Seamus Hickey on Limerick hurling's greatest era: 'I knew it was coming'

We're living in an era of Limerick supremacy and for perhaps the first time, 'the big three' itself is in danger of becoming a misnomer.

In 2022, they became the first team outside that aristocratic trio to win three-in-a-row - and one of those, Tipperary, only completed the feat in 1900.

From this remove, it's hard to credit how abrupt their rise to glory was back in 2018, or at least how abrupt it seemed to those who hadn't checked under the bonnet.

John Kiely's first year in charge of the seniors in 2017 didn't offer many hints of what was to come. Limerick were eliminated in Munster by Clare, after which Ger Loughnane dismissed his county's prospects on the grounds that their opposition was so poor. They were subsequently knocked out altogether by an out-of-sorts Kilkenny in a Nowlan Park qualifier, the quality of the match panned by all and sundry.

Just over 13 months later, Limerick would be All-Ireland champions for the first time in 45 years.

Seamus Hickey, a stalwart for over a decade, posed with his kids and the Liam MacCarthy Cup on the pitch afterwards, in what would be his last involvement with Limerick as a player.

"It's something I reflected on in the years after. It was time to go for me," Hickey told RTÉ Sport at last week's GAAGO launch.

"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.

"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