Junior B Hurling final: Ballyclough seek to build on momentum

BALLYCLOUGH have always traditionally had more of an affinity with football, but the North Cork club are hoping that a renewed hurling impetus can pay off on Saturday.

Wins over Castletownroche, Iveleary and O’Donovan Rossa have brought Ballyclough to the Co-op SuperStores Cork JBHC final in Páirc Uí Rinn against St Oliver Plunkett’s (3.30pm).

Having struggled at junior A level up to the end of 2021, Ballyclough have benefited from an injection of youth as well as a decision to go with the same management team in both hurling and football.

Jason Clifford is club chairperson - as former Cork footballer Colm O'Neill puts it:"He's regularly seen lining the pitch, putting out the flags, cutting the grass if needs be, doing the scoreboard." In addition to these duties, he is the role of manager in both codes and he feels the club as a whole has benefited.

“We thought it might work a bit better,” he says.

“There was nobody crying out to do the hurling anyway so we said we’d see how it went. We thought it might work better rather than two management teams pulling in different directions.

“It seems to be going okay anyway. It’s easier to plan for the players – we can say we’re doing hurling one week and football the next and everyone’s on the same page.

“Wayne O’Donnell from Mallow is in doing the coaching in both and it’s all working well.”

As is the case with many rural clubs, human resources are vital. For Ballyclough, the primacy of football further affected the hurling but thankfully things have improved.

“We won the junior B county in 2014 and we were up junior A until the end of 2021,” says Clifford, an area sales manager with Keypoint.

“We were really struggling with numbers, it was always a challenge to get 15 out. 

There was one stage where we had 11 guys not playing any hurling – a few of them have come back and a few have retired and the number is down to five now.

“Hurling is always tight, numbers-wise – even with the Castletown game, we had only around 18 togged, the same for Iveleary and there were injuries and holidays and stuff for the semi-final and we had to get a couple of lads to tog out to bring it up to 18.

“We’re hopeful that we’ll have a few more togged out the next day.

“In the last two years, we’ve brought seven through from the minors – three last year and four this year – and it’s made a big difference. We’d have four or five in their 30s and then some very young, we have very few in the 25-to-30 range.

“The younger lads coming through seem to be more hurling than football and it’s beginning to show."

Even so, getting to the final was not something that they expected at the outset of the year, admits Clifford.

“It has kind of surprised us a small bit,” he says.

“Division 3 of the Avondhu league would probably have been more of a target – we got to the final of that last year but we were beaten.

Being brutally honest, the aim with the hurling would just have been to field, get enough bodies togged out. If we could have improved that side of things, we’d have taken it.

“We were knocked out of the league the week before we played Castletown but, whatever happened in that week – exploded might be pushing it but things have improved dramatically since then!

MOMENTUM

“We played really well against Castletown and things have gone from there. The momentum has really started to gather.

“Maybe fellas are used to looking at footballs all the time and there’s more freedom to the hurling now. When you start going well, guys begin to buy into it and it has gone from strength to strength.

“We played well against Iveleary and we were good in patches against O’Donovan Rossa – there was a very strong wind there that day, it spoiled any chance there was a of a good game but we got over the line.

“The clubs is in a good spot at the moment now with the final coming up.

“One code rolls into the other and it keeps everyone interested. Everyone wants to be part of it and to be around.

“We’ll take it.”