Castlelyons won't let All-Ireland club final defeat overshadow good year

When it comes to the All-Ireland club intermediate and junior hurling championships, Kilkenny are analogous to Kerry in the football equivalents.

Both counties have ruthlessly small senior grades – eight clubs in the Kerry SFC, with 12 in the Noreside top tier – and there is an accordion effect in terms of the intermediate and junior that ensures that the clubs emerging are among the favourites for further glory.

The fact that Cork put forward the winners of their third and fifth tiers for the Munster and All-Ireland series leaves the county at a disadvantage against such high-level practitioners in each code. In such a landscape, that Cork clubs manage to achieve the levels of national success that they have is quite an achievement.

Kilkenny’s supremacy was further underlined in Croke Park on Saturday evening as Tullogher-Rosbercon accounted for St Catherine’s in the junior hurling final before Thomastown saw off Castlelyons in the intermediate decider.

Castlelyons selector Brendan Hoare didn’t try to sugar-coat the 2-23 to 0-13 loss. But, when it was put to him that the final pitted the 13th-best club in one county against the 25th in another, the underdogs tag was deserved, he acknowledged the strength of Thomastown.

“Not any county, either – it’s Kilkenny, a really strong county!” he said.

In fairness to them, I don’t think they’re number 12 or 13 in Kilkenny, either. When they go up, they’ll be competitive up there.

“Like ourselves, they’ve lost a few finals so they’ve been a few years trying to get up and have a very strong core of a team. They’ve a couple of really good U21 teams coming on, too.

“We bumped into a good one; they’re probably as tough a team as you’d meet at this grade.”

And, though defeat was Castlelyons’ lot in Croke Park, one negative result does not outweigh a great year.

“It’s so close after the end of the match now that you don’t see that immediately but, when we reflect on it, it’s been an unbelievable year, really,” Hoare said.

“Beforehand, winning the county was the big one for us, especially with all of the heartache we had over the last few years.

“It’s been an absolutely fantastic year. To get over that line has been brilliant and the adventure we’ve gone on from there, really, has been fantastic.

BRILLIANT

“I’m just delighted for the lads for the year they’ve had. A lot of them are in their late 20s and some were around for the county final loss in 2013 and are still playing.

“They’ve put in a phenomenal effort and we’ve just had a brilliant year. It’s been so enjoyable – a disappointing note tonight but we’ll look back on it as a brilliant year, the most successful in the club’s history and we’re really proud of the lads.”

There will be a period of downtime but the 2024 senior A campaign – where Castlelyons have been drawn against three sets of neighbours in Bride Rovers, Cloyne and Fermoy – is not too far away.

“I’m delighted for this bunch of players that they’re going to get the opportunity to go up and play senior,” he said.

“We’re in a good place going up now with a really good thing, off the back of a great year.

“The draw was a pretty tasty one but we had to park it fairly quickly but it’s something to look forward to with all of the local derbies.”