Cork v Limerick: Darragh Fitzgibbon keenly aware of rivalry

Growing up in Charleville, Darragh Fitzgibbon is exposed to the Cork-Limerick rivalry at its most acute.

Teaching in Ballyhea, the midfielder still lives in his native border parish – indeed, he acknowledges, “That's up for debate!” when asked if the family home is actually in Limerick county.

It’s the green and white side of the dividing line that has had the upper hand in recent times.

“I suppose it's a good rivalry but there's good banter in it too,” Fitzgibbon says.

“I think if you arrive down in Charleville you'll see as much Limerick flags as you will Cork flags. We probably haven't given the Cork people as much opportunity to raise those flags as the Limerick people have in the last couple of seasons.

“But yeah, you definitely experience it. I'll be keeping the head down and keeping well out of their way.”

His heart was always red and white at club and county level, though.

“From five years of age I was in school in Charleville and I played hurling with Charleville from that age,” he says.

“And all my buddies are from Charleville, so it was always Cork."

An extra personal element for Fitzgibbon is the fact that he is a first cousin of Limerick defender Richie English.

“I think all our family on that side are really close, probably [more so] when we were a lot younger because again, life gets busy,” he says.

“I suppose I live a busy lifestyle and Richie lives a busy lifestyle. We're both primary school teachers, both training with inter-county teams so you've got a lot in common.

“But yeah, look, the craic and the banter you have when Cork play Limerick is always really good. Richie's mam is a Cork woman so I'm sure she'll be shouting for Cork on Sunday rather than Limerick!”

Cork will go in as under-dogs for Sunday’s clash in Croke Park, but there is some hope for the Rebels in the fact that they have already beaten Limerick this year, coming out on top by 3-28 to 3-26 in an epic tie in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh in May.

While Cork led for much of that match, it looked like Limerick had done their usual thing as they pushed two in front in the closing stages. Shane Kingston’s run drew a foul, Cork were awarded a penalty which Patrick Horgan converted and Brian Hayes made sure of the win.

One of the stars that night was Fitzgibbon, who scored five points from midfield, and the scenes at the end were unlike anything he had witnessed in his inter-county career.

“No, I haven't really experienced anything like that,” he says.

“We probably experienced more success with the Munster wins in 2017 and ’18 but I think that was just, I suppose, a feeling of just relief to kind of extend our season for another week, and also to highlight that the things we've been working on in training are working and to give us confidence to drive on.

“But again, everyone talks about those scenes after the match. I think that was just the crowd expressing an emotional response to what we did on the night. We knew as players, when we got back into the dressing-room, yeah, we said, “Well done,” to each other, but we knew we had to get in back and get ready for the following week.

“We were back in the gym the following morning getting ready for Tipperary because we knew results had to go our way first of all and then we knew we had to beat Tipperary to try to extend our season, which we managed to do.”

It served to provide a template and it has been followed by three more – the county’s first four-game winning run in the championship since 2006. Now, the quest is to make it five.

“I think the circumstances demanded it that day,’ Fitzgibbon says, “but it's something that we've taken into the rest of the year in terms of our performances.

“There was a lot of pressure going into that Limerick game. You could either let it eat you up or you could put the shoulders out, drive through and give it your best. That's what we did.

“I suppose you take a lot of learnings from each performance and they're some of the things we took from that one that we've been trying to build on throughout the last few weeks.”