Castlemartyr in a hurry and on the rise

WINNING MENTALITY: Cork's Ciarán Joyce is still U20 and is part of a generation of Castlemartyr hurler imbued with a winning mentality. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

To go where no Cork club has gone before. That’s the Castlemartyr goal on Sunday.

The East Cork club have made five matchday trips into the city over the past four 14 months. They headed back out the road as county champions after two of them. The most recent saw them secure a third consecutive county final appearance.

The lower intermediate hurling champions from the delayed 2020 season became the 2021 intermediate A winners 13 weeks later in November of last year. Eleven months on and Castlemartyr are looking to move again.

They are as much a team in a hurry as they are a team on the rise.

Victory over Inniscarra in Sunday’s premier intermediate decider would deliver back-to-back-to-back promotions.

Victory would complete a fourteen-month journey that began in tier five of the Cork county championship structure and finished in tier two.

Victory would take a club that held junior status as recently as 2014 to within striking distance of the premier senior grade.

Daragh Moran didn’t experience those junior days. He’s one of the new breed of youngsters to come along in more recent years and redecorate the club’s fortunes beyond all recognition.

The 22-year-old is the team’s full-back. In front of him in the number six shirt is Cork senior Ciarán Joyce who is still U20. Full-forward Joe Stack is the same age as Moran. Centre-forward Mike Kelly is another in his early 20s.

They’re a generation of Castlemartyr hurler imbued with a winning mentality.

At club level, there was county minor A glory under the amalgamated Kiltha Óg banner in 2018. There was Harty Cup success with Midleton CBS the following spring. At either end of this silverware-heavy shelf sits All-Ireland U17 and U20 medals brought into the village in 2017 and 2021.

But as much as the older panel members in Castlemartyr were beside themselves to see such fine young talent come through, Moran said the youngsters would be nowhere without the long-serving Lawton brothers, Barry and Brian, and Barra Ó Tuama.

“Ciarán Joyce probably wouldn’t admit it now because he is a Cork senior, but I’d say we learned more from the three lads than we have from most of the other trainers in the past five years. They are the most influential players in Castlemartyr for the last 10 years,” insisted Moran.

Having limped off the Páirc Uí Chaoimh pitch 34 minutes into the semi-final win over Castlelyons, Brian Lawton is an injury concern heading into this latest final appearance.

Where once the former Cork senior pulled along the younger crew, they now need the 33-year-old to pull himself through.

“Most of the team grew up watching Brian, so it would be a big lift if we could have him playing beside us in the final,” Moran continued.

The small community they are representing needs no further lifting. For them, it’s been a magical 14 months following their boys.

“A lot of teams we’ve played along the way, the population of the likes of Ballincollig compared to our own is insane. That was always a nice enough incentive.

“We were always a close enough village. Two finals and a third one on the way brings it together even more.” 

Win this third final and they’ll be history makers.

Lisgoold’s intermediate A hurlers and Iveleary’s premier intermediate footballers were both chasing a third successive county title this season. Both came up short at the semi-final stage. Castlemartyr have already gone one step further.

“Someone was asking me is there any secret. There definitely isn’t. It is the bit of momentum you’d get from constantly having championship games week-in, week-out.

“It is the same management, same group of players. You get closer and closer with every win.

“Outside of our top four or five players the last few years, we would have been struggling. Whereas now, some of our best performers on any given day, like against Castlelyons in the semi-final, their names wouldn’t be known, but they are still one of our best players. That is the main difference with us. You need that depth in the panel.” 

They’ve far more than depth going for them these days.