Munster title in Sars’ sights

BARELY had Sars captain Alan Kennedy lowered the Sean Óg Murphy cup from over his head in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday afternoon, but he was already thinking ahead to November 14 and the Munster club championship date with whoever is crowned champions of Waterford.

It could even be De La Salle again, who have already qualified for the Waterford final with a thumping win over Passage, also on Sunday, but who beat Sars two years ago.

Not having won a Cork title since 1957, however, that was only the second time the club appeared in the Munster championship having previously done so in 1997 (after being beaten by Imokilly in the Countyfinal) and 2008.

“Most certainly; two years ago we represented Cork for the first time, beat Clonlara here by a cricket score in the first round. We probably thought we’d be able to do the same against De La Salle but they showed us what Waterford hurling is all about; they threw the ball around, showed great skill, were fitter, more physical, worked the ball very well, beat us fair and square. Newtown represented Cork very well last year, we hope now to do the same.”

They did reasonably well against De La Salle, did Sars, lost by a mere two points (0-18 to 0-16) to a team which itself was creating history; having just won their first ever Waterford senior hurling title.

In that game against Sars, De La Salle’s county star John Mullane was in superb form, finished with five points from play, was fouled for another couple, pointed by James Quirke.

Should De La Salle win, and should John start again at full-forward, he will again be picked up by Sars full-back Joe Barry – no rest then for one of Sars’ most experienced campaigners, having just done a fine job in holding Patrick Horgan on Sunday last.

Nevertheless Joe, too, is ready: “In 2008 we won quite easily against Clonlara in the first round, moved on to De La Salle. I feel we spurned an opportunity then; it was our first time, it was all very new to us, and we didn’t drive on. I think we’ve learned our lesson from that, and from losing the county final last year, from losing a few U-21 championships over the last few years. This week we’ll celebrate, but we won’t be taking our eyes off the bigger prize.

“We’re not going to be content with just a county final this year – this isn’t enough for us now, we would set our sights on Munster championship glory.”

The man who will be overseeing the workload for the coming weeks is trainer Johnny Crowley who !saluted the players for an incredible achievement.

“We’ll enjoy this for a few days – these lads have worked so hard since early January, running up and down hills, putting in phenomenal effort, phenomenal work. Then it’s back to training next Thursday or Friday evening, do our best to represent Cork in the Munster championship. We were taking every game as it came this year, trained for it, prepared for it, and now we’ll do no different for the Munster championship.”

Two elements of Sars’ play Johnny will have to work on; first, their shooting, which left them down very badly in the opening period of the county final (six wides in eight minutes), though they did rectify that during the game itself, shot just six more wides for the remainder of the match, only three in the second half.

The second is their discipline, seven frees converted by the Glen’s Patrick Horgan.

Left Johnny on tenterhooks on the sideline. “I was worried up to the final whistle! At half-time we spoke, said if we stopped conceding silly frees – the Glen were working hard but weren’t scoring much from play, a lot of their scores came from frees by Patrick.

“The same thing then in the second half, we brought them back into it through our own indiscipline – it’s something to work on. But, a county title is a county title and no matter how you win it, in ten years’ time the record will show we were champions in 2010, and that’s all that matters!”