West Cork influence guides hurling stronghold Ballinhassig to football final

A STRONG West Cork influence has helped guide Ballinhassig to an unlikely place in this afternoon’s Bon Secours Cork Junior A Football Championship final against favourites Boherbue at Páirc Uí Chaoimh at 3pm.

The manager is Cathal Daly, originally from Drimoleague, while another Clann na nGael man, Paul O’Rourke, who played with Cork and Bantry Blues, too, is also on board.

“Both of us live in Ballinhassig and we were approached at the start of the season to get involved with the junior footballers,” Daly explained.

“Hurling is first in the club, but the players were enthusiastic, so we said we’d give it a go. I also trained under-age teams.

“Hugh Murphy from Kenmare is our coach and he has all the modern drills. Hugh’s a cousin of Kerry’s Stephen O’Brien and is a very good coach.

“Sean Casey from Skibbereen is a selector, too, and we got two local lads, Con Coughlan and Mark O’Mahony, involved, as well.

“We’ve 30 players in the panel and they all play hurling, mostly premier intermediate and a few in junior.”

Hurling, of course, has top priority, but a fourth south-east junior football title since 2012 underlines the potential.

“We work very well with Brian O’Sullivan, the hurling manager. Having said that it wasn’t 50-50 and we had to wait our turn, but we knew that.

The lads have a very good level of fitness and all they needed was a bit of coaching and some fine-tuning.

“In fairness, the players bought into it big time. If we didn’t have a challenge game before championship we’d have our own blues versus white game at training.

“That was great and fellows were saying that was never seen in Ballinhassig before, the likes of 30 players training together the week of a championship match.

“We picked up momentum as we went along and some players, who might have been reluctant to get involved, joined up.”

UPSET

Ballinhassig shocked Tadhg MacCarthaighs and Douglas’s second string in the county, bucking the trend of Carrigdhoun champions falling by the wayside.

“It was a bit of an ambush against Tadhg MacCarthaighs because they had only played the Carbery final on the Thursday night. I felt we were coming in under the radar though we were down six points at the second water break.

“Whether they ran out of legs or our fitness stood to us, who knows? But we forced extra time anyway. We did our homework on Douglas though we couldn’t get near them in the first 10-15 minutes.

“Once we upped the pace we got back into it and while we only won by a point we should have been further ahead because we created chances.”

Daly admits Ballinhassig are up against it against Boherbue. 

“We saw them in their semi-final against Urhan and like any Duhallow team, they’re a good footballing side.

“I always thought they had control of the game even though they only won by a point. Still, we’re not just going to show up as part of the day. We want to win."