BLACKROCK Hurling Club are making great strides both on and off the pitch as the ambitious club continue their quest for glory in the future.

The club have embarked on great work to their club grounds in recent years to cater for the rise in playing numbers and to ensure the needs of their players are catered for said their facilities manager Conor Hurley.

“We have been working hard in recent years through our Friends of the Rockies initiative to raise money for our various projects.

“We did a three-phase development. Our first phase was a hurling wall which opened in 2017.

“The second phase was a floodlit astroturf training pitch which opened in 2019. Our final phase will involve a full-size training pitch with floodlights. That will conclude our work on our outdoor phase.

“We will then turn our attention to work on our indoor phases,” the development committee member said.

Development work commenced in recent months on the construction of their new full-size training pitch said Conor.

“We have always had a training pitch which was pretty much a bog for nine months of the year.

“This latest phase has involved a complete pitch refurbishment. It will be a state-of-the-art sand-based pitch with a new drainage system, pop up irrigation and it will boast all the latest technology with regards floodlights.

“We have tested the floodlights already and they will be as good as any floodlights in the county.”

The Blackrock club man hopes the players will commence training on their new training pitch by October 2021.

“Our drainage system has been installed but we haven’t been able to plant the pitch due to a combination of the weather and the Covid-19 restrictions.

“It will be October before we will be playing on it as it needs six months to grow. We really got the motivation to drive on with this project when we lost the county final in 2017.

Our preparation going into that final wasn’t ideal as we had nowhere to train. We were forced to rent other club pitches. 

"That wasn’t an acceptable situation for a club with our ambitions and standards.”

The Rockies now boast great facilities which is as a result of many dedicated club people driving the club on and off the pitch said Conor.

“We are fortunate to have people like Dave Coakley and Paddy Hayes who helped me with the development work. Our chairman Ger Coughlan was great at driving on the fundraising initiatives.”