Modeligo keen for fairytale finale to exciting journey
They didn’t have a provincial final in their plans, though. They couldn’t afford to, says club official Tom O’Byrne.
“If someone had said to us at the AGM of the club last year that we’d be in the Munster final, we’d have bitten their hand off, because we didn’t look past the first round here in Waterford. You can’t afford to presume.”
O’Byrne has the evidence to back his suggestion. Waterford junior hurling isn’t a heavily populated grade, but there’s no lack of quality.
“The junior level is very competitive here — there aren’t a lot of teams involved, but they’re all at much the same level, and if you were looking down the line past the first game you wouldn’t be long slipping up.”
“There’s nothing between the teams, so we were focused on each game as it came — the Western final here in Waterford, then the county final, then the game in Munster. But that was very much the sequence we took those games in, we had to.”
Now Modeligo are in a Munster final, there’s a keenness to get a result.
“We won the county title in 2008 and we went out in Munster to Dripsey from Cork, who went on to win the All-Ireland that year.
“We were well beaten in the end but a lot of the current team would have played then, so they’d have good experience of what it’s like to play the provincial championship.
“Certainly that time it was more of an adventure, a trip into the unknown. We didn’t know what to expect compared to this year, where we have that experience to draw on.
“Going up to play Feoghanagh-Castlemahon in the semi-final this year was a pretty tall order, particularly on their home patch, so getting the win shows we’re putting that experience to good use.”
There was a gap between winning the county final and the first game in Munster, when they had a break of three weeks, but the anticipation is growing ahead of Sunday’s date with Cork champions Castlemartyr: “You can see the flags up around the school, the kids are all excited. The parents are fairly excited as well, mind you.”
Obviously, being Cork champions, Castlemartyr have come through a tough championship in their own county.
“They’re a very good team and we’ll have our work cut out on Sunday in Mallow. It’s been great so far. It’d be great if we had another day or two.”
