Crotta O'Neills' 'new group' won't look to past, all focus is on the job at hand 

GUNNING FOR GLORY: Sean O’Donoghue, Crotta O’Neills in action at Austin Stack Park last year. Pic: Domnick Walsh © Eye Focus LTD.

Try telling the hurlers of Crotta O’Neills 'what's seldom is wonderful'. 

They are rooted to the bottom of the pile when it comes to winning senior hurling championship finals in Kerry. Though they have won nine, their last was 55 years ago in 1968. Since then they have contested seven finals, the last being in 2011 when Ballyduff beat them 2-11 to 0-15, the middle leg of a three-in-a-row. 

Tom Kenny was the last Crotta O’Neills captain to lift the county SHC trophy which became the Neilus Flynn Cup from 1987 onwards.

The 1968 Crotta team was my first exposure to hurling - Glenbeigh was not, nor is, a hurling stronghold. It was my first year in the Carnegie PPS in Killarney and we had a young, blonde Irish teacher, Brendan Twomey, who invariably came into class Monday mornings sporting a black eye. 

In our innocence, we presumed it came dancing at the crossroads until we saw his picture in The Kerryman, holding the cup aloft having scored four points in the final. He went on to play for the Kerry senior hurlers over a number of years. 

So what does current manager Brendan Mahony think of their long legacy of failure at senior championship level?

"It doesn’t really bother us to be honest. This is a new group. These lads have won three minor championships, two Under 21s, we’ve had lads who have won two North Kerry senior football championships with St Senans, and we have players who have played with Kerry at a high level in both hurling and football - so this is a totally new group of players. 

"They know nothing about what happened in the past; we’re not going back into the past at all. All we’re worried about is the performance on Sunday. Our players are winners as well in their own right, so they’ve good experience and a lot of them have worn the Kerry jersey in football and hurling. I think our record since 2016 in Austin Stack Park is six finals and we’ve won five. We lost to Causeway in a County under 21 final one year and won the rest, so it’s a good record.“ 

Mahony was involved in 2016 and 2017 with the Crotta O’Neills minors and there are a lot of those lads involved now. He also has two sons, Barry and Rory, involved. Crotta almost let the Causeway quarter-final slip but showed resilience against Kilmoyley.

“We didn’t come from behind against Causeway, we were up three points coming near injury time and we conceded a penalty in extra-time.  Against Kilmoyley then with ten minutes to go we were down four points and showed great heart and resilience to come back and get a goal and two points without reply.” 

Belief has been a key element to their progress. “We go out with the mentality that we’re going to give everything from start to finish and there’s great belief, great character, the match is never over until the final whistle so we’re just really concentrating on giving a full performance for 65 minutes and see where it gets us. It’s worked all year and hopefully it’ll do so again.” 

The age profile of the side is certainly ideal to go all the way: "I think Shane [Nolan] and Beans [Seán Weir] are 31 or 32 and showing great leadership this year. We have a few young fellas as well, then we have a lot of fellas around the 25/26 mark so there’s a great blend of youth and experience, our age-profile is very good. A lot of those fellas have won two Under 21s as well so it has taken them a bit of time to come together, but they’re starting to hit form now at the right time."