Brothers lead the way as hurling comes into its own in Ardmore

ARDMORE and hurling are hardly synonymous. Football has long since been the dominant GAA code in the seaside club, but the Prendergast brothers, Seamas and Declan, are at the hub of what has been a remarkable transformation.

Today Ardmore is one of a just a handful of dual senior clubs in the county and is holding its own in the hugely competitive hurling arena. They’ve come from junior to senior in two very remarkable years with the Prendergasts leading a spectacular hurling resurgence.

Last year their senior championship debut was against the reigning county champions Mount Sion, and they came within a whisker of bringing off what would have been the biggest championship upset in a generation.

With Declan a commanding figure at centre back and Seamas roaming the field to telling effect, they led their celebrated opponents going into the closing ten minutes before losing out by a solitary point.

They’ve already beaten Ballyduff in the first round of this year’s campaign, a win that ensures their place in the top flight again in 2005.

Seamas (24) made his senior inter county debut against Tipperary in 2000 and has made such gigantic strides that he is now one of the most feared forwards in the game. His display in this year’s semi-final against Tipp was outstanding and it was his pinpoint accurate last minute delivery that set up substitute Paul O’Brien for the winning goal.

Twenty three year old Declan’s first championship appearance at senior level was in last year’s campaign against Kerry. He has alternated since between the corner and full back berths, and though left out of the team that lost to Galway in this year’s National League final he has now fully justified his recall in the number three jersey.

Seamas believes Sunday’s final will go right down to the wire: “Cork are something of a law unto themselves in a Munster final, and they’ll take a whole lot of beating”, he says. “We’ll need to be at our very best, and that means improving on our semi final display against Tipperary’.

Seamas said that he hadn’t given up hope of winning the semi-final even after losing a decent lead and then seeing Tipp go three points clear in the closing minutes: “On another day Waterford teams might not have responded, but the young fellows in the team especially had to stand up and be counted and that’s exactly what they did”, he said.

He rates the Cork defence very highly and better than the Tipperary unit. “They are very settled, are strong physically, and will take a lot of breaking down”, Seamas said. “However we have some big men in attack ourselves and if we can win a reasonable amount of ball from the puckouts we should be okay’.

Declan, whose recall at full back against Tipp was proven to be fully justified, said their defence had been leaking goals at an unacceptable rate: “Goals more often than not win games so our frailty at the back was something that had to be addressed’, he said.

He regards the Cork attack as “potentially lethal’, and insists that each of them will have to be marked closely: “Give Joe Deane, the McCarthys, and the O’Connors even half a chance and they’ll punish you severely’, he added.