Tomás Manning is proud of unique culture of hurling in school

“You see the hurling wall in the school every day at lunchtime, all 50 to 60 hurlers from first to third year are pucking around. It is just hurling all the time and that culture and interest is what services the foundation."

HARTY CUP: Darragh O'Connaill, Gaelcholáiste Mhuire AG fires over a point from play in the Harty Cup. Picture: Larry Cummin s

Paving their own path and paving a path for those coming after them. One as important as the other.

The current crop of Harty hurlers above in Gaelcholáiste Mhuire AG on the northside of Cork city never hopped on a supporters bus as first, second, or third year students, or whatever year they were, and hit off to Bansha, Ballyagran, or Kilmallock of a midweek afternoon to watch their elders line out in a Harty quarter-final. They instead got on plenty of buses and watched earlier round near misses and misses not at all near.