Chairman pledges Courceys return

The hurt on the faces of the Courcey Rovers players and officials told the story.

After playing in senior ranks for the last three years, the Ballinspittle side will ply their trade in a lower grade for 2015.

“It’s a huge setback for us,” said club chairman Ger Reilly. “There is a great passion for hurling in the club. Every youngster has a hurley in his hand and they’ll tell you their main ambition is to play senior with Courceys.

“This defeat is a massive blow to all of us involved, but you can take it for certain we’ll be back. We have excellent people involved and while the winter is going to be very long for us now, we’ll do the necessary examination and plan for the season ahead.

“We have some outstanding young players coming along. There is likely to be a couple of retirements, so there are interesting times ahead for the Rovers. The club has enjoyed its time playing county senior hurling championship hurling. It’s where every hurling club wants to be.”

Team mentor Michael O’Sullivan said that on the night Killeagh’s forwards were that bit sharper and probably deserved their victory.

“It’s very disappointing result for us,” said Michael. “Despite going into the game off the back of a three game losing streak, the lads had put in a huge effort in training and confidence was high.

“On the night we failed to trouble their goalkeeper. In fact we failed to score a goal in the championship this year, and that has proved our undoing.

“Credit to Killeagh they took their goal well but the player shouldn’t have been allowed to run so far. He’s should have been stopped further out from goal.

“I can’t fault the players. They are the greatest bunch I’ve ever been involved with. They gave it everything and went into the game confident they could get the result which would have kept us up.

“Sadly it didn’t work out that way. Despite dropping down a grade for the coming season, and such is their commitment to hurling, they won’t need much motivation for the 2015 premier intermediate championship,” added O’Sullivan.

Down the corridor, the mood in the Killeagh camp was one of utter relief at surviving. Team coach Sean Crowley summed up that well when he said it was as good as winning the county itself.

“Nobody wants to be involved in these kind of matches”, said Sean. “Nerves are frayed and mistakes can be very costly. The lads knew it would take a colossal effort and didn’t want to fall at the final hurdle.

“It was difficult not to get caught up in the emotion of the occasion but all credit to the players, they stayed focused on the game and not the prize. Cometh the hour Joe Deane.

“Earlier this year we had lost a number of players through retirements and had to use all our persuasive powers to get Joe to continue playing. His performance in the last 10 minutes of tonight’s game was the best I’ve seen.

“He is an inspiration to all the young lads coming up and we have some great talent on the way. “It was vital therefore that we kept our senior status, but Courceys made us work very hard for the victory

“The key now is to keep Joe playing for another season,” said Sean.