Mixed emotions for Cuala’s Kerry fans

Tomorrow morning, a dozen or so of Darragh O’Connell’s closest friends and family will leave Abbeydorney in Kerry and point their cars towards Carlow.

Later on in Abbeydorney’s clubhouse bar, a much bigger crowd again will assemble to watch TG4’s live coverage of the Leinster club hurling final between Cuala and Oulart-The Ballagh.

O’Connell, of course, is the former Abbeydorney and Kerry player now plying his trade with south-Dublin club Cuala, and doing very well for himself indeed.

He has played a central role in the club’s breakthrough 2015 season that has yielded a first county title in 21 years and a first provincial final place in 26. In the county final, he clipped over three points from midfield and made the scoresheet again in the Leinster championship wins over Coolderry and Clara, the Offaly and Kilkenny champions.

All of which has both pleased and frustrated those whom O’Connell left behind in Abbeydorney. Club spokesman Gerry Doyle believes more could have been done to keep one of the county’s great hurling talents at home in Kerry.

“Darragh was a fabulous hurler for Kerry as well as ourselves and there should have been a little bit more respect shown to him,” said Doyle. “A lot more could have been done for a player who was one of our stars.

“Imagine if it happened in Cork or Limerick, they’d have moved mountains to keep a hurler of Darragh’s calibre in the county. That would be my feeling on it.”

O’Connell spoke earlier in the week about his exact circumstances. He is a teacher in an Irish school in Greystones in Co Wicklow and after a number of years commuting back and forth for club and county sessions, he simply couldn’t do it any longer. Doyle doesn’t say it but the suggestion appears to be that a teaching post in Co Kerry would have solved O’Connell’s problem.

And, in truth, there are plenty of top inter-county players around the country who have ‘helpfully’ found employment in local schools.

Either way, the deed has been done now and O’Connell is simply going about the business of representing a new club and county in Dublin. Doyle said Abbeydorney will take plenty of pride if one of their one becomes a Leinster club medallist tomorrow. “Absolutely because we have watched him growing up, learning all the skills of the game,” said Doyle.

“Our secretary Timmy Weir, coached him so everyone is very proud of what he’s done and don’t forget he’s still only 24, he’s got a big future ahead of him.”

Doyle happily reported that O’Connell’s departure for work in Dublin, hardly a new phenomenon to a rural club in Kerry, has been an isolated case. “Touch wood, we’ll have the same panel ready to go again next year,” said Doyle.

“I remember when Abbeydorney got to the county final in 2005, two years later 13 of that panel were gone, in Australia, but thanks be to god that seems to be stabilising a bit. We were shattered when Darragh told us he was leaving but we understood his reasons. He’s teaching above in Greystones and it’s a huge journey down and back. When he was doing it, he never missed a session.”