Rewards finally arriving for battling ’Boden

IT TOOK them almost 40 years to navigate a path through the Dublin championship but, though this has been their first visit to provincial waters, Ballyboden St Enda’s have sailed them with the assurance of an old sea dog.

Wexford’s Oulart-the-Ballagh and Camross of Laois have already been sent into hibernation. Both were victories to savour but tomorrow will demand new heights of them.

With six Leinster and four All-Ireland titles to their name, Birr boast a record that no hurling club in the country can better. If ‘Boden are to slay them, they will have to do it in Tullamore, virtually Birr’s back yard.

History isn’t on their side. Only one Dublin club — Crumlin in 1979 — have ever won this competition but victory would be another stepping stone in the county’s journey back to the game’s summit.

The final will be their first Leinster tie outside of Parnell Park but they won’t be travelling down blind. Joint coaches Liam Hogan and Vincent Teehan are both Coolderry men and have many a mental note on how to hurl against Birr. Hogan hurled with Offaly in the All-Ireland winning year of 1985 while Teehan possesses three Leinster club medals from the late 80s with Coolderry. However, the management’s pedigree doesn’t end there.

John Kirwan from Thomastown in Kilkenny will be another of the men on the line. A first cousin of Brian Cody and a relation of the famous Fennelly family, Kirwan has been determined to enjoy the Leinster campaign from day one.

“I said to the lads after the county final that winning that game was like roses and red wine but I know from ‘95, when the club was lucky enough to win the county football championship, that playing in Leinster is even better. It’s like champagne. It’s the place to be.”

In Dublin, ‘Boden’s quest for the senior hurling title had become legion in recent years. Though they had an underage production line the envy of every other club, they seemed destined to be bridesmaids until their defeat of St Vincent’s last month.

Founded in 1969 when two existing outfits amalgamated, success visited early. Hurling got off the ground in 1973 when they claimed the junior title and the intermediate was annexed the following season.

By 1976, the club had reached a senior semi-final but their brightest day was soon followed by a succession of their blackest. Slowly but surely the 70s side fell asunder and by the end of the decade, hurling was in serious danger in Ballyboden.

“A number of people arrived on the scene at that stage and helped keep the hurling alive.” explains Kirwan. “We did well to keep it going given that we had to wait a number of years for the juveniles to come on stream.

“It took us a while to fill the team up with homegrown, Dublin players. So, we did rely to a huge extent on country people like myself who were working in Dublin.”

With the club’s hinterland experiencing huge growth from the early 80s, the raw materials were there. Eleven schools now feed ‘Boden with young talent and the pay-off, when it came, was enormous.

Underage titles started piling up in the trophy cabinet in the early 90s. In 1992, the club won the national Féile na nGael title in Galway. The first of the club’s nine minor titles followed in ‘94, the first of six U-21s two years later.

Try as they might though, the senior title kept eluding them. Three times this decade they reached the final and fell, the last of them being the decider 13 months ago. Even the most dedicated club man questioned the destiny fate seemed to have decided for them.

“The fact that we weren’t winning county finals didn’t mean that we stopped doing the work on the ground,” says Kirwan. “Things were hectic. We probably had three or four adult teams playing in every competition. We had U-21 and minor. One year we had three minor teams. There was a huge amount of hurling been done.”

Their pain couldn’t last. Already bursting with inter-county talent, the arrivals of Malachy Travers and Enda Kinsella from Wexford added the extra few per cent to drag them over the line.

Changes were made on the sideline too, with six selectors appointed for the season. Despite such an unorthodox set-up, it has been a case of many heads being better than one rather than too many cooks fouling up the menu.

Succeed tomorrow and even Leinster will no longer be big enough to contain their ambitions.