{"id":344478,"date":"2026-03-13T16:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/344478\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T16:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:37:10","slug":"jamie-wall-happy-to-see-what-the-future-holds-following-mary-i-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/344478\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Wall happy to see what the future holds following Mary I departure"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

They also won inter-varsity hurling\u2019s biggest prize in 2024 while there were further final appearances in 2019 and the current season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very happy there,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’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 \u2013 I had been at the Ireland-France game \u2013 the phone rang and obviously the number came up as being from Mary I.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to keep it quiet but the lads with me saw that and they knew straightaway! <\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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 \u2013 it wasn’t even about winning another Fitz at that point, it was about just consistently making Mary I a proper hurling college. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think, like, over the course of the ten years \u2013 nine seasons, because we lost 2021, obviously, with Covid \u2013 our record was fairly alright.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JamieJamie Wall with Aaron Gallagher and Cian Lynch after Mary I’s 2017 Fitzgibbon Cup final win. Picture: Inpho\/Tom Beary<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Did he think that he would continue for so long after leaving the Treaty City?<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably not,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing back to the very first Fitzgibbon final that we were in in 2013,\u201d he says, \u201cand I always tell the story that, the following year, 17 county minors came into first year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2019, we got to a final again \u2013 we lost to a very strong UCC team \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease God, that\u2019s an omen \u2013 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JamieJamie Wall discussing tactics with his Kilbrittain team prior to the return to action after the Covid lockdown in 2020.\u00a0Picture: Eddie O’Hare<\/p>\n

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\u2019s. Otherwise, the future is an unwritten page.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, Clonmel is a place that’s obviously close to my heart,\u201d he says, \u201cmy grandfather was born there and it\u2019s where our people come from.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond that, there\u2019s no grand plan, it’s just a case of enjoy it now. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think I said a couple of weeks back, I was in a mad rush before and I’m not really now. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat comes will come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a fruitful decade guiding the Mary Immaculate College hurling fortunes, Jamie Wall is happy to bide his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1964,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-344478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cork-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344478","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=344478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}