An absolute peach.
2017/2018 is a big year for Mary Immaculate college, Limerick.
The teacher training college is aiming to become the first team since the great UCC side of the late 1990’s to win three successive Fitzgibbon Cup titles.
Their 2015/2016 final victory over U.L will forever have a place in college hurling history, given that it was their first ever title in the grade, and that it was one of the best, most hard-fought games in the history of the competition, with only two points separating the sides after an hour and a half of hurling.
Limerick legend Eamon Cregan was the mastermind of this success, and after 22 years of trying and failing to raise Corn Mhic Giobúin for the Treaty college, he decided to bow out at the top.
With Treaty senior star Declan Hannon having completed his degree, and Tipperary seniors Niall O’Meara and Thomas Stapleton also finished, the hopes for the college completing a two-in-a-row were fairly thin.
In stepped former Cork minor, under-21, and Mary I Fitzgibbon star Jamie Wall as manager, a courageous 24-year-old who has been confined to a wheelchair since 2014, when a back ache turned out to be an epidural abscess that, after surgery, led to him losing the use of his legs.
The likes of Cian Lynch, Aaron Gillane, Ronan Maher and Colm Galvin and many many more powered the small college to yet another big triumph in 2017, and they will be hoping to repeat that feat again this year.
Their jerseys last year were loose, baggy, and not that attractive, while the blue and red colours were all over the shop.
Their jersey for this season’s Fitzgibbon journey, which will begin in the next few weeks with some H.E league clashes, is markedly different.
It’s a beautiful tight fit, the traditional red and blue colours of the college are added to the white in a much more impressive manner.
The three red lines departing from the blue round neck is beautiful, and that theme is continued throughout with more blue lines coming from the sleeves and more red from the base.
Photo by Micheal Burns.
We are very impressed, and it certainly gives the geansaí of both DCU and Dundalk I.T a run for their money.
