Youthful St Catherine’s will to win delivers Munster title against Feenagh-Kilmeedy
The St Catherine's team celebrate their win over Feenagh-Kilmeedy in the Munster Club Junior Hurling Club Championship final at Mallow, Co Cork. Picture Dan Linehan
The manner in which St Catherine’s picked themselves up after losing the Cork final and demonstrated such tremendous will-to-win in Munster, sees them just an hour away from an AIB All-Ireland club JHC final appearance.
Denis Walsh’s youthful side won a thrilling provincial final in Mallow on Saturday by two points. It was a sweet victory for the former dual star who has managed at all levels.
A goal at the start and at the end of the first-half from Eoin Condon helped see off a gutsy Feenagh-Kilmeedy, who were forced to play out the final 10 minutes plus stoppage with 14 players after full-back Kevin Murphy was red-carded.
Next up for St Catherine’s is Easkey in a fortnight.
“Ronan Dwane is the first port of call,” Walsh laughed - Dwane coached Ballygiblin to All-Ireland glory against the Sligo champions last January.
“I know it’s junior,” he said, “but it might as well be senior as far as we’re concerned. It was hard work there and I’m around long enough now to know that finals are hard-won and that was hard-won. We had to sweat it out in the end.
“We’ve scored, 2-17, 2-16, 2-14 in the three games (in Munster), which isn’t bad at this time of year.
“The fact that we had not played well in the county final – we’ve been drilling into the players now, with four or five weeks, just drive on, drive on, drive on, regardless.”
Condon’s green flags enabled a 2-8 to 1-8 interval lead.
His first goal came from a lengthy delivery that deceived Michael Bergin in the third minute. Sixty seconds later Ruairi O’Connor pulled one back for the west Limerick outfit amid a hectic start.
The east Cork side, coached by Sarsfields’ Tadhg Óg Murphy, had to withstand constant pressure throughout the half.
Their second green flag wrestled back control, when Condon connected with a trademark free from distance by goalkeeper Eoin Davis.
Yet, they had to grind again to regain the lead in the 40th minute.
The experienced Diarmuid Coleman (0-10) and 18-year-old Seán O’Donoghue (0-9) proved to be reliable free-takers for their respective sides.
O’Donoghue, as well as Oisin Fitzgerald and Kian O’Donoghue, will be back at the north Cork venue on Wednesday with St Colman’s College for a crucial Dr Harty Cup preliminary quarter-final against CBC.
“I started playing with the club when I was six, you can’t beat it,” beamed O’Donoghue. “It is testament to the squad and management to come back after losing the county final, this is huge.
“Wednesday is a knock-out so hopefully we can get a good result against Christians.”
With over half the team under 21, the matches are thick and fast.
“We have eight starters, U21,” Walsh noted. “Kevin Barry came in off the bench, got a point – he’s U21 as well. Probably with the bit of youth that we have, you’d probably say that it was an advantage today.
“We’re missing a few players as well, obviously.
“Darragh Morrison got the bad news yesterday, his cruciate. He’s U18, he started at right half-forward in the county final but he played an U21 game and a lad fell on his knee at the very end of the game. Dan Mangan too is out with cruciate.” “We’ve two U21 matches this week, a football final and then a hurling semi-final next Sunday.
“We’ve three of the lads playing Harty Cup on Wednesday, so, really, we won’t be able to gather our thoughts until next Sunday, or the following Tuesday, even.”
: S O’Donoghue (0-9, 0-5 frees), E Condon (2-0), E Davis (free), K O’Donoghue, K Wallace, K Barry and B Mulcahy (0-1 each).
D Coleman (0-10, 0-9 frees), R O’Connor (1-0), D Boyce (0-2), S Kelly, M Fitzgibbon and L Ryan (0-1 each).
E Davis; E O’Riordan (J-Capt), , F O’Connell, L O’Connor; K O’Donoghue, O Fitzgerald, K Neville; K Wallace, S Cotter; S O’Donoghue, R Galvin, W Leamy; B Mulcahy, E Condon, M Mulcahy.
: E Wallace for L O’Connor, G O’Brien for W Leamy (42), K Barry for M Mulcahy (50).
M Bergin; B Donegan, K Murphy, S Murray; D Boyce, B Hannigan, J O’Regan; S Kelly, C O’Connor; D Coleman, M Fitzgibbon (Capt), L Ryan; R O’Connor, N Irwin, J O’Gorman.
: G O’Gorman for N Irwin (half-time), J O’Sullivan for J O’Gorman (46), P O’Doherty for S Kelly (51), D Gayer for L Ryan (58).
: Nicky O’Toole (Waterford).
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