Micheál Keohane: ‘The club is an extension of your family, and Midleton GAA club is an exceptional family'

FAMILY: Midleton GAA is an extension of family and one that has rallied around after the tragedies overthe last year. Picture: Jim Coughlan.

Friday night lights. The Glen versus Midleton. Knockout hurling championship on Leeside.

This is what their season - their year - has been geared towards. This fixture is of utmost importance. This fixture is far from everything.

At this time of year, a club is defined by scorelines. By what it wins and what it doesn’t. By what it collects and what it leaves behind.

Midleton’s year won’t be defined by this evening’s quarter-final result at Páirc Uí Rinn (7.30pm). Should they succeed in continuing on past this evening, their year still won’t be defined by results over the coming weeks.

What Micheál Keohane and his charges are endeavouring to do is achieve a positive finish to a year of hardship, tragedy, and loss. A year where the club has already put its strongest foot forward. They did so not by scorelines posted on the field, but by action off it.

In far too short a space of time in the middle of March, Midleton clubmen Darragh McCarthy (21) and Ger Fitzgerald (60) left their favoured field for another. 

Cancer took Fitzgerald, McCarthy falling from the upper storey of student accommodation in Cork city. 

Guards of honour given long before they were due.

In black and in red, Ger achieved all there was to be achieved. Half-forward on last year’s county U21 winning team, Darragh was only starting out on his own journey of collection.

The calendar and season move on, the importance of the club holds firm.

“The club is an extension of your family, and Midleton GAA club is an exceptional family. Everybody that's involved in it really, really banded together over the last few months to try and help young and old get through the hardship that we experienced in March,” hurling boss Micheál Keohane reflected this week.

“Our club is effectively our family, and the community has been amazing this year. It was amazing a couple of years ago, as well, when the floods happened in town.

“But I think what happened with Darragh and Ger, and they were so involved with the team for the last few years, it was an incredibly difficult time. It was really good that the families and friends could all lean on each other, and lean on the club as well, and try and maybe, I suppose, channel that energy a small bit into something over the last while.

“There are more important things in life than hurling. Unfortunately, we got a sharp dose of that this year. It puts everything into perspective. It's constantly there. It's something we're always thinking about.” 

The all-black jerseys they’ll wear against the Glen - worn in honour of Darragh for this 2025 championship - offer a constant reminder of that truism uttered by Keohane.

The Magpies boss is in his third year in the gig. In 2023, Sars edged them on the concluding Sunday. In 2024, Sars edged them at the second last hurdle. They are close. Extremely close.

The performance wasn’t there in the win over Newtownshandrum or the stalemate encounter with Newcestown. 

The performance was found for the table-topping victory over Charleville. They enter the knockout phase with the deepest panel of Keohane’s three years. A necessity if the Glen are to be negotiated. A necessity if their latest challenge is to travel further than in ‘23 and ‘24.

Paul Haughney and Seán O’Sullivan have returned from injury in recent weeks, resharpening their respective blades as members of the second-string intermediate side that is in quarter-final action on Saturday against Aghabullogue (Carraig na bhFear, 4pm). Both men were starters on the afternoon of the 2023 county final defeat.

“They're two massive players for us. Paul has been on the Cork senior panel, Seán has played underage with Cork. So it's great to get those two lads back and flying. They're putting it up against the other lads, trying to get into the starting team.” 

Killian Burke, another former Cork hurler, is home from London. Cormac Walsh, half-back on the 2021 county winning team, is home from Canada.

“They’ve both had a massive impact on the group,” Keohane continued. “The competition for places is incredible. The guys that won the U21 county in 2024, they're that bit more mature and physically bigger. There's a bunch of guys that came out of minor last year that have really put up their hands. They could only play junior last year, not senior or intermediate, and four of them are really pushing for places.

“The likes of Evan McGrath is playing really well. We've managed to get a bit of time into Carthaigh Cronin. Paul Connaughton has got a good few goals in challenge matches.

“We're in no doubt that it's going to be more than 15 players. If you're struggling with 13 or 14 players, you're under pressure, whereas we know it could take 20 on Friday. We're at the peak of our competition for the last few years at the moment, which is excellent.”