Fr O’Neills journey from Junior to Senior A final: 'We knew how good they were when they were U10'

In 2018 Fr O'Neills beat Midleton in the U21 A county final. Five of that Midleton team are likely starters on Sunday in the Premier final which gives you an idea of the talent that O’Neills possessed

Fr O'Neills' Eoin Motherway breaks from Bride Rovers' Daniel Dooley and Paddy O'Flynn during the Co-Op Superstores Cork SAHC semi-final at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Sometimes Séamus Joyce has to pinch himself to believe it. When he was coming of age in the 1970s, Fr O’Neills were a junior club in the most competitive division in the county. Hurling was always alive and well in and around Ladysbridge and Ballymacoda, but the way it’s thriving at the moment is beyond the dreams of even the most optimistic minds according to the PRO.

“Back in the 1970s, we’d no real pitch of our own. We were playing in a field behind the village in Ladysbridge and playing in a field behind the village in Ballymacoda and then there was a pitch up by the Hill cemetery on the Knockadoon road. Then we’d a field over in Aghavine for a couple of years before the local parish came together to put together our home today which is a community field in Aghavine.