Jamie Wall happy to see what the future holds following Mary I departure

After a fruitful decade guiding the Mary Immaculate College hurling fortunes, Jamie Wall is happy to bide his time before taking the next steps in his coaching education.

A selector under Eamonn Cregan as the Limerick college won the Fitzgibbon Cup for the first time in 2016, Wall took charge the next year as the title was retained.

They also won inter-varsity hurling’s biggest prize in 2024 while there were further final appearances in 2019 and the current season.

“I was very happy there,” he says.

“It's been a really enjoyable ten years. Even thinking back to when we first took it on, I remember I was in a car coming back from the Euros – I had been at the Ireland-France game – the phone rang and obviously the number came up as being from Mary I.

“I was trying to keep it quiet but the lads with me saw that and they knew straightaway!

“It was unreal. Even when we actually took it on, our kind of self-appointed remit was to just try to be competitive at the top table – it wasn't even about winning another Fitz at that point, it was about just consistently making Mary I a proper hurling college.

“I think, like, over the course of the ten years – nine seasons, because we lost 2021, obviously, with Covid – our record was fairly alright.”

Wall managed the team from Limerick when he was undertaking a law degree in UL but spent time commuting from Dublin when doing his legal exams and from Cork the last couple of years while working for solicitors RDJ.

Did he think that he would continue for so long after leaving the Treaty City?

“Probably not,” he says.

“I suppose when I knew I was going to be studying for the guts of a year and a half, two years, it kind of was a grand thing to do, because your time is your own when you're studying.

“I probably thought that, once I'd started work, that it wouldn't last as long and the fact that it did last as long was because of the support I was getting at work, you know.

“Obviously, Blackhall in the middle, you have a little bit more free time. While most people are spending their free time going on skiing holidays and trips abroad, I was going to Limerick and I was happier for it, too.”

As he moves on, he feels that Mary I are in a good place in terms of being regular contenders, with the success helping to create a virtuous circle whereby good players are attracted to the college.

“Going back to the very first Fitzgibbon final that we were in in 2013,” he says, “and I always tell the story that, the following year, 17 county minors came into first year.

“They were the group that got it over the line in 2016 and then they were the fourth years in 2017. That didn't happen by accident.

“In 2019, we got to a final again – we lost to a very strong UCC team – and the lads who came into the college around that time were the likes of Jason Gillane, Diarmuid Ryan and Colin O'Brien, who went on to win the Fitz in 2024.

“Please God, that’s an omen – maybe next year, the first-year crop might be a lovely crop coming through again and whoever's taking over might reap the benefits of that.”

As for Wall himself, he will have some involvement with the minor team in his native Kilbrittain while he is coach of Tipperary club side St Mary’s. Otherwise, the future is an unwritten page.

“Obviously, Clonmel is a place that's obviously close to my heart,” he says, “my grandfather was born there and it’s where our people come from.

“It’s the last year of my traineeship, so it's a year where you just want to put the best foot forward there. Hopefully qualify and see what way the world is looking then going into the new year.

“Beyond that, there’s no grand plan, it's just a case of enjoy it now.

“I think I said a couple of weeks back, I was in a mad rush before and I'm not really now.

“What comes will come.”