Luke O'Farrell: Why this county title win was the sweetest of all

Midleton players Cormac Beausang, left, and Luke O'Farrell after the Cork Premier SHC final win over Glen Rovers. Picture: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

Midleton veteran Luke O’Farrell pointed to two heavy defeats as turning points in the club’s path to a first Cork PSHC title in eight years.

Last month’s 10-point loss to Sarsfields in their final Group B game and a reverse against Cork’s U20s in a challenge game were blessings in disguise, O’Farrell reckoned.

“We got two hammerings this year,” he said. “We played the Cork U20s the week of the All-Ireland hurling and got an absolute clipping. We got a clipping off Sars and they were probably the two best things to happen to us all year. They were wake-up calls but we learned and dusted ourselves down and I definitely think we improved both times.”

The 31-year-old accepted his team should have finished off Glen Rovers rather than hanging on at the death.

“To be fair, we should have killed the game off much earlier. I think we had four wides on the trot. We made life very hard for ourselves in the end. Even in the first half, I think we went nine up, we came in at half-time four points up, going into a tough wind. Look, sometimes you need to have a bit of luck in sport and we had that today.”

That being said, the fortitude shown to keep Glen Rovers at bay was evident in that final quarter. “We’ve been in tight battles before and maybe not come out the right side. We worked a lot on that and it keeps you calmer when you’re in those moments where everybody’s going crazy. It helps you to stay a bit more level-headed.”

For the likes of O’Farrell who was playing in his 16th season, a second title trumped the first in 2013. “We know more than anyone how hard it is to win this competition, it takes everything, you could see that last bit of luck. I think this will be sweeter than any of the others.”

Recalling the 2018 final defeat to Imokilly, he continued: “I think the 2018 final, a lot of what got us there, we didn’t do on the day. We were focusing on that, we asked ourselves what had got us here today. They were the key factors that would win it for us today, so there was definitely a learning curve there.”

O’Farrell provided others with scores in the first half and he became the last of the forwards to score from play in 51st minute. “Ben was pulling me that I was the lowest tackler the last day, so I had that in my head as well!” he laughed.

“Sometimes, I’d be hard on myself but I don’t think I had too many opportunities and maybe there was a free or two in there that wasn’t given, either! You’ll have that and you just have to keep plugging away. It’s a team game — it took me a while to figure that out but it doesn’t matter, once you get over the line.”

O’Farrell praised Conor Lehane for his man of the match performance. “Everybody knows now at this stage that Conor loves a county final!", he smiled.

“The other thing about Conor, we all know it — he’s not in the top five players in the county, he’s in the top five players in the country. He’s put his own marker down there today, he left his hurling do the talking. Everybody knows that.”

Having Lehane readily available after he exited the Cork panel was a huge boost, O’Farrell remarked: “It definitely helped. Seán (O’Leary-Hayes) was the only one on the Cork panel this year and we’ve seen over the years that it is definitely hard to get that momentum going when your Cork players are away and coming in and out. It’s absolutely massive having a full squad, or 95% of us, there for the whole year.”

Midleton now turn their focus on Kilmallock and O’Farrell is gunning for more success. “You have to make hay when you get the opportunity. These don’t come around too often, we played (in Munster) in 2018 and 2013 and Cork teams haven’t got on well in the last few years.

“We’d absolutely love to maybe right the wrongs, there.”