Munster Club IHC: Castlelyons ready to dig deep once more

Having picked up in Munster where they off in the Co-op SuperStores Cork Premier IHC, Castlelyons are hoping to earn more silverware this weekend.

The county championship victory came after the East Cork club had lost two of the previous three third-tier finals but, despite a five-week break, they were able to maintain their winning ways when they got past Kerry senior champions Crotta O’Neills after extra time a fortnight ago.

Now, they clash with Clare’s Corofin in Saturday’s final at TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick (6pm) and selector Brendan Hoare hopes that they can carry their momentum with them.

“It’s a great place to be,” he says.

“It was obviously brilliant to win a county title and then our focus switched, we really decided that we were going to after this and give it a right crack.

“It was a big test of character, a big test of everything really, down against Crotta and it was great to come out on the right side of it.

“We’re back into the swing of it now, two weeks between games, which was the norm in the county championship, and it’s great.

“The manner of the Crotta win was very encouraging. There were aspects of the performance that we’d look to improve on, but just generally, the application and the resilience – digging in and going fairly deep to come out the right side of it – was the really pleasing thing.

“That was the main takeaway and we’re looking to move forward now with a bit of momentum, back on the horse and back in the championship mode.”

Hurling into December asks a lot of players. Naturally, there are a few knocks and niggles, but nothing too serious.

“We’re hoping to be strong,” Hoare says.

“Being honest, it’s been the same every match we’ve played this year: we’ve had niggles and knocks and it’ll probably be the same on Saturday.

“There were a lot of sore bodies after the last match, understandably after going the distance.

“It’s a case of giving fellas the chance to come right, assess them towards the end of the week and then pick the team.”

Corofin have beaten Lorrha-Dorrha of Tipperary and Limerick’s Dromin-Athlacca to come this far and Hoare knows that they will represent as tough a test as anything Castlelyons have faced so far this year.

“We’ve done our research and we’ve looked at them a small bit,” he says.

“They’re an impressive team, in fairness. You can see that they’re very well-coached, they’re physical and fit but they have good hurlers all over the pitch.

“They’ve come through a tough Clare intermediate championship and you’d hear the same about that as you would about the one in Cork, that it’s one of the hardest to win.

“Obviously, in the Munster championship, any team that comes through a side with Clare, Tipp and Limerick in it is going to be good.

“They had a big occasion down at their own pitch for the semi-final the last day and produced a brilliant performance to go with it.

“It’s going to be a huge challenge for us now again this weekend. We’ll have to match that physicality, that workrate, that fight that they bring but we had a good win ourselves and we’ll take a lot from the game as well.

“We’re hoping for another big display.”
To that end, they will be backed by another strong travelling band of supporters, who have been there all year.

“In fairness, our crowd travel really well,” Hoare says.

“Obviously, we were going to be outnumbered down in Mountcoal when it was in their own backyard but there was a brilliant travelling support.

“We’ve had that all year, really, but the last few weeks since the county win have brought a great buzz. We’ll be expecting to bring another big crowd to Limerick on Saturday.

“It’s a great place to be, to be heading into December and still have that kind of anticipation around the place.”