Winners and losers from the Premier Senior Hurling Championship to date

IT feels like the Cork Premier Senior hurling championship has barely begun, yet we have already raced to the semi-final stage, with four big guns still standing with hopes of lifting the Seán Óg Murphy Cup next month.

Nineteen teams began the campaign although not all of these would have had realistic hopes of being last man standing. 

The divisional section kicked off proceedings with the meetings of Carrigdhoun and Muskerry and Avondhu and Carbery on June 6, but we had to wait until early August for the clubs to get going.

The big story of the championship has been the relegation of Glen Rovers, as their 97-year stint in the top tier of Cork club hurling came to an abrupt end following their three-point defeat to Kanturk in Fermoy in the relegation play-off, but they aren’t the only club to see their campaign end in disappointing fashion.

Charleville, Blackrock and Douglas were the latest clubs to have lines drawn through their names due to their respective eliminations at the quarter-final stage in what was a round that will not last long in the memory.

SATISFIED

While obviously not happy to go out of the championship Charleville will have been satisfied with their campaign. 

They were involved in the relegation play-off in both of the previous years when they defeated Na Piarsaigh by 2-27 to 0-13 in 2022 and beat Carrigtwohill in a dramatic penalty shootout to survive in 2021. 

They had found themselves in those positions due to being drawn in the 'Group of Death' in both those years, so they were grateful for their more favourable draw this year. To their credit, they took full advantage by winning Group B with draws against Fr O’Neill’s and Erin’s Own, and a Round 3 victory against Douglas.

They were always going to be underdogs against St. Finbarr’s in their quarter-final at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, even if they were the only side that the Barrs failed to beat in the 2022 championship, as they drew in Mallow in Round 1 of the group stages. 

Their odds of an upset lengthened further due to the unavailability of the injured Darragh Fitzgibbon and Andrew Cagney, and they also lost the influential Danny O’Flynn, who had already registered a brace of points, at halftime. 

They were only one point down at the time, but without the firepower of these absent players, they could not resist the third-quarter power surge by the Barrs and the reigning champions ended up winning comfortably by 1-22 to 0-15.

The Blackrock v Sarsfields quarter-final was built up as a thriller in waiting but in truth, it never caught fire, as the final score of 1-15 to 0-15 would suggest, as Jack O’Connor’s early goals for Sars proved the difference.

The Rockies were being talked up after their impressive opening night win over Glen Rovers back in early August, but the form guide from that one has not held up since. 

They put a lot of stock into adopting a running game, but in hindsight, they might well feel that this approach had the effect of stifling their principal attackers. 

Alan Connolly only started one game, which was the group defeat to Midleton, meaning Blackrock were denied their main goal-scoring threat, but the likes of Robbie Cotter and Tadhg Deasy are also well capable of registering big scores if given the right kind of supply. 

BALANCE

For 2024 they will need to find the right balance in their style of play if they have aspirations of going deeper.

Douglas will probably be the most disappointed of the three quarter-final losers as they failed to fire a shot at Imokilly, in a game that had the feel of a challenge match at times.

They had opened their campaign with wins over Erin’s Own and Fr O’Neill’s, which would have given them hope of being contenders this year, but they came a-cropper against Charleville in Round 3 and looked off the boil against the eastern divisional side, as they got easily stretched by Imokilly and stood off them far too much, allowing the likes of Sean Desmond, Mike Kelly and Diarmuid Healy to pick them off with ease.

Going out with a whimper, by a 13-point margin, will make for a long winter of soul-searching for the club.