'A very difficult week': Blackrock honour late goalkeeper Trevor Barry in Cork semi-final

Blackrock rested their goalkeeper's jersey for the Cork Premier SHC semi-final against Midleton in memory Trevor Barry. 

A late Conor Lehane free won the Cork Premier SHC semi-final against Blackrock for Midleton. Pic: Dan Linehan

The heartbreaking death of former Blackrock goalkeeper Trevor Barry evoked an outpouring of sympathy and support in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday. A minute’s silence in memory of Trevor was observed ahead of the Cork Premier SHC semi-final between Blackrock and Midleton.

In his honour, the club rested the number one jersey.

“A very emotional week, very long week, very difficult week,” Blackrock manager Jamie Harrington said. “I can only imagine how difficult it was for his family. In some ways it put this whole weekend in perspective, his removal yesterday and his funeral tomorrow. How his extended family are going to get through this is a far bigger issue than us today.

“We rested the goalkeeper’s jersey. We are trying to find small things that we can offer the family, which is basically nothing. It is all we could do to be sure they know that he is in our thoughts all the time.” 

After extra-time they fell short by a single point, 1-25 to 0-29.

“I was only saying to Micheál Keohane (Midleton manager) that tackling was intense enough at times. The hurling wasn’t hectic, we were probably more guilty of that than anybody else. We made a few mistakes today which we would normally hope not to make. At this level you are going to be punished. It could have gone either way in the end, it went their way and they were good value for it in the end.” 

Blackrock took the direct route to the last four when claiming the sole automatic semi-final spot, which also meant a four week lay-off.

“There is for and against the bye into the semi-finals. We had two good challenge matches against Nenagh and Cashel. We trained away mad, I don’t think that had a huge up or down. Maybe towards the end of the game when Midleton were a bit calmer having been in a very tight game against the Glen two weeks ago. We started well. If you are going to be rusty it would be at the start. Just too many mistakes really.

“I don’t think the wind was a huge factor either. It didn’t affect play in lots of ways. It affected puck-out length and scoring from frees but it wasn’t a huge factor to be honest. It was worth one or two or three points at most with the breeze. But with the amount of tackling going on around the middle there were no free shots anyway.”