After Barrs' surprise Premier Senior Hurling victory last season, expect more upsets this summer

WITH the group stages of the 2023 Cork Premier Senior Hurling Championships fast approaching it is easy to forget that this time last year the bookmakers reckoned that the eventual champions St Finbarr’s would not even get out of their group.

Looking back at the pre-championship piece in these pages we remarked that: “a lot will depend on how the Barr’s talented youngsters settle into senior combat”. It turns out that they settled in just fine.

But we also stated that: “they simply must get a win over Charleville in Mallow in the opening round”. This ended up being untrue, as the Barrs ended up drawing this game after a late fightback saw Charleville’s Jack Doyle level it in injury time. 

Even at that early point in the season the smart thinking was that this was possibly a fatal result for their title ambitions. With games to come against Blackrock and Sarsfields, the Barrs were probably more likely to be in a relegation play-off than a quarter-final at the end of the Pool stage at that juncture, but the rest is history.

We had claimed in that piece that: “There is nothing like a ‘Group of Death’ to ensure that the Cork Premier Senior Hurling Championship starts off with a bang”, and that Group C did not disappoint.

The Rockies had ambushed Sars late on in Round 1 to win by a point after Alan Connolly had snatched 1-2 in injury time, and that lapse ultimately cost the Glanmire men their year.

They don’t call them Groups of Death for nothing!

St Finbarr’s went nine points down against the Rockies in their next game and definitely looked buried at that point, but they famously fought back to win by one. The Barr’s were buzzing and rode the wave of the elation garnered from that victory in their kill-or-be-killed encounter against Sars to bury their rivals with three early goals.

Pool A was made up of Midleton, Douglas, Kanturk and Newtownshandrum, where we noted that: "It contains the reigning champions Midleton, now being coached by former Ballyhale Shamrocks manager James O’Connor, and it will be extremely interesting to see how the Magpies evolve their game with a new man at the helm."

It turns out that the evolution was not a successful one, with Midleton exiting in the group stages after losses to Douglas and Kanturk.

We had also said that: "They will be up against Douglas, who have firepower to burn with Shane Kingston, Alan Cadogan and Brian Turnbull up front, but with question marks always hovering over their heads with regards their physicality. They will fancy getting out of the group, although Newtownshandrum are always there or thereabouts." 

Fittingly, despite losing to Midleton, it was Newtownshandrum that got out of the group, along with Douglas. They just know how to get the job done up there.

The other group did not require the use of a crystal ball, with Bishopstown and Na Piarsaigh never really threatening the big two in the group. Our prediction that: “You would expect the Glen and Erin’s Own to emerge, as both of the other two sides have been a bit off the pace in recent seasons," was therefore safe enough.

In terms of this year’s championship Group C looks the most straightforward, considering it contains reigning champions St Finbarr’s and recently crowned league kingpins Sarsfields, although once again Newtownshandrum will be hoping to play the role of fly in the ointment.

Group A is this year’s Group of Death considering it contains three sides who have been in county finals in the past three years in Midleton, Blackrock and Glen Rovers. In fact, remove the Barrs' appearance last year and these three clubs are the only ones to have reached a decider in this three-year timeframe. 

One of them is about to have an extremely bad year!

TASTY

Group B has a tasty look to it, as literally any of the four could top it, and any of them could finish last.

Erin’s Own reached the last four last year, after being quarter-finalists in 2021, and semi-finalists again in 2020, which is phenomenal consistency. Their recent league relegation and injury to Robbie O’Flynn have put doubts into whether they can continue that kind of run, while Charleville will be just thankful that, for once, they are not in the Group of Death, and therefore have a fair crack at it. We still have no idea of Fr O’Neill’s ceiling and Douglas will be confident of progressing too.

These games cannot come around soon enough.