Murphy primed for Newtown showdown

THE complicated life of a county hurler.

Before last weekend Kieran ‘Hero’ Murphy of Erin’s Own needed a couple of hurleys for the Cork county SHC semi-final. Thing was, Murphy’s supplier had something of a vested interest in the outcome of the Erin’s Own v St Finbarr’s clash himself: Ben O’Connor of Newtownshandrum, who had already qualified for the final.

Going to Newtown might have been inflammatory but Murphy needed the hurleys. Etiquette was put to one side.

“I called out last week, before the Barr’s game, but I was only talking to Ben on the phone last week. There’s good relations between us and the O’Connors, Pat Mul and Cathal Naughton, and there’ll be 60 minutes of hard hurling Sunday, but most lads leave it on the field afterwards.”

For a long time last Sunday it looked as if the hurleys would be left in the wardrobe until 2008. The Barr’s put it up to Erin’s Own and the Glounthaune men needed a late goal to set up their county final date with Newtown.

“We were confident enough,” says Murphy. “We always thought if we hung in there that we’d come through in the end. We seemed to win a lot of tight games over the years, and though we didn’t hurl very well for much of the game we were still in it towards the end.

“Was it good or bad for us, a tight game like that? I suppose we won’t know until Sunday really. We’re just resting up this week, trying to get the heads right for the game. The best thing for us is to try to forget about the semi-final against the Barr’s and focus on the match ahead, to crack on with that.”

And there’s plenty to crack on with. Newtown have been impressive in all their games this year and their smooth progress to the final has them installed as favourites for this weekend. Murphy doesn’t quibble with that.

“They probably are slight favourites, you could say they’ve had an easy enough passage to the final and they haven’t looked like losing too many games along the way. I suppose if you were to give out favourite tags you’d give it to them. We’re not really thinking about that.”

For Murphy there’s been another complication: captaining Cork kept him away from training in Caherlag for long stretches of the summer. Was readjusting to the club scene a challenge?

“It can be, getting back into training with different players when you’re used to one type of training with Cork. You’re back in the club and you’re dealing with different drills and so on. After Cork have been to so many All-Ireland finals it was a downer to lose, and you’ve to motivate yourself to get going again with the club. The other side of that is that it’s great to fall in with lads from your own parish, the lads you grew up with. That helps.”

There’s a slight change in the line-up this year for Erin’s Own. Brian Corcoran, Fergus Murphy and Martin Buckley are all absent from last year’s team, but Murphy focuses on the positives.

“It gives other guys a chance as well. Players aren’t going to be around forever, you have to blood new lads and that’s what happened in 2000, we brought in minors and so on.

“It’s worked out well, new players are coming in and out of the team, and the fact that we’ve had a long campaign has helped the younger players in particular to settle into the team.”

Murphy dismisses thoughts of the Munster Club championship as unfinished business – “whoever wins on Sunday will look at the Munster Club championship seriously. Last year we didn’t think about that because it was all about winning the county, and that’s our focus again now,” – preferring to pay tribute to the efforts of club members away from the spotlight.

“I’d like to thank the club for their support all through the year. It’s hard to keep the thing going year on year, but everyone in the club has been great, the ladies committee, everyone’s got stuff ready for us at night after training and so on, they’ve all been great.”

After the complications of intercounty life, the certainties of the club are always welcome.