Cork SAFC final: St Michael's still battling to conquer their heartbreak hill

HELD BACK: St Michael’s defender Tom Lenihan is held onto by O’Donovan Rossa’s Donal Óg Hodnett during last year’s Bon Secours Cork PSFC clash at Enniskeane. On Sunday, St Michael’s will contest their sixth final in the second tier of Cork football since 2012. They’ve lost every one of them to date, three of them by a single point. Picture: Eddie O’Hare

- The Cork Premier SFC final between St Finbarr's and Clonakilty and the Senior 'A' final between St Michael's and Mallow will be live-streamed by the Irish Examiner

Over the last 10 years, St Michael’s have been the most consistent club in the second tier of Cork football.

However, the one thing that has eluded them is championship success.

On Sunday, they will contest their sixth final in the second tier of Cork football since 2012. They’ve lost every one of them to date, three of them by a single point.

Some wounds have cut deeper than others, but they’ve always been able to find the strength to go again.

John Holly was involved in four of their final appearances to date, as a coach in 2015 and then as manager for the finals of 2017 to 2019.

The Tarbert native fell in with Michael’s more by accident than design.

“I first got involved with St Michael’s in 2014, I had no connection with the club prior to that bar knowing a few lads from there. I was coach of the premier intermediate team then in 2015 and we got to the final only to lose to Carrigaline by a point.

“That year was a bit of a rollercoaster as we weren’t going very well at all that season until, funnily enough, we beat Mallow and that kicked it all off, we went from strength to strength after that and got to the final.

“We didn’t play, really, and lost by a point. Before the Mallow game it was a bit of a struggle. We were in Division 3 of the league and not even winning games in that.

“Back then too there was no cooperation between hurling and football. They trained their nights; we trained our nights, and the players were just wrecked from it. That was one of the things we tried to sort out in 2017 after I came in as manager.

“We had a split system for the dual players where we’d train Monday and Thursday, and the hurlers would train Tuesday and Thursday, then every second Thursday they’d go to one or the other and straight away the players thought it was much better.”

That St Michael’s saw the benefit of that joined up thinking is obvious and making three consecutive finals in any competition is a serious achievement, even if the losses take the gloss off the journey.

“Those three years went very well in one sense.

“Of the three finals, 2017 against Mallow was probably the easiest to take because we played pretty well, and it was a humdinger of a game. We can look back at it and say that we went at it, it was hard to take on the day, but we performed well and we’d a good year because we got promoted in the league too.

“In 2018 then we only lost two competitive games all year. We lost a league game by a point to Castlehaven and the other one was the county final against Fermoy.

“The preparation for the final was a debacle. We’d a challenge game pencilled in for the weekend before that got pulled at very short notice, then we had a few players sick and hampered with injury but there’s no excuses either. We just didn’t perform on the day.

“It was a much tougher one to deal with as it was inexplicable because we’d been playing consistently well all year.

“We re-grouped pretty well then in 2019 and we were in Division 1 of the league where we held our own.

“Paddy Barry died suddenly that year too and his loss hit everybody in the club hard. Michael’s won the city Junior ‘A’ and ‘B’ championships, no doubt inspired by his passing, though we lost two driving forces in our team coming up to the final in Andrew Murphy and Niall Cashman. But still, we didn’t play well enough on the day, got to a certain point against Éire Óg but didn’t kick on and didn’t take our chances.

“That’s probably the toughest defeat of them all. Looking back on the three finals, we just didn’t perform well enough.”

Even if St Michael’s haven’t been blessed with the ultimate success, yet, there is an awful lot going right in the club.

There’s been a Premier 1 minor county win, an U21 county in 2019 and whenever you look at a Cork underage side these days, chances are that you’ll see a few footballers from the fishing village involved.

“I’ve been around the place a small bit. I’ve been in Dublin, London, Australia, and Boston and when you walk into a club there’s an atmosphere.

“The mood in St Michael’s is positive and there’s incredible work being done at underage and adult level. We’re hoping there will be a good crowd there on Sunday to support the lads and that they can get over the line.”

When all the wounds heal, isn’t that what a club is really all about?