BRENDAN MAHER and Aoife Hannon looked the picture of contentment at the christening for their son Hugo. The Tipperary hurling great, who retired in August 2021 , has been married to his influencer spouse since May 2022. They welcomed Hugo into the world in March of this year .
And now their 'gorgeous' baby boy has been christened. At the time of his birth, pilates teacher Aoife beautifully summed up their love for the newborn. She wrote: "Our little boy Hugo James Maher has arrived and we couldn’t be more in love.
" Despite retiring from the inter-county game, Brendan has remained in and around hurling. The Borris-Ileigh man joined the Offaly backroom team this year , linking up with his former club boss Johnny Kelly and his own brother Martin. Maher spoke to SunSport about his new gig following Offaly's 3-20 to 0-17 loss to Waterford in Division 1 back in February.
And he said: “It’s a daunting challenge in one sense in trying to support the players in the right way through a difficult number of games where you are underdogs every game. “But you also need to try and change the mentality. "If you want to become a Division 1 team you’ve got to be able to cope with this type of performance, pressure and try to meet the demands of what the Division 1 teams bring.
“So we were happy with a lot of the game against Waterford but disappointed with some of the mistakes that we made. “If you make mistakes in Division 1 you get punished. "That was the biggest lesson learned from it — that when you make that step up, you can’t afford to make mistakes within your own control.
“I think it’s something that the hurling landscape needs. "It needs Offaly back playing Division 1 and competitive Liam MacCarthy hurling. “We are trying to develop existing players and bring on those Under-20s and try and develop them into top inter-county hurlers.
"That’s essentially the challenge that lies ahead. "The one thing I would say is, despite being beaten last weekend comfortably, you learn an awful lot from that and the players see the level they need to get to.”.
