Cathail O'Mahony thrilled with Ballygiblin's unexpected second chance

Cathail O'Mahony watched Ballygiblin's final defeat last year suffering from a long-term hamstring problem

Thu, 12 Jan, 2023 - 07:25

Paul Keane

It hardly helped the Ballygiblin mood after last year's AIB All-Ireland club junior hurling final loss that Martin O'Neill's winning point for Mooncoin became a social media hit.

Replays of O'Neill's chop at a sideline cut almost 65 metres out beneath the Hogan Stand, which sent the sliotar sailing between the posts at the Davin End, were shared for days afterwards.

Up in the stand, Cathail O'Mahony watched the horror unfold in real time, the Ballygiblin forward injured and unavailable to have any impact on proceedings.

"That was actually to put them two points up," recalled O'Mahony of the score. "I'd say everyone thought, 'Well that's the insurance point' because there were only a few seconds left but sure we went down the field and scored a point with the very last puck so the sideline point was the real winner. It was obviously a great score to win the game."

In normal circumstances, that would have been that and both teams would have progressed on to the intermediate ranks for the following season. Mooncoin ended up reaching the quarter-finals of the 2022 Kilkenny intermediate championship, as it happened, though the formation of the new Premier Junior championship in Cork meant Ballygiblin retained their junior status.

Which meant that if things went right for them, they could just find themselves back at Croke Park with a second chance to win that All-Ireland junior title. And sure enough here they are, preparing for Saturday's decider against Easkey of Sligo and overwhelming favourites to get the job done.

For O'Mahony, fully fit and firing again, it is a chance to win an All-Ireland club junior title that he didn't expect to get.

"Winning the county again was the main challenge," said O'Mahony, best known as a Cork senior footballer who was part of the 2019 All-Ireland U-20 winning team. "Once we won the county, I don't think anyone would have been happy if we didn't get back to Croke Park.

"Obviously the lads were gutted last year, to lose by a single point as well. I'd say now they feel that they're in a better position than they were last year. Their hurling is definitely better. So they probably feel more confident coming on the back of that experience that they have."

O'Mahony's return from long-term hamstring trouble which cost him much of the 2021 season and a chunk of 2022, along with Darragh Flynn's full fitness, has allowed Ballygiblin, located just outside Mitchelstown in north Cork, to prosper.

Flynn, an All-Ireland U-20 hurling winner with Cork in the summer of 2021, has been a regular goalscorer. O'Mahony is a tidy inside forward. Against Horeswood in the All-Ireland semi-final, the duo combined for Flynn's first-half goal.

Throw in former Aussie Rules player Mark Keane at the centre of their defence and they're clearly a formidable unit, particularly at the junior grade.

O'Mahony is just happy to be back and playing regularly again after the hamstring injury, first suffered while playing for Cork in the 2021 National Football League.

"Thank God for about a year now I've had no real issues with it," he said. "It was frustrating at the time, to be honest. You were doing everything you could but you were just like, 'What am I missing? What aren't I doing?' You kind of doubt yourself then but you have to stick with it. Thank God I had good people around me with Cork and Mitchelstown as well, so they helped me through it."

Fellow Cork footballers Brian Hurley and Sean Powter had their own hamstring issues and were always there for advice.

"They were helpful on the psychological side of it," said O'Mahony who expects to return to the county football setup pretty soon after Sunday's decider.

"I would be mad keen to get involved. The National League is starting two weeks after the club final. Obviously you want to be playing in that, you want to be starting it ideally. If you're away, you feel like you're behind or something, especially the way the lads are flying it at the moment as well. It's going to be a hard team to get back into."