If it's squeezing the last drop out of what they have, Erin's Own do it better than most

Good people coming together and pushing themselves to bring the best out of one another. If that is all it is, few do it better than the Glounthaune club.

Brian Moylan, Glen Rovers, has his helmet fly off his head after a clash with Robbie O'Flynn, Erins Own.

Shane Murphy has seen it all over the past thirty years. As a young boy with his face painted red and blue, he savourted Erin’s Own winning their maiden Cork senior hurling title in 1992, and the bonfires lit around Knockraha in the aftermath still burn bright in his memory. 

Brian Corcoran and Timmy Kelleher were the main men, and such was the Corcoran's lustre that men from Tipperary waited outside the dressing rooms of the old Páirc Uí Chaoimh to get an autograph from the great man.

Murphy was central to the golden generation that followed, winning three Premier Minor counties in-a-row from 1999-2001 while himself, Cian O’Connor, Kieran Murphy, Fergus Murphy and Tomás O’Leary made up one third of the All-Ireland Cork minor winning side of 2001. All of them, bar O’Connor, had already played in the 2000 county senior hurling final as they came up short against Newtownshandrum. They may have lost, but Murphy and his friends learned a lot, and grew a lot from the experience.

“PJ Murphy, a brilliant Erin’s Own man, who was a player and selector in ’92, was the manager in 2000 and he was an incredible coach. He brought in Mark McManus (former Munster coach) and it was the fittest lads had ever been. Mark was doing things then that you only see people catching up with in the last couple of years, things like bungee ropes, spring work, he was streets ahead and that complemented the good players we had then too.” 

That theme of the right people, like Murphy and McManus, being around at the right time and the right mindset being implemented at the right time filters right through the Erin’s Own story. That was true of Shane’s father, Barry, Colie Dillon, Micky O’Connor and Seanie O’Leary when they were young, as it is now with Paul Fenton’s work as coaching officer, Seanie Dunne as chair of the underage, Damien Irwin in Glounthane National School and Tom Aherne as chairman of the adult section and everybody else within the club and community.

It's also true of Martin Bowen now, as it was in 2006 and 2007 when under his management the vast promise of the underage talent delivered two county titles, helped very much by the return of the king, Corcoran, and the input of a man from the east.

“In 2006 Martin brought in Sean Prendergast from Lismore as coach. He was a bit old school and he had us wrestling with one another. One of the lads used to say he was like the devil. Training went from going through the motions to really, really pushing yourself. Some of the drills had nothing to do with hurling, but it was about creating a mindset of getting in each other’s faces, and making it hard for fellas. He totally transformed the way we trained and the way we thought we trained. And that transformed itself onto the pitch then.“ 

The result of that transformation was two trips to the Promised Land but that attitude has remained central to Erin’s Own identity. Because a club like Erin’s Own is meant to drift towards the sidings once the county's hurling hierarchy stretch themselves. That hasn’t happened in Caherlag. Bowen regularly reminds us, rightly, that his club’s underage success has all but dried up, but they still keep swinging with the best.

When they reached the county final in 2016 it felt like the natural end to a glorious cycle. That feeling only crystalised in 2019 as they lost to Charleville and Kanturk. Surely then, we thought, the change to a group format, that was designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, would catch them short.

Not a chance, and here they are now, burning brightly as they face into their second semi-final in three years, while last year’s loss to eventual champions, Midleton, in the quarter-final is drenched with ‘what might have been’. 

How do they keep doing it?

“I’m playing junior this year," says Murphy, "and I said to the lads that if we get to Páirc Uí Chaoimh I’m not going to do it for you at corner-back, that they need to be giving younger guys game time and all of that. You need to push fellas like that too, and in training they’re listening to guys like the Hero and when you see the mindset that man has you’re going to be inspired by it.

“But it’s just not that either, it’s the young guys too, lads like Óran O’Regan and the energy that he brings into a group like that, it’s infectious and older players can look at him and think that they give us a chance too. There’s just an honesty of effort. Guys know that there’s potential there and they know the only way to reach it is to put in the effort.

“Training is super-competitive, sometimes it gets over-competitive but fellas would be coming off arm-in-arm afterwards. There’s just a good camaraderie there. The juniors are going well too and when we won the other night you had the 18-year-old lads sitting down in the Rising Tide with the likes of me and that all helps create a good bond. I think when you’ve fellas who are like that, you’ll the extra yard for a fella on the pitch.” 

You can hear in his voice the respect Murphy has for all those he has soldiered with over the years, and who continue to fight the good fight now. The minors are in the Premier 2 final next month, with his brother Killian helping out Brendan O’Riordan at the helm. However that game against Killeagh goes, the desire of that group, above all else, is to play senior with Erin’s Own.

Maybe that’s all it is. Good people coming together and pushing themselves to bring the best out of one another. If that is all it is, few do it better than Erin’s Own.