Repetition is one of the greatest foibles in this business. Balancing such worries, though, is the reality that, if a point retains credence, it’s worth ploughing up again. Now read on…
Again, we return to the task of tending to some of da’s stuff. Specifically, a few GAA photos – including the one of the Junior hurling team of 1956 on which he lined out at corner back himself. The hurl he used in the final of said championship actually survived as well, but eventually no amount of insulating tape or silage tape or wood glew could hold it together.
Anyway, ironically, rather than the one he was in himself, his favourite photo – in fact arguably his most treasured possession – was the one of our Minor hurling team of 1958/’59 which won the county championship both seasons while managed by his brother Jimmy and George Gilsenan and Paddy McIntyre.
Looking back on it now, I am so glad the club were able to win it again while he was still alive in 2007. Unfortunately, the wait for a Senior Hurling Championship will now stretch to 110 years, but there may be an end to what must surely be one of the longest title famines in sport in sight.
Over three plus decades of being involved with or at the very least tuned into goings on within our club, the fortunes of hurling have been observed oscillating wildly. From a point where, at one stage, John Reilly was looking after every hurling team in the club to where Sean McManus formed a vibrant and productive Hurling Committee 25 years ago, the fruits of which have helped to sustain the club operating at the highest level in the county ever since.
Yes, there have been peaks and troughs along the way, as there will be with any club in any sport, but gone are the days when we could be justifiably labelled a yoyo team. Such was the regularity with which we would win the Intermediate Hurling Championship only to end up back there again.
With extreme irony though, having just written the above, this year our backsides came uncomfortably close to the bacon slicer for the first time in a long time. However, the magnificent achievement of the past weekend – completing the Minor football and hurling double for the first time in the history of the club – though the feat was achieved at U-16 level in 1962 and 2005 – should at least ensure that, for the foreseeable, we’ll be able to look ahead of us rather than over the shoulder.
At this point it will of course be admitted that, owing to being restricted to the one seeing eye, none of their matches were observed in the flesh, but, the fortitude and character displayed in their garnering of the football title was even more in evidence during the hurling odyssey.
Not only in the final itself where they fell four points adrift early on, but throughout the campaign where they had come up short against Gaeil Colmcille/Loughcrew Gaels on a couple of occasions.
Even besides that though, in the semi final, they appeared to be in a decidely sticky spot until a goal from Sean Cregan and a even later point from the bugeoning John Harkin saw them through to their shot at the double.
Naturally, the town will have been abuzz during the week between the football and hurling finals, but, the superstitious worrier in me was of the opinion that it may all have been too good to be true.
Our sluggish start certainly didn’t do anything to dissipate such foreboding, but eventually hotshot Harkin settled us into a sufficient stride that only a point, 0-06 to 1-04, separated the sides with half an hour of their season remaining.
Being honest, it was only in compiling a few notes to aid production of what you are reading that it was realised how low scoring the second half was.
Then again, what that, in turn, did was re-inforce the old adage about goals winning games. Moreover, sometimes there are just signs. As with the previous week’s football victories for our lads and Kilbride, the feeling that wise counsel from afar has been guiding things in desired directions.
Now, maybe it’s a Laois thing. Just as when Brian ‘Beano’ McDonald burst onto the inter county scene when starring in an All Ireland MFC Final as a 16-year-old, it was Sean Delaney – two years younger than the Arles/Killeen clubman was back then – who once again stole the show.
The crafty corner forward netted twice after half time, giving him a priceless Pairc Tailteann hat-trick in the space of seven days. Allowing himself and his colleagues to continue to write their own history within our club.
One wonders do the youngsters truly understand the magnitude of what they have achieved. Not just in terms of their own careers, but, also, just how much it means to the club as a whole and,perhaps most especially, to those with connections to the 1962 group who did the double at the level below Minor all those years ago.
As the brother of one of the Men Of 62 sadly no longer with us put it on Sunday evening (This year’s Minors) “Are a wonderful bunch of young men, a credit to our club and it’s great to be alive to see it”.
I couldn’t have put it better myself, and the best part of it all is knowing the bright future there is ahead for these lads and, as a consequence, the club.
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