New Sarsfields committee set for a busy year

Success on the field of play and having more fields to play on are the key aims of the new executive of Sarsfields Hurling Club, which recently took office.

Keith Mulcahy is the new chairperson, succeeding club stalwart Tadhg Murphy, who served for 15 years. 

He will have Teddy McCarthy as vice-chair, while Michael Shanahan takes over as treasurer, following on from Tom Murphy, who gave three decades to the role, and Alan McNamara is the new secretary after Eamon Creech stepped down.

Mulcahy comes to the role after two years as chairperson of the club’s juvenile arm, with six as underage secretary before that as well as a stint as assistant secretary of the adult club.

Having a group of people willing to get involved is heartening, he feels.

“It’s always difficult to get people,” he says, “but we’ve been lucky.

“We’ve brought in people from the camogie club – Mary Hackett was instrumental a few years ago in our ‘Strictly’ event and she’s come in now as vice-treasurer.

“Mary has been actively involved in the camogie club and it’s brilliant to have someone like that.

“Michael Shanahan, the new treasurer, was our juvenile treasurer for a good many years a while back. It’s good to get these people up – Michael King is our senior PRO and also our juvenile secretary.
“It’s great for clubs to be able to bring people through from the juvenile section as there’s huge potential there.

“We’ve a lot of younger people involved in the executive, a lot of fresh people, and they’re all willing to put their shoulder to the wheel and trying to spread the workload.

“I think our club and every club should have that philosophy of trying to share the workload.

“You’re always going to be in the firing line, being in a position like that, but I’m kind of used to it at this stage!”

After a 51-year wait, Sars claimed the county senior hurling title in 2008 and that ushered in an era of success with further wins in 2010, 2012 and 2014 while the club reached the county final in 2009, 2013 and 2015.

However, since that run of appearing in seven deciders in eight years, they have not made it back to the showpiece occasion. Last November, they were beaten by Glen Rovers at the semi-final stage and in 2020 they fell to neighbours Erin’s Own in the quarter-finals.

Bertie Óg Murphy, who was in charge for that win in 2008, has been added to the set-up for the coming year by manager Barry Myers and Mulcahy is keen to see the Seán Óg Murphy Cup back in Riverstown in the near future.

“Success on the field is the main priority,” he says.

“We fell a bit short with the seniors last year. In fairness to Barry Myers, he brought in Paudie Kissane and Peter Queally, two really top-quality coaches.

“We’re just hopeful this year that we can get over the line as we haven’t been in a final since 2015, after winning in 2014.

“It’s a huge club and we really need to be winning a county again, in 2022 hopefully.”

Certainly, there is no problem in terms of playing numbers for the club, with four adult hurling teams wearing the black, blue and white.

“I think we’re in a good position that way,” Mulcahy says.

“We’ve entered at U19 level and we’ve junior B, junior A, intermediate and senior so we have enough teams to cater for everybody.

“I still think that it was a big mistake to move minor to U17 as there’s a big gap from there to U19 or U20. It is an age-group where you can lose an awful lot of players.”

In that regard, it’s important to ensure that there are sufficient facilities there for the teams in the club and so the purchase of more property is another important ambition for the new executive.

“It’s a must,” Mulcahy says, “with the amount of houses in Glanmire.

“There are 800 houses going into Ballingleanna and we need more facilities to cater for those. Obviously, some will go to Erin’s Own because it’s 50-50 territory but there will be a lot of Glanmire people moving into those houses and we’d hope to get the vast majority of them, obviously.

“We have one pitch and another training pitch at Buck Leary’s while, in fairness, GCC [Glanmire Community College] are very good to us, they leave us use the school pitch.

“But still, we are very stretched and we need to do something. We might possibly have to go and speak to Glanmire Football Club to see if we can do something jointly but we can’t survive the way we’re going.

“We need to do something about it as the numbers are just too big.”