No panic: how the Barrs are winning mind games in run to Munster final

TRUE BLUE: Alan O'Connor, St Finbarr's,  who play Dingle in the AIB Munster club SFC final in Thurles on Sunday. Pic: Eddie O'Hare

A scoreline rarely gives the full picture. A County Cup on the dressing-room table can dull and dilute the difficult moments of the journey.

The St Finbarr’s footballers were slow out of the blocks on the opening day of local fare in late July. They were four behind Clon before they realised the county championship had thrown in.

Next time out against Rosscarbery, they went scoreless from the 13th minute of the opening half to the eighth minute of the second period. They went scoreless from play for a stretch of 31 minutes.

In the Cork semi-final, they didn’t once score from play across the entire first-half. They were fortunate to trail Ballincollig only by the minimum at the end of that first-half.

At half-time in the decider, and having had the backing of a noteworthy breeze, they trailed neighbours Nemo by 1-9 to 0-10. There had been seven first half wides, a Steven Sherlock attempt short, and a John Wigginton Barrett kick blocked down.

In the Munster quarter-final, they trailed hosts Clonmel as late as the 58th minute.

In a season of 16 wins from 17 outings across League and Championship, and in a season still running on the opening weekend of December, focusing in on all these Barrs blemishes and imperfections might seem a strange act. Our pointing them out, though, serves a purpose.

The blemishes and imperfections never came to define a single Barrs matchday. They were never allowed to define a single Barrs matchday.

Where there was multiple cause for panic and potential collapse, the Barrs footballers never crumbled or folded or simply lost the run of themselves.

No opposition or inner voice of self-doubt ever succeeded in besting them, either on the field or upstairs. They continued to trust in themselves and their blueprint.

From four down early doors against Clon, they had worked themselves into a four-point lead with eight minutes remaining. Taken for seven unanswered points by Carbery Rangers to trail 0-8 to 1-3 on 38 minutes, Ian Maguire, Ethan Twomey, and Steven Sherlock stepped forward to haul the collective across the line.

Sherlock and Brian Hayes were the architects in turning around the county semi-final during the 10 minutes after half-time. They outgunned Ballincollig 1-4 to 0-2 for a six-point swing.

Their second half start against Nemo was even more glorious. Into the elements, 1-2 without reply was fashioned. From two down to three ahead in the space of three minutes.

The last four points of the Munster quarter-final belonged to men wearing blue. William Buckley, twice, sub Cillian Myers Murray, and the always-dependable Maguire broke the Tipp champions.

You can pick out Steven Sherlock’s outrageous scoring contributions, midfielder Brian Hayes’ 5-9 off six starts, their ever-strengthening middle-third, their ever-influential bench, or their back-to-full-health defence, but the outstanding reason the County Cup resides in Togher and the outstanding reason they are within one hour of the club’s sixth Munster crown is the collective refusal to panic when there has been ample cause to.

“There were times where we've been caught in a bit of shock,” begins corner-back Alan O’Connor when reflecting on recent campaigns that finished in mid-October and without any silverware being carried into the Barrs dressing-room.

“We brought in Stephanie [Doherty] this year to deal with the psychological side of things. One of the things she asked us was, what are the reference points we have where maybe we haven't adjusted well.

“In recent years, we've kind of been shell-shocked by poor starts. There was an early goal conceded against Castlehaven in the 2023 semi-final [after 12 seconds] and then a point after 15 seconds in the 2024 semi-final, and we were just a little bit shell-shocked starting the game.

“We were like, okay, what can we do to improve our start? It’s something we actually worked quite consciously on, and if you look back at our games this year, we've started a little bit better, even if we haven’t played well throughout the entire first-half.

“At half-time we haven’t panicked. We don't deviate from what we're doing. We've got loads of reference points to show that our system works, we just need to execute it better.

“Rather than, ‘alright boys, we're abandoning everything here, we're going to start anew’ and that's something that I just think, managers can panic sometimes, and we've all done it. But it's something that's not happened this year.” 

O’Connor, now 15 seasons on the go in the Blues defence, sought out Doherty after the one-point county final victory to thank her for the mental resilience she had helped construct.

“We've shown it time and time again. We were down at half-time against Nemo, we brought it up, then they brought it level, Cillian Myers Murray kicked an unbelievable score, and we held our nerve. I know they hit the post at the end, but we've shown time and time again that we can bounce back from these things,” continued the occupational and physiotherapist.

On the way into the Barrs clubhouse, there’s a board advertising how the bar will be open on Sunday week to show their All-Ireland camogie final against Athenry.

The lads, without jumping too far ahead of themselves, are hoping the board will carry a similar message the far side of Christmas.

“That's certainly what we want. Credit to the Camogie, they've set the standard. Like two periods of double extra time, you couldn't praise them enough for the character they've shown. You want to talk about resilience, there it is.

“And that's what this club represents really, digging it out no matter what, doing what it takes to win. They've been inspirational to us, and as far as we're concerned now, we owe them another result at the weekend.

“I was on to some of them there during the week congratulating them. They were like, ‘job's not done here now, lads, drive it on Sunday’. They've been an unbelievable support to us, and please God, we'll give them a day as well.”