Tom Condon was the Limerick player in possession of the sliotar when Joe Canning’s pot shot at glory dropped agonisingly short at Croke Park last Sunday. Yet Kyle Hayes, in his own way, may have played a role in influencing those final few frantic moments, as Canning tried in vain from a long-range free to level up the All-Ireland final.

“It’s bad form, but I was praying to God he wouldn’t put it over. If there was any God there I was praying to him,” admitted Hayes, the man of the match.

“Obviously with the capability he has you wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d slotted it from that distance out.

“He was on form, in fairness to him. He switched on for about 15 minutes there and it was absolutely ridiculous what he did. Look, I think God was kind of on our side, the ball broke our way.”

Asked if he was among the sea of Limerick players when Canning’s effort was gobbled up by green jerseys, Hayes smiled.

“No, I was trying to put him off, I was standing in front of him.

“It was the longest ball ever in history, I’d say. It wouldn’t drop quick enough.”

“But I had faith in the backs to bring it out. They’ve been absolutely brilliant all year, especially the full-back line, and they delivered again for us.”

A few minutes after that full-time whistle, Hayes hoisted his three-year-old niece, Ella, onto his shoulders and celebrated with the other players.

A few days on, he identifies it as one of the sweetest moments of the win, as well as returning to their Citywest Hotel base and being cheered in through the lobby with ‘Zombie’ being belted out over the speakers. The Cranberries and the music of the late Dolores O’Riordan was a theme that carried through Limerick’s summer odyssey.

“Basically we were always playing their songs anyway but when Dolores passed away, it kind of held a bit of a meaning for all of us,” said Hayes. “We just adopted that (‘Zombie’) as our song then for the year.”

Hayes is still only 20 but has already completed a remarkable hurling treble; competing in minor, U21, and senior All-Ireland finals in consecutive years, only coming up short at the minor grade in 2016.

His final performance last Sunday and individual award means he will take his place in the history books though the 6ft 5 attacker’s career is really just getting going.

His burning ambition is to get back and experience more All-Ireland final days, particularly the pre-match parades.

“If you could bottle that experience you’d make millions,” said the Kildimo Pallaskenry club man.

“It was just ridiculous. The Limerick crowd are just the best supporters in the world, they actually are. No matter what it is, whether it’s soccer, rugby, football, whatever is going well they’re right behind it in fairness.”

Hayes plans to give those supporters plenty more to shout about though, looking forward to the 2019 Munster Championship, there’s absolutely no guarantees for any county.

“We’ll really cherish this but as soon as this is over, like, we’re a hungry group, we want success more and more again, to see Liam more and more in Limerick and for us to become one of those top counties.”

Ending their 45-year All-Ireland drought capped a thrilling season for Limerick that included a belated promotion back to the top flight of the National League. That was achieved by beating Galway in the final round of the Division 1B campaign in Salthill before a near-10,000 crowd.

“We came back from I think eight or seven points down at half-time that day,” said Hayes. “We knew after we won that there was something special in the team.

“But we had a lot of turning points in our year. The way the week after went, playing Clare in the Gaelic Grounds and going to extra-time, we should have lost that game three or four times but we still managed to go out and get the win.”

Is it stretching it to suggest that Limerick mightn’t have beaten Galway on the grand stage at Croke Park if they hadn’t beaten them in that league decider?

“Ah you wouldn’t know,” shrugged Hayes.

“The willpower in the group is very strong, even if we did get hammered that day we’d probably still be sitting here. Bouncing back is a theme of our group.”