WIT get the vote to lift fourth title

JOHN MEYLER rates the current squad the best he has ever worked with as coach at Cork IT.

The former All-Ireland dual Club medal winner with St Finbarr’s takes his side into their first Fitzgibbon Cup final appearance today at The Ragg (2.30pm).

Meyler believes that his years of building up a hurling tradition in CIT are about to come to fruition, but at the same time readily admits his side will be complete underdogs.

“We’re at a different level now and there is far more quality at the IT. It’s by far the best squad we’ve had, but nothing has been won yet,” he said.

“The whole team is buzzing and the standard is very high with most of our players having played at inter-county level in one grade or another.

“Our present squad are all excellent hurlers, have a great attitude to the game and most importantly are very honest. They’ll give 110% in the final and that’s All I can ask for. If that’s not good enough to win then we will be beaten by a better team and that’s fair enough.

At the beginning of the campaign, Meyler laid down a couple of ground rules which most players were prepared to accept, but it cost him the services of Alan O’Connor (Rathluirc) and James Murphy (Bishopstown) who opted to concentrate on football.

“We have the potential to win it but we also know it will take a super effort on everyone’s part to beat Waterford.”

Meyler’s opposite number is Colm Bonnar, the former Tipperary senior and current Waterford selector, and he too has done tremendous work at WIT since he took over. It will be a rare sight when two IT teams trot out to contest this year’s final of the Fitzgibbon. What odds would you have gone on that at the start of the season,” said Bonner.

“But there is great work being done at this level now and it would be fair to say the two teams in today’s final are there on merit. I know little about CIT. All the talk was about UL and UCC. We’ll probably go into the final as favourites on the strength of our win over UL on Tuesday, but we can handle that. We’ve come through a very tough side of the draw, and having beaten the holders adds its own bit of extra pressure on us, but our lads know themselves that any team that beats UCC has to be respected and we’ll give them that respect.

“There will be no question of taking anything for granted against CIT I can assure you. It would be a disaster for us having come this far not to win the title, but it will all come down who played best on the day.

“Thankfully we are injury free. The new system being operated this year for the Fitzgibbon is very helpful in that it gives players a couple of extra days to recover from knocks, and it certainly has suited us.” On paper at least WIT look the stronger side and will start favourites. Defensively, they are very solid with Tipp senior Paul Curran, JJ Delaney (Kilkenny), Michael Fitzgerald (Cork), and Joe Brady (Offaly) currently in outstanding form. Ollie Moran (Limerick) and Fergus Flynn (Clare) form a very formidable midfield partnership while the Jacob brothers Michael and Rory, MJ Furlong (all from Wexford), Brian Dowling (Kilkenny) and Setanta Ó hAilpín (Cork) who has scored goals in every outing this season, will ask serious questions of the CIT defence.

The Cork side will include four members of the county minor All-Ireland winning team of 2001, goalkeeper Martin Coleman, corner-back Michael Prout, midfielder John Gardiner and Kieran Murphy (Sars).

Ronan Curran and Garvan McCarthy won their minor All-Ireland medals in 1998 , and when you add in Jamie Tyrell (Kilkenny) and Brian Murphy (Cork), there is a very solid look about this CIT team.

Overall, WIT look a better balanced side and get the vote to lift their fourth title.