Weekend GAA talking points: Can Thomastown complete magical journey few have taken?
DANCING IN THE LIGHT: Thomastown players celebrate after their side's victory in the AIB GAA Hurling All-Ireland Intermediate Club Championship final. Pic:Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
In the first half of the All-Ireland Intermediate hurling final in January, Castlelyons were just about hanging onto the coat-tails of Thomastown, but only on the back of a shooting meltdown from the Kilkenny side. Thomastown were rampant but they just couldn’t score in the middle of that half, converting only one of 13 shots during that period.
Thomastown just kept shooting because they knew the scores would eventually come. They did as Castlelyons’ rearguard was like barrier of wet sand against a raging tide.
The final winning margin was 16 points. Thomastown’s aggregate winning margin between the county final and All-Ireland final was a staggering 114 points, an average of 23 points.
They’d gone into the county final against Mooncoin as hot favourites but with doubts still hanging around their necks like a flock of albatross. It was Thomastown’s fourth final in five years, with those three previous defeats even more heartbreaking considering the context; after Tullaroan beat them in the 2019 final, they went on to win the All-Ireland; Lisdowney only sacked them on penalties in the 2020 decider; Danesfort defeated Thomastown after extra-time in the 2022 final.
After the 2020 final, they recruited Henry Shefflin as manager, but Thomastown were beaten in the 2021 semi-final by Glenmore. When Thomastown returned to the final last year though, they were intent on things being different. They hammered Mooncoin by 15 points.
It secured a first Kilkenny Intermediate title since 1983, and a passage back to senior hurling for the first time since 1989. It was a long three and a half decades, especially when so many of the intervening years were a struggle to stay at Intermediate, never mind trying to win it.
On a handful of occasions, Thomastown slipped down to Junior. After winning the title in 2005, they reached the Leinster Junior final but were beaten by Erin’s Own of Carlow. When they found themselves back in Junior again a few years later, they were better equipped to move forward, going on to win the 2013 All-Ireland title after beating Fullen Gaels in the final.
It took them another ten years to win the Kilkenny intermediate title and they now have the opportunity to do what the club have only done once before, in 1946, and win a senior championship.
When Thomastown were burning it up last year, it was clear that they would be a force in this year’s Kilkenny senior championship. The only real question focussed on just how much of a legitimate threat they could pose, and how far they might go in the championship? They proved their worth in the quarter-final when taking out Ballyhale Shamrocks.
Now they’re looking to do something only a handful of clubs have done in the last 20 years – go from winning an intermediate title to a senior within the space of 12 months.
It has been done in Kilkenny in that time, with Clara being crowned senior champions in 2013, just 12 months after they’d won the intermediate title. Clonlara also managed that hurling double in Clare in successive seasons in 2007 and 2008. Twenty-four months after being relegated from the Leitrim senior football championship in 2010, Melvin Gaels were crowned senior champions, having won the Intermediate title in 2011. In 2015, St James’ won a maiden Wexford senior football title just 12 months after securing the Intermediate crown.
A few other clubs have gone close to achieving that unique feat in recent years. Erne Gaels were Fermanagh intermediate champions in 2021 before reaching the senior final 12 months later, which they lost to Enniskillen Gaels.
A decade ago, Trillick St Macartan's situation was even more novel as they were beaten in the 2014 Tyrone intermediate final but went on to win the senior title in 2015, as the senior championship is framed around league positions.
In terms of expanding form and ambition, few – if any – can match the rise (and fall) of Dunamaggin in Kilkenny in the mid to late 1990s, when they won junior, intermediate and senior titles within the space of four seasons between 1994-’97. After winning the intermediate in 1995, they lost the 1996 senior semi-final by four points to Young Irelands, who went on to win a first title. After bagging a first senior title in 1997, the mental and physical exertions of the previous four years had been so great that the crash came a year later when Dunamaggin were relegated.
Some of the current Thomastown squad have been on a similar journey – albeit over a longer period – from junior to intermediate to senior but taking the next step now is the biggest challenge. They can look to Clara for inspiration. Nine months after winning an All-Ireland intermediate title in 2013, Clara were crowned Kilkenny senior champions.
So can Thomastown make a similar step-up?
A couple of minutes after last year’s Cork senior football final, James McCarthy, the Castlehaven manager, was in front of the north stand in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, waving and beckoning at the Haven hordes in the stand to ignore any restrictions in place and to join the players and management in the celebrations.
As the Castlehaven supporters stormed onto the field, a number of them jumped into McCarthy’s arms, the warmth and affection of the embraces acting as a neat metaphor for how much the victory meant to everyone from Castlehaven.
Winning county titles are sweet but beating Nemo Rangers always adds a sugar lump to the taste. When interviewed on TG4 after the 2013 county final, Castlehaven manager Finbarr Santry spoke about how it was the one victory Castlehaven craved most.
“The one thing the club always wanted to do was to play and beat Nemo Rangers in a county final,” said Santry. “And I mean that in the best possible way to Nemo because they are the benchmark in Cork football.”
The clubs have always had a huge rivalry but, despite their dominance at various stages over the last four decades, Sunday’s final is just their 10th championship clash in the 35 years since Castlehaven first made the breakthrough in 1989.
Some of those matches were iconic games. The sides only met once in the 1990s but their 1994 semi-final meeting was one of the biggest matches played in the county during that decade. The magnitude of that match was immeasurable for Castlehaven.
When they first made the breakthrough in 1989, they hadn’t played Nemo along the way. They didn’t run into them over the following four seasons either but Nemo were the reigning All-Ireland club champions by the time the Haven met them again in 1994. Everything – literally everything – was on the line; the match also trebled up as the 1993 Kelleher Shield final and the 1993 Tadgh Crowley Cup final. Castlehaven won by a point.
It took the Haven until 2013 to finally beat Nemo in a final. When they beat them again in last year’s final, Castlehaven became the first Cork club to beat Nemo in two finals. Beating them in a third decider would be dream-land for the Haven. And a nightmare for Nemo.
Six days before the FRC’s new rules were trialled in Croke Park last weekend, the Newbridge-Magherafelt Derry semi-final, which was shown on RTÉ, was held up as Exhibit A to show everything that was wrong with Gaelic football.
Thirteen shots from play in 67 minutes encapsulated the turgid, boring and lifeless lack of entertainment on show. Magherafelt only managed five shots from play but they still could have won the game only for a late Shane McGrogan goal for Newbridge, which was a punched effort from a shot that dropped short.
Thirteen scores summed up the poverty of the football, but when the sides met in the previous year’s semi-final, there were only 14 scores. Yet Magherafelt got 12 of them, with Newbridge only registering an embarrassing 0-2.
Since they have built this young team, the biggest concern the ‘Bridge have had is a lack of scoring power, but Oisin Doherty and Shane McGrogan have really stepped up this season, accounting for 1-4 of Newbridge’s 1-7 two weeks ago. Doherty won an All-Ireland minor medal last year while Éamon Young, who has won successive All-Ireland minor titles and was named on the Minor Team of the Year a few weeks back, will surely come into the team next year, which further underlines how much this team has been fitted out with young talent.
Having reached a first final since 1991, this is a youthful squad going in the right direction. They have also become a more offensive outfit under Gary Hetherington and Kevin Brady, having kicked 0-18 against Bellaghy in the quarter-final. Yet Newbridge will need to reach a whole new level again in Sunday’s final against All-Ireland champions Glen.
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