‘This is very special for me, the players, their families and the club’

FOR the second week in-a-row a man steeped in greyhounds played a major role in his club’s county hurling championship success.

Last Sunday Gerry O’Sullivan worked the oracle for Carrigaline in the Cork IHC final, while yesterday it was the turn of Vincent McKenna to do likewise for Toomevara as they overcame Thurles Sarsfields in the Tipperary SHC decider.

McKenna wouldn’t agree the win was as good as winning the Laurels in Shelbourne Park. But it comes very close.

“This is my first season in with the team and I’m completely taken aback by the thrill of winning,” he smiled.

“We came very close to going out of the championship after failing to Burgess by two points, but we knuckled down and recovered. People had written us off with some justification. Several members of the team have a lot of miles on the clock, but they can still hurl and they have got what they deserved out of this final after the effort they put in.”

McKenna added: “We brought in former Armagh senior footballer Enda McNulty (now a sports psychologist) to speak to the team and he was outstanding in the way he instilled in them the belief that they were good enough to win the county final. Today we saw the benefit of what he said to the lads. It was all about work, work, work and we certainly worked ourselves to a standstill and of course Eoin Brislane decided this was the day he was going to produce it. I’ve never been involved in a county final winning team before so this is very special for me, but more importantly it’s for the players, their families and the club”.

Outstanding centre back Benny Dunne had seen it all before, but admits he never gets tired of winning.

“As you get older you appreciate more and more the victories. While all the others I’ve been involved in were great, this one is very special in that we were given little or no hope of winning,” he admitted.