'Hurling is on the up and up in the weaker counties'

The semi-final pairings in the race for All-Ireland intermediate club hurling championship have a novel look

Thu, 20 Jan, 2022 - 22:38

Eoghan Cormican

The semi-final pairings in the race for All-Ireland intermediate club hurling honours are eye-catching in the extreme.

In the first of Sunday’s penultimate round games, Tooreen of Mayo and Leinster champions Naas do battle in Ballinasloe, while further out west at the Connacht GAA centre of excellence, Kerry kingpins Kilmoyley and Banagher of Derry square off.

The uniqueness of the four clubs involved, and the counties they represent, means that irrespective of what two sides come through to meet in the final and irrespective of which club takes home the All-Ireland silverware on the first weekend of February, an abundance of history will be made along the way.

Mind you, plenty of glass ceilings have already been shattered in the journey of these four teams to the All-Ireland semi-final stage.

Let’s start with Banagher, their provincial final win over Fermanagh’s Lisbellaw St Patrick’s earlier this month marking them out as the first Derry side to lift the Ulster Club IHC title.

It’s the same story for their semi-final opponents, Kilmoyley, who broke new ground as the first Kerry hurling club to secure Munster intermediate silverware in the competition’s 18-year history. And let it not be forgotten that they did so by overcoming the champions of Tipperary, Waterford, and, finally, Cork.

Arguably topping that feat was Naas’ success in ending Kilkenny dominance of the Leinster intermediate championship. The Kildare champions’ 1-16 to 1-10 semi-final win over Glenmore in December represented the first time a Kilkenny intermediate club had been beaten in Leinster since 2011.

Mayo’s Tooreen are the most experienced of the quartet, having won three of the last four Connacht championships. But they have yet to successfully negotiate the All-Ireland semi-final stage. Should they do so on Sunday, it’ll mean first-time Mayo involvement in the All-Ireland intermediate club final. The same applies to the three other counties represented this weekend.

That the semi-final pairings are made up of four clubs from the “so-called weaker counties”, with not a single Liam MacCarthy county left in the competition, is a “good sign for hurling”, according to Kilmoyley captain Florence McCarthy.

“Hurling is on the up and up in the weaker counties, and even just seeing Naas beat the Kilkenny champions in the Leinster championship, that was a massive win for them.” No doubt Naas would say the same about Kilmoyley’s takedown of Tipperary’s Moyne-Templetuohy, Dunhill of Waterford, and Cork champions Courcey Rovers en route to winning Munster.

“You'd be hoping the four clubs left can build on their success and that it will bring up the standard in the respective counties,” continued the Kilmoyley corner-back who produced a fine man-marking job on Cork senior Sean Twomey in the Munster decider.

“It is a special kind of a year with these four teams left, and we'll hopefully get the rub of the green on Sunday in our game.” Special and all as Kilmoyley's come-from-behind extra-time Munster final win was two weeks ago, McCarthy said it was not at all difficult to park the result and celebrations so as to press the reset button and go again.

“What really stood out for me after the Munster final victory was coming back into the village that evening and all our supporters there waiting for us outside the church, and just the joy that was there among them all.

“You had older people who had coached us when we were starting out as young fellas and then you also had the next generation looking up at us. The crowd was massive, easily a couple of hundred people. It is something we might never witness again, but hopefully we will.

“We are two games away from an All-Ireland, you might never get this chance again. That is why after the Munster victory we said, ‘there is another step in us and we have that chance of going all the way’, because there are only two games left. But we know this weekend will be a massive challenge and that is where our focus is.

“The game will be something similar to the Courceys game. We know they are going to bring a great workrate. If we can challenge or top that, then hopefully we'll get over the line.”