Talking points: Cody's Ballyhale links, Liberties out to spoil the party and Warrenpoint's Kilcoo mission
LINKS: Brian Cody celebrates with Michael Fennelly at the end of the Hurling All-Ireland Final in 2015. Pic: David Maher / SPORTSFILE
At the GAA’s Coaching and Development Conference in January 2018, Tommy Walsh was interviewed by Damian Lawlor. Walsh enthralled the room with his passion and wit, regaling the audience as he went, with one story rolling into the next.
With his new-found media popularity, Walsh’s increasing media profile was also opening up new vistas into his hurling world, an outside place that had been closed off for so long through Kilkenny’s dominance; 2017 was his first time at a Munster Championship match. Walsh was so taken by the lore of the competition that he began to study it.
Hurling history suddenly began to fascinate Walsh. When he was working for Eir Sport for the Kilkenny quarter-finals in 2017, Walsh did some research on the clubs involved, which included Ballyhale and James Stephens. He unearthed some information that he had not known before.
“Brian Cody’s mother, and Mick and Colin Fennelly’s grandmother, were sisters,” said Walsh to Lawlor. “Mick Fennelly’s grandfather, Kevin Sr, was the main man who drove Ballyhale. Then you look back to Brian Cody’s side; Cody’s father drove ‘the Village’. I just thought this was brilliant.” Ballyhale are still drawing from the richest gene pool in the country, while Brian Cody is rooted in James Stephens through his father Bill, a Thomastown man who came to live in St Patrick’s parish on the fringe of the city.
Over time Bill Cody became a central and totemic figure in ‘The Village’. When the club was in a slump in the 1960s, not having won a county title since the 1930s, Bill Cody and Georgie Leahy drove the club’s underage section as they sought to build again.
They went around to most houses in the parish, door to door, to recruit young players. A minor championship followed. The club finally began to generate some momentum again. Bill Cody took over as chairman in 1969 and in that year James Stephens won the senior county for the first time in 38 years. Cody stayed in the role until 1985.
The Village won two All-Irelands under his chairmanship. The club have three All-Irelands now but that tally is dwarfed beneath the weight of Ballyhale’s eight All-Irelands. Tomorrow, Ballyhale are going for five county titles in-a-row, something which has never been achieved before.
This is ‘The Village’s’ third final appearance in the last six years but they are now trying to end a drought that extends back to 2011. Losing the 2019 final to Ballyhale was the beginning of three successive years that ended in defeat to the Shamrocks, having also lost the last two semi-finals.
Cody is now a selector with ‘The Village’. His immense service to the club has always gone beyond trophies and glory. Yet despite all he has won as Kilkenny manager, winning tomorrow’s county final with ‘The Village’ would mean as much to Cody as anything else he has achieved.
Especially with Ballyhale in the other corner.
Penalties. They’ve been a defining theme across county championships throughout the county this year, but especially in Ulster and particularly in Down. After beating Burren by 5-4 on penalties in the quarter-final, Warrenpoint also had to go to a shootout against Loughinisland in the semi-final, which they won 8-7. Kilcoo, their opponents in tomorrow’s county final, also edged past Clonduff on penalties in their quarter-final.
Kilcoo escaped with their lives that night as Conor Brown had a chance to eliminate the All-Ireland champions but his effort was easily saved by Niall Kane. Paul Devlin stepped up again in sudden death to convert his second penalty while Aidan Carr’s spot-kick was saved by Kane as Kilcoo progressed to the last four.
Kilcoo are now aiming to win a tenth title in 11 years. The last time they were beaten in a championship game (as there was no Ulster or All-Ireland club in 2020-’21) was in the 2020 championship by Warrenpoint. After losing the 2019 final to Kilcoo by one point, Warrenpoint defeated the champions by one point in Round 2 a year later. Yet Kilcoo came through the backdoor, beating Burren and Rostrevor before getting another crack at Warrenpoint in the 2020 semi-final, who they defeated by nine points.
Kilcoo proved their class in Ulster and on the All-Ireland stage last year but they haven’t exactly burned it up in Down over the past two years at the business end of the season. Kilcoo only won last year’s quarter-final against Carryduff after extra-time while they only had two points to spare over Ballyholland Harps in the semi-final before beating Burren in the final by the same margin.
Despite Kilcoo's dominance, the Down championship is loaded with competitive teams, but the champions finally appeared to have rediscovered their mojo when beating an ultra-defensive Mayobridge side in the semi-final by eight points. They enter tomorrow’s final as hot favourites but after eking out two incredible wins after penalties in their last two games, Warrenpoint will aim to finally win a first Down title in 69 years.
And halt the Kilcoo machine in the process.
Over the last two decades of the Limerick club hurling championship, one of the defining themes of that period has been breakthroughs and how those breakthroughs heralded new empires and new realms of dominance.
Adare won their first county title in 2001 and then went on to win five over the following nine years. When they secured a three-in-a-row in 2009, they whacked Na Piarsaigh in the final by 17 points. Yet after Na Piarsaigh finally won their first senior title in 2011, they bagged six titles over the next ten seasons.
Yet despite Na Piarsaigh’s emergence as a powerful force, and becoming the first Limerick club hurling team to win an All-Ireland, they haven’t had it all their own way in the county either, with Kilmallock and Patrickswell having shared five titles since Na Piarsaigh’s breakthrough.
The big three have won every county title since Adare were last champions in 2009 and, while there were occasional threats to that stranglehold, no other club has managed to break it. Doon did contest two county finals but were well beaten by Na Piarsaigh in 2018 and 2020, while Ballybrown contested the 2016 final but the ‘Well blitzed them by 19 points.
Doon are back in another semi-final tomorrow against Kilmallock but there is a freshness to the championship with South Liberties’ appearance in the last four. They meet Na Piarsaigh today in Kilmallock, which is their first semi-final since 1985. It’s also the first time in the last five years that the semi-finals have included a team other than Na Piarsaigh, Doon, Kilmallock and Patrickswell.
“Everyone has that chip on their shoulder,” said Barry Nash last week after Liberties caused a shock when knocking out Patrickswell.
“They’ve been talking about the ‘big four’ in Limerick for ages. It’s about time one of the so-called weaker clubs step up and get into that top four.”
Liberties finally took that step last week. They have serious momentum now but taking that next giant step now will be much harder again.
The last time Tourlestrane were beaten in a knockout championship match in Sligo was in 2015 when St Mary’s took them out in a semi-final replay. Ray Dempsey, the new Limerick manager, was the Tourlestrane boss at the time.
Tommy Breheney, who had guided Sligo to the 2007 Connacht title, was the St Mary’s manager. That was a hardened Mary’s outfit, who had lost two of the three previous finals. They went on to defeat Curry in the final and end a 14-year wait. Yet Tourlestrane exacted revenge the following year when beating Mary’s in the 2016 final. And the south Sligo side haven’t stopped winning since.
Ballisadare in the 1960s and St Patrick’s Dromard in the 1970s won four-in-a-row but Tourlestrane are now aiming to blow those records out of the water with seven successive titles.
All those years on, another Breheny – Mark – is trying to halt the Tourlestrane charge in the same way his brother Tommy did back in 2015. This is Breheny’s first year as St Mary’s manager. One of the best players in Sligo over the last two decades, Breheny was also part of Tony McEntee’s management team with the county for a while before taking over St Mary’s.
Going up against him in the other corner tomorrow will be Fergal O’Donnell, the former Roscommon manager who is now guiding Tourlestrane. When Dempsey left after that 2015 defeat to Mary’s, Eamonn O’Hara and Gerry McGowan then managed them to five-in-a-row.
McGowan was involved with Colm Collins in Clare for the last two years while O’Hara is now managing Mohill, who play St Mary’s Kiltoghert in tomorrow’s Leitrim final. The Tourlestrane side which won the six-in-a-row last year was led by Kevin Johnson, who subsequently moved on to Corofin.
Tourlestrane are currently on the longest county football title winning streak in the country. So can St Mary’s finally stop them?
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