Harty Cup heroes: The Tulla fairytale becomes a reality  

The small East Clare school defied their underdog status in claiming a first Munster post primary schools senior A hurling championship title on Saturday.

Ronan O'Connor St Joseph's Tulla captian lifts the cup. Picture: Keith Wiseman

The pitch invasion may have been a touch premature, but it was the only mistake the Tulla army that descended on the Ennis Road made on Saturday afternoon as the East Clare school struck a mighty blow for the underdog by winning a first-ever Harty Cup title.

And, when the final whistle sounded some 30 seconds later, one of the greatest Harty Cup stories that ever unfolded could finally be celebrated by the supporters of St Joseph’s, Tulla.

Until the 2021/22 school year St Joseph’s had never won a game in Harty Cup competition, but on the back of a run of four victories either side of the new year they reached the promised land by becoming only the third Clare school after St Flannan’s and Ennis CBS to win the Munster Colleges greatest hurling prize.

“Today is about Tulla; it’s about East Clare and it’s about people who have created something out of nothing,” acknowledged Ardscoil Rís’s manager Niall Moran. “It’s been a fairytale story and the fairytale came true. It wasn’t by chance that it came true for them.”

It came true from start to finish, in the way they went about chasing down hurling history as the small school with big dreams finally took their place on hurling’s top table. Winning the toss; playing against the breeze; creating the platform when only registering one wide and being just 0-9 to 0-8 adrift at the break; enjoying an early second-half purple patch that yielded six unanswered points for a 0-14 to 0-10 lead; withstanding the inevitable Ardscoil rally that brought it back to a one-point game with 10 minutes remaining; kicking on again to win by three.

Shane O'Brien, Ard Scoil Ris joint captain shoots from the sideline with Adam Hogan and Oisin Clune defending for St Josephs Tulla. Picture: Keith Wiseman

“The biggest challenge for young people or for anyone involved in sport is to do it when it counts on the biggest, biggest stage,” said coach Aidan Harte. “This chance for us, who knows when it might come again. It might never come again. It came this time and by God they took it.

“For these guys, this is the biggest stage for them in terms of their underage and school career. They were outstanding from start to finish, there’s no other way to put it. To do it for their communities is huge. It showed on the pitch there today.

“They’ve got so much goodwill from them, but they gave it back,” Galway’s 2017 All-Ireland winner added.

“When the chance came to play Harty this year we knew this was our time,” said captain and man-of-the-match Ronan O’Connor. “The belief we had stood to us. Against the wind we try and weather the storm as much as we can, because we always know that in the second half when it comes down to it we’re going to be there for the fight.

“In the second half we weren’t chasing the game for once. It was different, but it still comes down to the same stuff for us. It’s to keep fighting and to keep working and then we’d get to where we want to be. We did that.”

St Joseph's Tulla fans support their winning side. Picture: Keith Wiseman

That fight was there from the opening whistle, with the brilliance of Seanie Withycombe’s free-taking ensuring that he matched Ardscoil’s Niall O’Farrell with a 0-6 haul as Tulla really took the game to the favourites into the teeth of the wind. Indeed, just before the break, Tulla edged 0-8 to 0-6 clear before O’Farrell responded with a swift hat-trick of points.

However, Tulla were never headed after points by Óisín Clune, Darragh Keogh, and Colm Cleary, allied to Withycombe’s unerring accuracy from placed balls, had them on the high road from the early stages of the second half.

Ardscoil did rally as points by Niall O’Farrell, Rian O’Bryrne, Shane O’Brien, and Dylan Lynch left only the minimum between them coming down the stretch, but Tulla’s defiance ultimately won out.

Adam Hogan, Fionn Ryan, and Óisín Clune were brilliant in defence; captain Ronan O’Connor led from the front, as did his fellow midfielder Darragh Keogh, while vital scores from Withycombe and Cleary in the closing minutes steered them home to history as they weathered everything Ardscoil threw at them.

“It’s a measure of the stuff that was in our players and in our team,” said manager Terence Fahy. “The Harty Cup was in Clare this morning and it’s staying in Clare this evening. We will enjoy this victory and then look at the next fence.”

There were four fences on this highway to hurling heaven, there’ll be a few more to come in the All-Ireland series.

Plenty of time for those though.