Greville relishing Raharney’s golden run

RAHARNEY boss John Greville is adamant his charges are aiming to grasp the huge opportunity that has been presented to them after Sunday’s stunning Leinster Club SHC quarter-final success over Offaly champions Coolderry.

The Westmeath club delivered a major upset with a 0-17 to 0-14 victory in Mullingar on Sunday afternoon and Greville is intent on channelling that momentum effectively when they welcome Wexford winners Oulart-the-Ballagh to Cusack Park on Sunday week.

“It was a tremendous win for us but the game wasn’t over and we were setting plans in motion for Sunday week. I looked at the DVD on Sunday night of the Coolderry game and it was a great game of hurling.

” We showed great heart but we did that in the Westmeath final against Clonkill as well when scored 2-1 in the closing stages to win by a point.

The momentum of that win was carried forward to Sunday and we’re going to give it everything now against Oulart-the-Ballagh team. It’s a huge opportunity to make history.”

Raharney have been building steadily in recent seasons. In 2006 after claiming Westmeath honours, they competed in the Leinster intermediate championship before Kildare club Ardclough knocked them out in the provincial final. The nagging sense of a missed opportunity was exacerbated when local rivals Clonkill lifted the All-Ireland intermediate crown the following season. In 2008, Raharney came up against a star-studded Ballyhale Shamrocks side in Leinster after winning the Westmeath senior title but despite suffering an emphatic defeat, the experience benefited them.

“We learnt a lot from those campaigns”, says Greville. “We probably gave teams in the past too much respect but we’ve more belief. ”

Sources of optimism have sprung up throughout 2010. Last June in Clare, the club’s U14 team won the All-Ireland Féile Division 2 title and the following month John’s brother Paul, Conor Jordan and John Shaw were part of the Westmeath outfit that were victorious in the Christy Ring Cup.

Raharney’s sister club Killucan reached this year’s Westmeath SFC semi-finals and there was a heavy overlap between the two teams.

Greville is relishing being at the helm during this golden run but his role could easily be assisting on the pitch.

“We were finding it hard to get a manager last year so I put my hand up. A lot of the lads wanted me to operate as a player-manager, but I strongly

feel that system doesn’t work. I had trained our camogie team for five years and I get nearly more enjoyment of training than playing. They’re a great bunch of lads and there’ll be 39 of them back out training tomorrow night.

“There’s going to be great excitement ahead of Sunday week.”