he laughs.
He remains hopeful that he’ll be ruled sufficiently fit to punish any Blackrock indiscretions in two weeks’ time. Incidentally, that Gaelic Grounds fixture will be the second time The Rockies have squared off against Na Piarsaigh during this year’s championship, having seen off the Cork variant at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in their county semi-final a fortnight ago.
That 0-21 to 2-14 victory propelled Blackrock to the final, where they were subsequently bested by a Séamus Harnedy-led Imokilly on Sunday. It will be Blackrock who face the Limerick champions in the Munster semi, however, on account of Imokilly’s being an East Cork divisional side composed of players from eight clubs.
“Yeah, it’s definitely unique,” says Dowling of the semi-final match-up. “We obviously wouldn’t have come across it, but as far as we’re concerned we have to play a Munster semi-final in the Gaelic Grounds and we just want to do ourselves justice, because we have a good side and we won’t be thinking about Blackrock.
Whether they go out for a week after the county final or they don’t go out at all – that’s their own business. We can only play what’s put in front of us. I wasn’t at the game yesterday, I have no idea how good or bad they are, but they’re a very proud Cork club, so I’d imagine they want to do the club proud in two weeks’ time anyway.
Blackrock will face Dowling's Na Piarsaigh in Munster despite losing the Cork county final Bryan Keane / INPHO
Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO
Na Piarsaigh’s chances have likely been bolstered by The Rockies’ defeat, with the suburbian Cork runners-up facing a task to pick themselves up and go again.
Dowling, though, is a product of a win-only culture stemming back to his days as a student at perennial Harty Cup contenders Ard Scoil Rís, and doesn’t buy into ‘catching breaks’.
There are no hang-ups, curses, clichés – only performance and victory. It brought he and Na Piarsaigh a long way last season, and he intends for their success to continue.
People were saying to me before the All-Ireland final two years ago, ‘oh, you know Limerick teams in Croke Park’, and all this nonsense. As far as I was concerned, and I said at the time, Na Piarsaigh never played in Croke Park, and we’re a club, and we only won our first county title in 2011.
“In 2009 we played five county championships [finals at various age grades] in seven days and we were beaten in the whole lot of them, so it’s not that long ago that we were nobodies.
“I suppose we have put the northside of Limerick city on the map in a proud way and we’re hoping that’s not going to change. Even if we’re beaten we still want to do the club proud because there’s a lot of fantastic people in the club. I consider myself to be a very, very strong club person so I don’t want that to change.”
But for all their on-field wins over the past six years, Na Piarsaigh have in the past 18 months suffered two losses exponentially more profound than mere hurling defeats.
Back in April, club treasurer Liam Kennedy, father of goalkeeper Podge, died aged 62 – this just over 11 months after the passing of beloved Na Piarsaigh official Paddy Verdon, both of whom had taken Dowling – and the club as a whole – under their respective wings at various stages.
“I don’t believe in winning county titles for someone because I win a county title for Na Piarsaigh”, says Dowling, “but there’s a certain number of people in every club that everyone can relate to, that are very special, and Paddy was very special to me.
“I grew attached to him since I was very young, and Liam was no different. Liam was a teacher in Ard Scoil Rís. To me he was a teacher and a friend, but to Podge he was a father and he was so fit and healthy. From the day we were told that he was sick to eight weeks later he was dead, it’s very scary.
Liam didn’t drink – recently! – and he was the last man to leave the pub, dropping lads home, and you’re still waiting for him to walk in the door. ‘Tis weird. Very weird. Even after the county final to see his family on the pitch nearly brought a tear to my eye. It did bring a tear to my eye – there’s no point in saying ‘nearly.’
“It’s sad, especially when you have success, that he should be there congratulating him [Podge] and he’s not. Listen, there’s many clubs around the country that have lost great people and we’re no different, and it’s just great to be able to win, especially for the families that are close to them, to be able to tribute that to their own father.”
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'Hitting frees on a Thursday night, with no one there, no cameras - there's no comparison'
ALL-IRELAND CLUB CHAMPION and Limerick full-forward Shane Dowling will discover on Tuesday if he’ll be fit to line out for Na Piarsaigh in their Munster club championship semi-final clash with Cork’s Blackrock on 5 November.
The 24-year-old former All-Star remains cautiously optimistic; the only certainty as far as he’s concerned is that it’s not a cruciate ligament injury as had been first feared.
“Unfortunately for ye, the results are tomorrow,” Dowling told the media on Monday, while in attendance at AIB’s launch of the 2017/18 Camogie and Club Championships.
Both Na Piarsaigh and their talisman face an anxious wait, but they couldn’t have been accused of dallying during their county final on 15 October, as the north city club wrestled back the Limerick hurling crown from 2015 All-Ireland finalists Kilmallock at the Gaelic Grounds.
It was a rather straightforward day at the office in spite of a mere five-point margin; only two late consolation strikes by Mulcahy brothers Jake and Graeme put any semblance of gloss on the scoreline for Kilmallock, but Piarsaigh had led 1-21 to 0-11 with as few as eight minutes remaining.
“It was the first time in Limerick that we put in a performance where we can say we played to our potential”, says a delighted Dowling, “because we haven’t done that in Limerick in a long time, for whatever reason.
“To produce it on county final day was very special. From the very start – if you take the last seven minutes out for whatever reason, I haven’t studied it, I’m sure the management have – it was fairly good for us the whole way through. If we can bring those performances going forward then we can do no more than that.
“So from stuff that we worked on, that day we didn’t give away a whole lot of frees – very few in the second half – and our scoring efficiency was very high as well, so we just hit good timing on the right day.”
Dowling himself was in fine fettle from the floor two Sundays ago, all five of his scores arriving from first-half frees prior to his withdrawal with that pesky knee injury.
His accuracy from the dead ball is not born of countless, mind-numbing evenings spent ripping the sliotar over the black spot to the point of automation, however – or at least he doesn’t do too much of that lately. Dowling instead found his free-taking rhythm and routine years ago, and keeps that ticking over by hitting only a few dead balls during the week.
“I’d more practice my technique and my visualisation than I do the frees. As I said, if you’re playing a match in front of 5,000, live on television, it just doesn’t compare to hitting frees on your own in a different venue.
“The week of the match, I’d just hit a couple to make sure my striking is intact, but as I said, there’s no point in hitting 100 frees because it’s different circumstances for different days.
“It’s weird. Growing up, I would have looked at Niall Gilligan and Alan Markham, both from Clare. As a left-sided free-taker, I always found it difficult to get my own technique, so it took me a long time to get the technique that I have, and one that I’m happy with.
“A lot of practice went into that, down in Na Piarsaigh on my own, but I have that technique now for a number of years and I suppose it’s just all about backing that every time.”
His visualisation process is slightly more secretive.
“No, I wouldn’t pick things out for visualisation. There’s different venues. I mean, some days there might be a treehouse behind the goals and you want to hit it into the treehouse, but other days there’s nothing behind the goals.
“I have my own little secret, with my own teammates for what I do in that regard, so I’ll keep that between us,” he laughs.
He remains hopeful that he’ll be ruled sufficiently fit to punish any Blackrock indiscretions in two weeks’ time. Incidentally, that Gaelic Grounds fixture will be the second time The Rockies have squared off against Na Piarsaigh during this year’s championship, having seen off the Cork variant at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in their county semi-final a fortnight ago.
That 0-21 to 2-14 victory propelled Blackrock to the final, where they were subsequently bested by a Séamus Harnedy-led Imokilly on Sunday. It will be Blackrock who face the Limerick champions in the Munster semi, however, on account of Imokilly’s being an East Cork divisional side composed of players from eight clubs.
“Yeah, it’s definitely unique,” says Dowling of the semi-final match-up. “We obviously wouldn’t have come across it, but as far as we’re concerned we have to play a Munster semi-final in the Gaelic Grounds and we just want to do ourselves justice, because we have a good side and we won’t be thinking about Blackrock.
Na Piarsaigh’s chances have likely been bolstered by The Rockies’ defeat, with the suburbian Cork runners-up facing a task to pick themselves up and go again.
Dowling, though, is a product of a win-only culture stemming back to his days as a student at perennial Harty Cup contenders Ard Scoil Rís, and doesn’t buy into ‘catching breaks’.
There are no hang-ups, curses, clichés – only performance and victory. It brought he and Na Piarsaigh a long way last season, and he intends for their success to continue.
“In 2009 we played five county championships [finals at various age grades] in seven days and we were beaten in the whole lot of them, so it’s not that long ago that we were nobodies.
“I suppose we have put the northside of Limerick city on the map in a proud way and we’re hoping that’s not going to change. Even if we’re beaten we still want to do the club proud because there’s a lot of fantastic people in the club. I consider myself to be a very, very strong club person so I don’t want that to change.”
But for all their on-field wins over the past six years, Na Piarsaigh have in the past 18 months suffered two losses exponentially more profound than mere hurling defeats.
Back in April, club treasurer Liam Kennedy, father of goalkeeper Podge, died aged 62 – this just over 11 months after the passing of beloved Na Piarsaigh official Paddy Verdon, both of whom had taken Dowling – and the club as a whole – under their respective wings at various stages.
“I don’t believe in winning county titles for someone because I win a county title for Na Piarsaigh”, says Dowling, “but there’s a certain number of people in every club that everyone can relate to, that are very special, and Paddy was very special to me.
“I grew attached to him since I was very young, and Liam was no different. Liam was a teacher in Ard Scoil Rís. To me he was a teacher and a friend, but to Podge he was a father and he was so fit and healthy. From the day we were told that he was sick to eight weeks later he was dead, it’s very scary.
“It’s sad, especially when you have success, that he should be there congratulating him [Podge] and he’s not. Listen, there’s many clubs around the country that have lost great people and we’re no different, and it’s just great to be able to win, especially for the families that are close to them, to be able to tribute that to their own father.”
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Limerick GAA Na Piarsaigh GAA not for shane Shane Dowling