Sars out to be best version of themselves against standard-bearers Ballygunner

In his third year as Sars manager Johnny Crowley knows what it means to the area to bring back provincial silverware. Picture: ©INPHO/Tom Maher

The GAA news cycle spins a little less furiously at this time of year. A touch more rummaging is required by comparison with the summer feeding frenzy.

An old reliable in the quieter weeks post-county final mania had become the documentation of Cork’s woeful record in the Munster Club SHC. And woeful it was. The ability to dust off and apply only a minor tweak to the version of 12 months earlier was never taken for granted.

The most recent documentation of that woeful record, this month last year, highlighted the lack of a Cork winner going all the way back to Newtownshandrum in 2009. It also illuminated, as had the previous year’s piece and the year before that, how there had been only one Cork finalist since 2009.

The picture painted, in short, was that Glen Rovers overcoming Patrickswell in the 2016 semi-final represented the sole Munster club championship win by a Cork representative across a 15-year period.

And then along came Sars this very weekend last year to begin the process of doing away with both the woeful record and our old reliable. In their remarkably unlikely run to provincial glory, they sent us rummaging for a fresh November staple.

Ballygunner sit joint-top of the Munster club roll of honour with five crowns. Three of those have been won since the turn of this decade. On Sunday, they’re aiming to reach an eighth consecutive Munster decider.

For context, Sixmilebridge are the only other crowd in the province to reach eight finals full stop, never mind eight-in-a-row.

Ballygunner are a club superpower in the province and yet they find themselves in the usual position this weekend as going in as the hunters.

Even more unusual is a Cork side going in as the hunter. Our old reliable has been fully turned on its head.

Johnny Crowley is in year three in this latest coming as Sars manager. Each year has ventured beyond county bounds. Ballygunner whacked them by 17 points at today’s venue in his first season back. That was followed by the sensational 21-point swing of last December and the gap successfully bridged to Newtown’s 2009 triumph.

Reigning champions though they might be, Crowley bats away the hunted tag.

“We put so much effort into the different sections of the year, like the group stages of the county or the knockout stages of the county, that we section them off once they are done,” Crowley begins.

“And so once we achieve something, we draw a line through the sand. You win a county, it's a line through the sand and it's the next challenge. Those memories, they’ll always be there for you when you want to go back to them.

“If you look at Ballygunner, while we won in ‘24, we were annihilated in' 23. We definitely take nuggets of information from the games, but we never ever refer to the games.

“If you're looking back 12 months or 24 months, you're not doing yourself justice to the present day, you have to focus on what is in front of you. And things have changed, our team alone from ‘23 to ‘24 to now, there are huge changes.

“And likewise, Ballygunner, they've got a new manager Jason [Ryan], they'll have different ideas, they'll have different tactics. And while a lot of the stuff is very familiar, there's definitely tweaks and changes, so we have to be ready for that.

“I don't think that we're the hunted now. If you look at the odds, I think we’re 7/2, 4/1, so again, we're huge outsiders, but we don't look at these things, to be honest with you. What we try and focus on is being the best version of us going into Sunday. We have to believe, we have to be ready and know that if we bring the best version of Sarsfields senior hurling team, we'll be a challenge for any team, and if we don't, we’ll get turned over.” 

Hunted or not, underdogs or otherwise, their achievement of 12 months ago in Thurles has created renewed interest in the sojourns of Cork's flagship club side.

Splashed in with the realism of what they’re travelling down to in Walsh Park is a slight air of expectation. That’s what winning does on Leeside. That’s what winning has always done on Leeside.

The Sars manager knows it wasn’t just their community lifted by the lifting of provincial club silverware.

“Our journey last year, the support we got from outside the Sars-Glanmire bubble was huge. Even now today, I still get phone calls from really good, genuine GAA guys, wishing us the best.

“We genuinely try to focus on ourselves and getting ourselves ready, I don't want to be cliché in that, but we do, and it's enough of a burden to go down and represent Sars every time we put on the jersey.

“We were so honoured last year to win the Munster title. My memories of Semple Stadium on that night I will never forget, to see both Sars men, visibly emotional, and the amount of non-Sars people that were at that game, that came up to me, and congratulated me was incredible, so you can see what it means to genuine Cork GAA supporters when a Cork team goes to represent Cork and wins.

“I think that's always been that way. I can remember when Midleton were in their pomp, I can remember Newtownshandrum, I used to go to those games, shout and cheer them on, and the following year then, you go to battle with them.” 

Sars are now the team to have earned a respect and following beyond local walls.

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