Arise Aghabullogue and take place among the dual jewels, Bandon await and Bride Rovers make their point
THRILLER: Aghabullogue players and mentors celebrate after defeating Uibh Laoire in Cork's Premier IFC final on Sunday. They will chase a county double in a fortnight. Pic: Eddie O'Hare
THE Barrs and Newcestown have rightly been lauded in recent weeks, months, and years for their successful fighting on two senior fronts.
In three of the last four campaigns, the Barrs have been part of the semi-final line-up in both hurling and football.
Newcestown, where the playing numbers are a great deal smaller and the dual mandate a great deal more pronounced, achieved a priceless Senior A double in 2023.
In this 2025 season, their Premier Senior hurlers accumulated points in two of their three group outings, while the same players, with a football in hand, were an 82nd minute narrow wide from bringing Nemo Rangers to a penalty shootout in the Premier SFC semi-final.
Carrigaline merit mention too, given their 2024 efforts brought Senior A football glory and a run to the Premier Intermediate hurling decider.
Venturing outside the senior ranks in both codes, the outstanding Cork dual club of this decade has been Aghabullogue. Their consistency on both fronts is to be admired and applauded.
Sundayâs Premier Intermediate football final win represented the clubâs sixth county final appearance since 2020. The Intermediate A hurling decider of November 16 will be their seventh.
Studying the players used in the one-point football win over Uibh Laoire and extra-time hurling semi-final victory of four weeks earlier, we counted eight - Colm Gillespie, Paul Ring, Pauric OâSullivan, John Buckley, Shane Tarrant, Matthew Bradley, Luke Casey, and Brendan OâSullivan - dual operators. That number would have been nine only for football captain John Corkery to miss the hurling semi because of injury.
Bradley, Casey, and a few more are also part of a fiercely successful Coachford FC soccer set-up.
âThis year has been one of the best sporting years ever. If you ask the lads inside there, they'll say, play everything,â said 1-3 county final top-scorer and Irish amateur football team striker Luke Casey.
The same as Newcestown, Aghabullogue achieved their own double two years ago. Theyâre now one hour from another.
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On the Aghabullogue GAA website, six team pictures auto rotate on their home page. They are all recent success stories. The two photos that stand out are the teams that won double intermediate honours in 2023.
Hurling was first when they defeated Midleton by a point. A fortnight later they overcame Mitchelstown, again, by a point. Matthew Bradley scored the winner in the hurling final from a free. Matthew Bradley, again, nabbed the winner on Sunday in the Premier IFC final.
Add in the Division 4 football league title this year. Add in the Division 5 hurling league title this year.
With the IAHC final to be played in two weeksâ time and Munster club intermediate football next Sunday, Aghabullogue donât look like stopping anytime soon.
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Spare a thought for Aghabullogue's hurling final opponents from Bandon⌠While the dual diamonds busied themselves with football preparation over the past fortnight, and will do so again for the week coming, Bandonâs idle wait for the rescheduled Intermediate A hurling final has been pushed out by an extra seven days owing to their opponentsâ involvement in the Munster Club IFC quarter-final this Sunday.
Come the November 16 refixture, it will have been four weeks since the initial postponement and six weeks since their last competitive outing.
At a time of year when challenge matches are hard to come by, on account of the limited number of teams still going, Bandonâs six weeks by themselves is a planning quagmire.
They first attempted to peak for October 18. They were then working towards November 9. They are now working towards November 16.
All September momentum has been lost. It remains to be seen where the collective sharpness - physical and otherwise - will be at once their waiting game finally draws to a close later this month.
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Bride Rovers captain Conleith Ryan detached himself from the dressing-room celebrations on Saturday evening to field questions and unspool his thoughts in the long corridor underneath the South Stand.
After the nature of the replay win and various other bits had been dissected and delved through, we asked the half-forward if it had been frustrating to have earned the label of a semi-final team, in light of their four successive last-four defeats from 2021 through â24.
Ryan answered the question by giving his view of how he believes Bride Rovers to have been perceived in a 2025 campaign that had just concluded with county honours.
âYeah, look, I think everybody writes us off,â Ryan began. âNobody sees us as really a big hurling team or anything like that. I think a lot of the newspapers, I think a lot of people just around the place, write us off. To be honest, I don't think a lot of us listen to it, but it creates a bit of a fire.
âWe just feel the last couple of years - that's just the luck of the draw, that's just the way things go. We were unlucky the year against Blarney [2023] with that match and I think that was more of a mental thing. We were a young team and we didn't turn up the next day at all.
âIt's all lessons learned; I really do believe we built on from there and the proof is in the pudding today.â Educated by those four semi-final defeats, hardened too.
âDefinitely. We've been in that position there the last couple of years where we went down and we haven't managed to claw it back.
âBut we went down six points today and it lit a small bit of a fire in us. Thank God we got over the line in the end.âÂ
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There will be another opportunity for Ballinora and Ilen Rovers in Cork's IAFC final replay. Ballinora, in particular, will be glad to go again as they may feel they were the better side but they didnât show their dominance on the scoreboard due to too many missed chances including a well-struck penalty that was brilliantly saved.
They fell 1-4 to 0-1 behind in the first quarter, but rallied to take the lead early in the second half. It was score for score until Ilen Rovers set the pace and looked the likely winners up to Neil Lordanâs late, late two-point free.
His long-range shot after a breach of the three-up rule saved the day.
Ilen Rovers must regroup and find a way once more. Another three-hour round trip for the Baltimore club awaits. A journey they will be only too happy to undertake.
Their west Cork location was beautifully described in the match programme as âa small club in the far south west of the county with our neighbours being the marine life of the Wild Atlantic Ocean.âÂ
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 The sheer size of Cork in the GAA world means that they have to do things their way. It means that the winners of the Senior âAâ and Intermediate âAâ competitions donât get a chance to test themselves in the provincial competitions, but they are serving the greater good, and promotion is an end in itself.
With eight competitions now completed, the grades are full of well-matched teams, and the restructure has fulfilled its brief. Two finals, the SAHC and the IAFC, ended in draws. When Bride Rovers and Castlelyons played again, only a point separated them, we can expect something similar when Ballinora and Ilen Rovers meet again in a fortnight. In the Premier SFC, St Finbarrâs only had a point to spare over Nemo Rangers, as did Aghabullogue over Uibh Laoire in the PIFC, as did Kilbrittain over Glen Rovers in the Premier JHC.
Sarsfields did have seven points to spare over Midleton in the Premier SHC, but the absence of Eoin Moloney and Conor Lehane for the Magpies offered mitigation. Ballinhassig beat Ballincollig by six points in the Premier IHC, but the game was level going into the final quarter. Knocknagree were two goals better than Cill na Martra in the SAFC as the pain of losing two finals was flushed out of their system.
Buttevantâs 1-15 to 0-10 win over St Nickâs in the PJFC is an outlier, but the Avondhu side may be looked at in a different light once their provincial campaign kicks off.
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The results speak for themselves. In 2018 Ray Keane guided St Finbarrâs to a first Cork senior football title in 33 years. He has overseen numerous underage achievements in Ăire Ăg.
On Sunday he guided Aghabullogue to a second county title in three seasons, having won the IAFC in 2023. The former St Maryâs Cahersiveen player is the new Cork U20 football manager for a two-year term.
Watch this space.
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