David Power says the secret to UL’s Electric Ireland Sigerson Cup success so far has been a “less is more” approach.<\/p>\n
The Limerick outfit are just an hour from a maiden title win ahead of Wednesday night’s (throw-in 7.35pm) Croke Park final against UCC.<\/p>\n
With UL’s hurlers also through to Friday’s Electric Ireland Fitzgibbon Cup final, a dream double could be on the cards for the university.<\/p>\n
It will be a first outing at Croke Park for UL boss Power since managing his native Tipperary there in the 2020 All-Ireland senior semi-final.<\/p>\n
And he can be confident that UL will still be going strong at the 60th minute having won both of their last two games after extra time.<\/p>\n
They eventually saw off Queen’s University in a marathon semi-final played in wet and wild conditions last Friday night.<\/p>\n
Asked if it’s superior fitness that’s getting them through the tight encounters, Power shook his head.<\/p>\n
“No, it’s actually a less is more approach, that’s how we’ve managed them and it’s worked out great so far,” said Power.<\/p>\n
“I think the days of early morning training sessions and that kind of stuff is well and truly gone for college teams because you’re dealing with senior inter-county stars and they’re so busy with their inter-county teams.<\/p>\n
“You just have to work with them. We finished well in extra-time in the games against Maynooth and Queen’s for sure, but it’s not because we’re doing a load of fitness work.<\/p>\n
“I would say it’s more to do with the depth of our panel. That’s been key for us, our subs making huge impacts in those games.”<\/p>\n
Subs scored four of UL’s last five points in the win over Queen’s, underlining Power’s point. And with starters like Cian McHale and Frank Irwin consistently coming good too, UL appear to be the full package.<\/p>\n
McHale and Irwin are part of a large contingent of Mayo players at UL, with a third of the starting team against Queen’s coming from the county.<\/p>\n
“I have to say that without the likes of Andy Moran, the Mayo manager, what we’re doing wouldn’t be possible,” said Power.<\/p>\n
“Andy is in his first year and wants to make an impression with Mayo. But he’s very much about the player first of all and has been very, very supportive of us.”<\/p>\n
UL are captained by Clare’s Brian McNamara – the only current player in their group who featured in the narrow 2023 final loss to UCC.<\/p>\n
UL also lost the 2022 final so are keen to finally get over the line. It bodes well that they broke new ground last November when they captured a first ever Division 1 League title.<\/p>\n
Power has a long history of engineering breakthrough wins having guided Tipp to a famous Munster SFC title in 2020, nine years after All-Ireland success with the county’s minors.<\/p>\n
“The Sigerson is a competition I always said I’d like to be involved in,” said Power, who is also managing the Tipperary senior ladies team.<\/p>\n
“If we could do it on Wednesday evening, particularly with it being in Croke Park, what better feeling could there be than that? It would be massive for us all.”<\/p>\n
Listen to the RT\u00c9 GAA Podcast on the RT\u00c9 Radio Player<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Power says the secret to UL’s Electric Ireland Sigerson Cup success so far has been a “less…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-292738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}